Archive for April, 2014
History Mystery – Lives of Lorain- Gillmore
“It is a reverend thing to see an ancient castle or building not in decay or to see fair timber tree sound and perfect; but how much more to see an ancient noble family which hath stood against the waves and weather of time- for now nobility is but the act of power, but ancient nobility is the act of time.” Bacon’s Essays, XIV
Part One
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/04/07/ch-ch-ch-changes-herstory-lorain-history/
Part Two
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/04/10/ch-ch-ch-changes-herstory-lorain-history-part-2/
Part Three
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/04/13/lorain-history-changes-kicked-to-the-landfill/
Thursday night of last week ( and before I so rudely interrupted the “Lorain History” flow – with my own personal “history”) a group of Charleston Village volunteers and bloggers stopped in to open the box and maps from the Gillmore family history.
It was truly , for me, like watching children on Christmas morning, the excitement as each map was unrolled, the archivists with their gloves carefully holding corners and gently handling the items as if they were thousands of years old . Greater care could not have been taken if they had unearthed a treasure from ancient Egypt . This was Lorain’s history , young though it is, in the grand scheme of time. Delight- as some recognized their family information in the first phone book, the street maps and city directories telling of long forgotten family history .
Newspapers, crumbling, but still telling a tale ,
faded pictures of the movers and shakers , of homes that were loving cared for such as the Gillmore home itself – a testament that still stands on the corner a hat tip to Lorain’s past
Writing back of Gilmore home photo O . H. Gillmore 403 Oberlin Avenue , Lorain Ohio
4th and Oberlin Elizabeth McKay Gilmore and children Frank ( lin?) Aura (/) McKay on porch and dog Pug (?)
A little shade tree planted with care
was still growing there – but no longer – taken down April 2012 to make way for the utilities
all spread out under the eager and shining eyes of those that care for the history mystery that is unraveling and telling a forgotten tale …. to be continued
Lorain- history- Changes – kicked to the landfill
Part One
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/04/07/ch-ch-ch-changes-herstory-lorain-history/
Part Two
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/04/10/ch-ch-ch-changes-herstory-lorain-history-part-2/
So what was most precious to Peggy – her family’s history – ( or what is left of it) resides in my dining room for the moment . The papers are fragile and faded , newspaper articles and hand written notes crumbling . How much more ended up in the garbage of house clearing doesn’t bear thinking about. What will happen to her house is in limbo for the moment. Some time in the next few days we will gather and go through what little was left to see what we can catalogue and keep.
It is par for the course as Lorain’s and Lorain County ‘s history makes another trip to the landfill.
Thanks to Col. Matt Nahorn and the New Indian Ridge Museum
http://newindianridgemuseum.org/about/the-museum/
not everything goes to the landfill. Little bits of history are carefully preserved –
Col. Nahorn stands in the space that the front door once occupied at the Capt. Aaron Root House.
Photo Source New Indian Ridge Museum
“We were able to salvage an original stair tread from the front main staircase; handmade bricks from a chimney; square nails; a couple of wood pieces from the wood lath; an old metal light fixture; a while porcelain door knob; some slate from the roof; some molding; and two oak thresholds from inner doorways.http://danielebrady.blogspot.com/2014/04/capt-aaron-root-house-guerrilla.html
Many of these items will comprise a new display at the Museum and act to document this local historic structure. We are very excited to report that we will be able to use the stair tread that we salvaged from the main staircase in the Capt. Aaron Root house, in the restoration project for the staircase in the Shupe house. (Of course, the tread will need much work with sanding, staining) So, soon we’ll be walking upon one of the steps that the Roots walked upon!”
http://newindianridgemuseum.org/articles/items-salvaged-from-capt-root-house/
There are so many houses now trucked off to the landfill whose significance and historical worth to this community are now buried with the plastic bags full of a throwaway society- all in the name of progress.
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/sorry-abe-it-is-george-that-counts/
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2008/05/04/forgotten-now-gone-part-two/
Thenhttps://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/history-mystery-one-mans-tourism-anothers-flower-bed/
TO BE CONTINUED
CH..ch…ch Changes- Herstory- Lorain-History Part 2
Part One
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/04/07/ch-ch-ch-changes-herstory-lorain-history/
Peggy Gillmore has, like most of us will and those who have gone before, ended up with but a few lines in a local paper
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/morningjournal/obituary.aspx?pid=169880019
Yet there is so much about Lorain, and the founding of Lorain then Black River, Charleston Village in those few lines
“Ms. Gillmore was a sixth generation member of the Gillmore family who came from Massachusetts to settle in Lorain in 1810. Peggy loved researching the history of her family and Lorain”
Yes, she was the last living descendent in Lorain of one of the founders of Lorain.
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/lakeview-revisited-2008/
It is true she loved her family history , was proud of their accomplishments and fought to preserve it.
Twice she fought City Hall and developers from taking the centuries old green space donated by her family –
( newspaper cutting 1925)
now known as Veteran’s Park” – first a parking lot in the 1970’s and then Condos for Cole and John Veard and Foltin in 2005-6.
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2013/08/02/veterans-memorial-park-fini/
I met Peggy when we moved into “my” “this old house” just 6 houses down the block.
We shared a love of history, neighborhood, theatre and art. I spent many hours over the years on her front porch and on the phone chatting about Lorain. Peggy, knew all the stories of these old houses , who was who and spoke of people long ago as if they still walked and lived in the neighborhood she knew so well.
Peggy wanted to do more and
“I must get to that trunk of papers in the attic” “I have to get this all down” I need to get this house on the Historical Register
but age and ill-health precluded her from accomplishing that goal . Her house has become just another old house destined for what is unknown- although Peggy wanted it maintained and kept in the family, it is now unclear if that will be the case.
So why should we , in Lorain, care about just another old house.
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/these-old-houses-are-talking-are-we-listening/
We don’t care about the Wilford- Bartenfeld House,
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/civil-war-letters-fannie-gilmore-lorain/
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2008/02/12/capt-wilford-a-hero-of-the-inland-seas/
or any of the other homes that have a history in this old neighborhood.
http://pointingthecannon.blogspot.com/2012/01/slattery-house.html
http://danielebrady.blogspot.com/2012/01/own-one-of-houses-on-vintage-postcard.html
They , their links to heroism , contribution to country are not embraced by the majority of this community . They too, like the contents of previous owners lives are kicked to the curb.
Those items, precious to those that live with them and their memories, become just trash to be disposed of as quickly as possible. It broke Peggy’s heart to see what was happening to her beloved trees, in fact just few days after her death they came and cut down the ones she was fighting to save. Their stumps mute testament to her loss of the fight.
All was not lost, although I know there was and is probably so much more that has ended in a landfill, what is left is just a few items of Lorain’s history reverently guarded by the last of Gilmore’s of Lorain are taking up a small space in my dining room.
TO BE CONTINUED ……….
CH..ch…ch Changes- Herstory- Lorain-History
Changes , some happen quickly and some take years. I have given a lot of thought lately to this old neighborhood- old by US standards but just a baby in the life of other communities. 207 years isn’t very long in the grand scheme of “community history”- But that doesn’t make Lorain’s history any less worthwhile or fascinating than ancient or medieval history.
history (n.) “relation of incidents” (true or false), from Old French estoire, estorie “chronicle, history, story”
Modern French histoire),
from Latin historia “narrative of past events, account, tale, story,”
from Greek historia “a learning or knowing by inquiry; an account of one’s inquiries, history, record, narrative,”
from historein “inquire,” from histor “wise man, judge,” from PIE *wid-tor-, from root *weid- “to know,” literally “to see”
Readers of this blog, know for years I have been trying to get something done about an “old house” on 4th and Hamilton.
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/welcome-to-fairyland-aka-in-the-pink-lorain-ohio/
The house, empty and decaying for many decades, was still owned by the same family whose forefather built the structure approximately 130 years ago.
HIS story and those of the family are gone now. It was bitter-sweet as I watched the house from my den window being taken down – an empty shell that had met my gaze these 40 years . I watched, through the seasons, as time and weather took the toll on her. Finally once again, the land where she stood for 130 years is now as it was the day before her foundations were dug into the virgin earth as part of a growing village.
I wondered, as the bulldozers and dumpsters were positioned to receive this old home, why the owner had apparently not respected the home leaving it open to the elements and decay for decades . This dwelling was part of his story and history too apparently wasn’t important enough to preserve or care about. But then- I have also wondered why Lorain and her “story” is only embraced by a few and even then not until the late 70’s and 80’s did Lorain have any formal group gathered to preserve anything from her birthing.
Black River Historical Society Now Lorain Historical Society
http://www.loraincityhistory.org/
I suppose coming from England, where it was part of my growing up, to know and be taught our history and local history – celebrate our “story”, the homes and dwelling places of our heroes and the not so heroic it is part of who I have become . I am part of the heritage of my kind and I have great pride in the story. .
Lorain has become for me on par with “American Tea”. Sorry, but maybe it was because you dumped the tea in the harbor and so it was considered “traitorous” drink 😦 Whatever the explanation the majority of Americans fail to make a decent cup of tea…. dunking tea bags and tepid water does not a decent cuppa make.
Lorain’s homes of “story” have become that beverage in my mind…..tepid water and weak – a mere semblance of what should be – preferring the new beverage of “moving forward ” coffee.
http://www.smittenbybritain.com/americans-are-lost-at-tea/
As more of Lorain’s “tangible” past disappears or is lost to memory and archives – I am saddened.
Recent events within this – Lorain’s oldest neighborhood – and the treasures of one becoming tomorrow’s trash to others both in my personal experience and also the loss of the last living history connection to one of Lorain’s founding fathers has deeply saddened me…..
http://danielebrady.blogspot.com/2014/03/peggy-jean-gillmore-1924-2014.html
To be continued …………..
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