The Thomas Family of 429 Elm Avenue
Part of an Oral History by Mike Grace, next door at 415 Elm Avenue
          The Grace family, Dale Frances & Eloise Wessel Grace and their three children Mike, Kathleen and Sally, became very close with Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, Ellis and Anna Mae, next door.  They called them Mom and Pop.  “Mom was a nurse down at Cincinnati Milling Machine, all during the war, WW II, and quite a gal.  And Pop worked down at Baldwin piano and his job was really, uh, he maintained quality control on most of the wood and stuff that went into the pianos that they were making.  But also during the war he worked on projects where Baldwin made airplane wings. 
          The nice thing about Pop is he was born and raised in Bellview, Kentucky and he lived, he had a shanty boat down on the Ohio River, which he always talked about.  And both he and Mom had a tremendous green thumb, and Pop would actually plow his field by hand, with a shovel, every spring, probably an acre and a half and get Mom’s soil all ready in her flower garden, which was probably 120 feet [long] by, maybe 100 feet wide by maybe 5 feet deep; and then Pop’s garden would go from there all the way through to the railroad tracks, which went through all our back yards at the time, and he taught about gardening, he taught me a lot about taking care of my tools, which I still do.  All my shovels shine, my splitting maul shines, my rigs are clean … and he taught me how to make fishing nets with any type of twine and a wooden needle.  Just a lot of things that an old boy that has a few minutes for a kid could teach him.  He would make his own hammocks, and he always loved lying in those in the evening sometime.  And he was a great conversationalist as well, both he and Mom were.  We could sit over on the patio that he made himself in the evening on summer days and talk about politics, of course the kids just sat back and listened, but, Pop would always use a lot of hand gestures and it always amazed me how his hands could be, and arms could be going all over the place and he’d be clapping his hands and saying, Yeah, this old boy did this, and this old boy did that … And if that old boy had done that he would have been a millionaire, instead he lived, ended up floating down the river.  Stories like that, and it was just unique to have that kind of a person around you to help shape what your sense of values were in the long run.  Because, even though everyone was middle class at that time, he had an awful lot to offer.  They also had a daughter by the name of Joanne, and Joanne ended up having an illegitimate child, [who] now lives in Louisville KY and doing pretty well the last I heard.  She’s married and has a couple of children.  So, anyway the one unique thing that always got me about Pop and his garden was that Bruce Brown and Liza … always had a bet on who would have the first ear of corn, or the first tomato.  And it was a real war going on!  I think Pop won a couple of times, and I think it was pretty even, I think Bruce won a couple of times too.”

429 Elm Avenue (information from 2008 House Tour)
           It’s sometimes very difficult to trace the history of a house.  This one is an excellent example.  We certainly know from deeds that both Alphonso Taft and his son Peter owned at least some of this land, probably before and during the time the house was built.  However, the early deeds that we’ve been able to find do not show smooth transitions from one owner to another.  The house had definitely been built by 1860 since it shows on a map of that date.  (Shows on maps in 1860 & 1869.) It may have been built by Jacob Traber since he seems to have been the one who built 415 Elm Avenue for his daughter’s wedding present.  Thus we’ve not been able to decide who lived here until the Brown sisters and their mother in the 1900 Census.  These were the Brown sisters who figured very prominently in the early history of what became the Terrace Park Woman’s Club.  Annie and Maggie were members, Annie having started the whole idea.  Sallie and Mary were not, but they definitely took part when it came to serving refreshments when the so caller Reading Circle met at their house.  By 1920 the home was sold to Paul P. and Minna M. Rover who may have been the world travelers mentioned by the next owners. 
          We got some interesting information from Hazel Roush, niece of James Barton Castor who bought the house in 1925. Were they living there when there was a fire that destroyed the top floor of the house?  (Most likely the Castors lived in the house at the time of the fire.) The home appears to have been rental property at least from 1929 to 1945 and perhaps at other times too.  Charles W. Cornish, a local builder living at 725 Wooster Pike, is reputed to have bought the home (1929) after the fire and to have made it into a two family home.  One question was answered for David Lewis when the picture of the house in the old scrapbook turned up.  He had noticed a lot of support structure in the attic and had no idea why it was there.  It was obviously support that was no longer needed for the turret that was not replaced after the fire.