A Little piece of Paradise… College Hill, Ohio - SELFCRAFT

cards which visitors used to leave when they came to call (giving us many of the old prominent families),her speech as valedictorian of her class, as well as her mother’s records. They had both attended andgraduated from the Wesleyan Womens’ Seminary located on Vine Street in downtown Cincinnati.She was also descended from the Cary family, her mother’s family. One of the things saved fromthat attic was a broadside advertising the sale of Rebecca Cary’s seven acre tract in the late 1800’s. Matieand her husband built their home on a portion of this tract. It was a large two story frame having its frontgable decorated with pieces of colored glass. It was an interesting house. It was too bad that more thingsweren’t able to be saved from it.Biddle’s old hotel on North Bend Road just west of Hamilton Pike had become the Eastern StarHome. They used the old hotel building for quite some years before building their present building/ Iremember going into Biddle’s for lunch. The old car barn was torn down and replaced with a Krogerstore, the earlier one on the corner with the parking lot north of it. Across Hamilton Avenue the originaltiny Wigwam had grown and grown into the lovely restaurant it is today.African American families were located in many parts of College Hill-Piqua, next east of Lantana,goes north off Cedar a short distance, then bends sharply east, has a number of black families. Bertha(Burgess) Rodriguez and husband Carlos were in the last house on the north side of the street, next theLockers, George Smith, ‘Mother’ Wait with daughter Theresa, Estelle and George Wyatt and the Hunters;on the south side were the Mills, Grace and Tootsie Brown and the Houstons. At the sharp bend was theMethodist Church. Next to the Christian Church was the little cottage owned by the Banks family;another Morris family, later a Houston family in the house next to the drive leading down to the JesseLocker home. Past that were three or four more cottages, in one of which Mr. Lafayette C. Robinsonlived. On the south side of cedar east of Lantana is a very old cottage owned by the Parrotts, who lived ascaretakers on the Harold Simpson estate, while their son-in-law, Hutchins, lived in the cottage. Next wasNellie McKinney (whom I remember stopping when our magnolia was in bloom and asking if she couldhave one of its blossoms to take down to her class in the city as the children there had never seen anythinglike it). Next to her lived Cindy (Evans) Houston and Emma Houston. The Morris family (DorothyWyley’s ancestors) lived on Lantana opposite the end of Marlowe and the Hockers lived next to them. Onthe east side of St. Elmo near Cedar was the brick house of George Smith’s, next was the Imes family.They had a son and a daughter, Marjorie, who was a piano student of mine for many years. Mrs. Imes andmy mother were friends. Sarah Virginia Hutchins was another of my students. The Wrenn family wentback many years in College Hill’s history. ‘Grandpa” John Wrenn also owned a large tract of land on thesouthwest corner of Cedar and Argus including the Cornelia (now Elsie) Avenue area. He had severalhouses there which faced on Argus Road. Arthur Parrott also lived on St. Elmo. George Wrenn was LouisWrenn’s son and was tragically drowned with his two children. Katie McNeer was another resident on St.Elmo. Families on Cornelia (Elsie) were Louis Hunter, Frank Ally, Conley, Thomas, Duckworth and theAllens. Mr. Thomas worked for the Thomson family. An Allen family and Mrs. Kinney and son lived onArgus. A Cox family later lived in Elizabeth Locker’s house on Piqua. The Hawkins family lived andworked in the ‘Oakwood’ (the old Davey mansion on Linden Drive).On Pasadena there were two African American families- the Petersons and the Williams. GeorgePeterson became a detective on the Cincinnati Police Force and married Hazel Banks and lived in the oldBanks cottage. The Settles family lived down a lane near the O.M.I. and worked there. On the south sideof North Bend Road not far from Savannah was a little green frame cottage, which I remember fromchildhood, in which an African American family lived. We have learned that this lot was bought in 1880by John Alley, Sr. from the College Hill railroad. In 1904, John Ally, Jr., residing in College Hill diedintestate and frank Ally was made his administrator and guardian of John Alley, Sr., who died inIndianapolis, Indiana in 1917. Frank Alley and John Alley Sr.’s daughter, Louise Gorham, were the heirsto this property. It wasn’t until 1935 that the property was sold to Dr. Theodore Walker, who tore downthe cottage and built his brick house on the site. Apparently the heirs must have rented the cottage toAfrican American families from Mrs. Rosemary Forbes remembered of seeing a tall, thin black man whoplayed a ‘squeeze box’ living in the green cottage, which had no foundation, only stones supporting thefour corners.240