Some Library Research, Digging Through History

I spent a few hours at the library recently researching the city directories, obits, yearbooks etc. I'm gathering information for my house's scrapbook that someday I will pass on to new owners. Hopefully, the new people will love this house, too.

I'm trying to be careful with my posts about the family as 3 of the sisters are still alive but we haven't had contact with them. There are a lot of questions, though, I'd love to ask them but for now, I won't bother them. They took it personally when we offered less than the asking price. They lived here all of their lives so they must not have known about negotiating prices. They thought the house was worth much more, but that was understandable with all the memories tied up here. They are up there in their years and they no longer could care for the place. There was and is a lot of labor involved in maintaining an old house. It was getting too much for them. They moved to a modern apartment.

When we bought the house, some of our neighbors told us some about what they knew of the former owners. There were 5 sisters and one brother born to the previous owners. None of the children ever married and all but one of them lived here their whole lives until we bought the house. That struck me odd.

The previous owners were the first family to occupy the house other than the builder. Our house was built in 1917 and the husband and wife moved into the house around 1920. They had a son about 1919. So that was my quest at the library. Find out about the son, first.

I knew the mother had died and found her obit. I found the son's name as having died previously in 1925. I was surprised at the date. I looked up his obit. He was only 6 years old. Somehow I had built a connection to these former owners and seeing that almost made me cry. He died in St Vincent hospital and was going to have a quarantined funeral. When people said he never married I assumed he was much older when he died. I cannot imagine the sorrow of losing someone at such an innocent age and I wonder what he died of.

The library announced they were closing so I had to leave. I'm going to return to look up the newspaper microfilm and see if I can find out what he died of or what kind of diseases happened to be going around at the time.

Is Your Old Erie Home a Sears Kit Home?

Is your old Erie, PA area home a Sears Kit home? If it is, I'd like to feature it on my blog. Email me pictures at thisolderiehouse@verizon.net if you'd like to share your pictures.

How do you know if you have a Sears Kit home? If your house was built between 1908 and 1940 you can go to this link Sears Kit Homes and check the pictures and the floor plans.

Remember, often there were later additions, remodels or porch enclosures done to a home. Sometimes the architectural features like the brackets on the eves are taken off and the eves boxed in so your house may not look exactly like the pictures. Sometimes it takes an expert to tell (and there are a few actual experts out there that do travel around the US verifying Sears Kit homes.) But for our purposes, if your house has most of the features for a particular model, please email me some pictures of your house and I'll feature them.

If you can't find your house in the Sears Kit catalogue, try this link for homes from 1908 to 1954 Aladdin Kit Homes. I'd like to feature those, too.