Edyth's Houses Part 3 - 7712 Golden Given Road

The 1949 Tacoma City Directory has Arthur and Edyth living at 7011 McKinley Avenue, a short distance from the large lot they'd recently purchased on Golden Given Road. Construction may have already started on Edyth's third, and final, house, and the only one which we, the grandchildren, ever experienced first hand.

From the 1949 Tacoma City Directory

In the 1951 Tacoma City Directory, we find all three of the boys married and with places of their own. Richard & Kathleen are in the Hilltop neighborhood, Walker & Fern (aka "Andy") are over by Wright's Park, and David & Jeanette are back in the neighborhood they'd all grown up in, near the CPS campus where Arthur was still working. And, Arthur and Edyth have moved into their new home at 7712 Golden Given Road.

From the 1951 Tacoma City Directory

Edyth was looking for land, and plenty of it, for her third house. The house they were currently living in, at 3219 N 33rd, sat on an unusually large lot with plenty of room for gardening. But the house was absurdly large, especially now that their tenant had been evicted (the Russian carpenter, about whom there will, perhaps, be more later), and the boys were all grown. It sat on a steep slope with a northern exposure which provided too little sun for Edyth's tomatoes and sweet peas. Besides, she hadn't yet exhausted her architectural ambitions.

There were undeveloped lots south and east of the Tacoma city limits that were large enough -- 125 feet wide and as much as 1000 feet deep -- in an unincorporated part of Pierce County lying between Tacoma and Puyallup. The area known as Midland (so named for being roughly the midpoint of the trolley line that used to run between Tacoma and Puyallup) claims Ezra and Oliver Meeker as its founding fathers. The lot that Arthur and Edyth purchased lies a little to the northwest of their combined claims which were staked out in 1855. Ezra Meeker is one of the Northwest's most celebrated pioneers, having been largely responsible for gaining national recognition of the Oregon Trail, which he'd followed as a young man west from Iowa. Memorials now line the route he (and thousands more) followed from Council Bluffs to Portland and Puget Sound.

Ezra Meeker, Midland's most celebrated resident

Midland, Washington, showing Arthur and Edyth's property and the original Meeker claims

The property is a long and narrow trapezoid, 125 feet wide and 725 feet deep on its longest edge, and extends from Golden Given Road west to the railroad tracks.

Arial view of 7712 Golden Given Road

I was always curious where the tracks led. Tracing their path on a map, I found that they run from downtown Tacoma south to their terminus in Morton. It would be scenic ride, meandering through the foothills of Mt Rainier National Park, skirting Lake Kapowsin and the northern shore of Alder Lake as it winds its way to Morton, just east of Mossy Rock on Highway 12. In fact, The Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad currently leases the line from Eatonville to Morton, and runs excursions between Elbe and a locomotive and logging museum at Mineral. A century ago, the Tacoma Eastern was running two trains daily from downtown Tacoma to Mt. Rainier on the same tracks.

Early 20th century ad for the Tacoma Eastern. The Paradise Valley Route ran on the tracks behind the house.

The Milwaukee Road purchased the line from The Tacoma Eastern Railroad in 1910 and ran passenger service between Chicago and Tacoma until 1961. I remember the old brick building (long since demolished) on the south side of Interstate 5 in Fife, isolated on a long stretch of track, advertising "The Milwaukee Road" in red neon. It made me want to travel, to see the world, and it's nice to know that its tracks ran through the woods behind grandma's house.

The Milwaukee Road owned the tracks from 1910 to 1961. Tacoma Rail and Sound Transit now operate on the same tracks. 

For her third house, Edyth switched from American Colonial to Craftsman. It was built of stacked timbers, much like a log house, but rather than using full logs or square timbers, she chose a combination of half-sawn logs and dimensional lumber. The uprights, spaced every eight feet, probably provided additional stability.

There were four bedrooms (Edyth had designated a bedroom for each of her fully-grown boys), two bathrooms, 2500 square feet of floor space, a 500 square-foot detached garage for the car Arthur would need to get to work and back, and a 200 square-foot tool & garden shed. The southern exposure and the low sloping roof of its front porch kept it shaded in the summer and dry in the winter -- which couldn't be said of the colonnaded porch of her previous house with its 30 foot-high roof and northern exposure onto Commencement Bay.

The half-floor upstairs under the dormer was meant to be Richard's and David's rooms, but it was left unfinished. 

On the back of this photo, Edyth has written that the two doors opened onto Walker's room and "the old man's". Walker's room, on the left, eventually became Edyth's.

Construction was largely finished by the summer of 1950. Arthur and Edyth's first grandson, Steven Richard, was born in September.

Edyth and Kathleen, summer 1950. Kathleen is pregnant with Edyth's first grandson, Steven Richard.

The large sandstone fireplace in the living room had a stepped hearth and bench with a recessed niche for drying wet boots. The hardwood floors were made of broad, oak boards of various widths and pegged to the sub-floor with walnut dowels. The walls and ceiling were tongue-and-groove knotty-pine, the the exposed roof joists and rafters were finished and held together with strong iron brackets.

There was no better place for Christmas. Steve and Kathleen, 1952

Edyth, me, and my other grandma, summer 1956.

Edyth, Steve, Karlin and Mike, watching TV, about 1957.

Christmas 1961 with the cousins.

Summer 1961, Steve, Mike, Greg and Jennifer on grandma's bench swing

Summer 1963. Mike.

Summer 1963. Steve, Grandma's favorite, on the split rail fence.

Carl Ludwig Grohndorff's Wives

Recently I came across a passenger list from 1882 that apparently has our third great grandfather Grohndorff returning from Hamburg (via Glasgow) with his third wife and step daughter, Wilhelmine and Martha Stezner. I'm reasonably certain it's them. There aren't many Carl Ludwig Grohndorffs in the world, and fewer still who were living in Appleton, Wisconsin. The German purser heard the name as "Abliton, America", but that's close enough for me.

Passenger list for the 22 April 1882 sailing of the North Star out of Hamburg, with Carl Ludwig, Wilhelmine and Martha Grohndorff

It's an intriguing artifact. A transatlantic crossing was an arduous undertaking, even for a young man, and Carl was in his 80's at the time. Wilhelmina was about 40, and I'm guessing she had family business to attend to -- perhaps a dying parent or an estate to settle. I may learn more from their passport applications or emigration papers, if they ever turn up.

We know very little about Wilhelmina, other than that she was born in 1836 to Gottlieb and Eva Mahn, probably in Germany, and that she married a man named Stezner who died sometime before she and Carl Ludwig Grohndorff married in 1876. It's from great aunt Leonor Grohndorff that we learn she was widowed, and that she had a daughter who used to visit at her grandmother's house. That the daughter's name was Martha we get from this passenger list, and the rest we get from Wilhelmina and Carl's marriage record.

Carl Ludwig's first wife, by the way, was our third great grandmother. She died before he emigrated with his his second wife, Caroline Johanne Meyer, and their son, Carl Friedrich (our great-great grandfather) in 1854. Carl Friedrich's emigration papers give his name as Carl Friedrich Wagner/Grohndorff, so I've assumed that his mother's maiden name was Wagner. But it's also possible that Wagner was her name from a previous marriage, which could mean that our second great grandfather was a Wagner by birth and that Carl Ludwig Grohndorff was his stepfather. If that hunch leads me anywhere, I'll be sure to post it.

Carl Ludwig's second wife, Caroline Johanne Meyer, might be related to the Meiers of Zorndorf, which could make for some interesting tangles in our family tree. Currently, I know only that she was born about 1800, that she emigrated with Carl from Cocceji-Neudorf in 1854, and that she died in Wisconsin in 1875. Meyer could be a married name. If she had children by that marriage, and any of her children emigrated, I may be able to learn more from their records.

Carl Ludwig died in 1887, just five years after returning from Hamburg. He was 87. I don't know what became of Wilhelmina and her daughter. Presumably she remarried. Martha, we know, kept in touch with her step-brother, but she, like her mother, hasn't left an obvious paper trail.

I'm still searching.

Edyth's Houses Part 2 - 3219 N 32nd St

At the end of the alley behind their house at 3202 N 33rd Street in Tacoma was a large wooded lot that Edyth had probably had her eye on since she and Arthur moved there in 1936. They had no doubt seen the property while they were still in the market, and may have even considered building there instead. The trees would have appealed to Edyth, and the steep ravine of Puget Creek was already a city park and unlikely to ever be developed. In fact, the adjacent land west and north of the property has since become a protected natural area, which would have made Edyth very happy.

Having a skilled carpenter (William Zaytzef) as a lodger probably factored into their decision to start building again, and no doubt the improvements they'd made to their current property enabled them to borrow what they needed to get started. It was a lot of land, twice as big as their current lot, though the northern half was steep terrain and unsuitable for building. Two adjacent parcels on the western edge were undeveloped and were likely to remain so. With Puget Park and what would become the Puget Creek Natural Area to the north and west, the property appears almost boundless.

Satellite view of Edyth's first house, at 3202 N 33rd Street (left), and the large wooded lot at 3219 N 32nd where her second house was built in 1941

Topographic and street plats of the properties at 3202 N 33rd and 3219 N 32nd, Tacoma

The lot wasn't empty when Arthur and Edyth purchased it, and the original house, really nothing more than a tar paper shack, turns up in a few of the construction photos.

The simple house that had originally occupied the property was left standing through most of the construction. This is the best view we have of it. Our vantage is northward from what will become the grand, colonnaded porch.

Unlike the house at 3202 N 33rd, we do have several pictures of this house's construction. It was a major undertaking. The house is enormous, nearly 5000 square feet, with seven bedrooms and three bathrooms. It was big enough for everyone, including Arthur, to have rooms of their own, with two additional bedrooms for guests and lodgers (or perhaps a footman and an upstairs maid). It's hard to know what Arthur's role in all this was. He was, to me, a man of few needs. He seemed happy with a small room that contained only his bed, his writing desk, his books, his tennis racket (thanks to cousin Heidi for that detail) and, later, a small black & white television set. The boys would have been happy with the tar paper shack the house replaced, and would be spending most of their time in the woods leading down to Puget Creek, and (if the stories are true) skinny-dipping from the piers and pilings of the Dickman Mill.

David and Richard (and an unknown but a very clean carpenter) by the east foundation wall

Framing of the first floor, looking south from the N 33rd St side.

Construction of second floor, looking east. The house at 3202 N 33rd would, if visible, be in the upper left.

The roof line of the original house is visible through the opening, looking north from the side of the house that faces N 32nd Street. The opening on the left will be a recessed porch.

The western wall with the second story framed up. Note the old clothesline from the original house in lower left.

N 32nd Street side, looking northwest.

N 33rd Street side, looking southeast.

The architect, Edyth Grohndorff, apparently happy with the progress.

Construction was completed in 1941, and the 1942 Tacoma City Directory has the family at their new address: 3219 North 32nd Street. One day I'll work up the ambition to pay the current owners a visit and see the house for myself. I should also try to dig up the construction documents, if they were archived, as well as the sales contracts, tax records, etc. We were told that the house even got a write-up in the Tacoma News Tribune, and one day I'll have to make the necessary trip to the Tacoma Public Library to find it.

But for now, all I have is what I've been able to gather online, some old pictures, and the one memory my mother had of the house: that Richard's bedroom was under the dormer on the third level -- information which she was quick to add had come to her second-hand.



The house before the yard was landscaped

Some landscaping was still being done in 1946.

The colonnaded porch

Edyth held nothing back. The ceiling in the entry is as high as the columns on the front porch or, more accurately, the back porch; the street address is on N 32nd, on level with the roof line, and the colonnaded porch looks out in the direction of N 33rd, some 50 feet below. Access is from the alley between N 32nd and N 33rd and the house sits inconspicuously at its dead end, hidden behind trees, which seems a shame. Its grandeur was, I suppose, an affirmation of Edyth's ego, her need leave some sort of legacy. Her father was the only son of an only son, and Edyth's siblings were all girls with no interest in raising families of their own. If the Grohndorffs of De Pere, Wisconsin were to leave a mark, Edyth may have found herself alone with the means, and the talent, to achieve it.

The boys all grew to be men in this house, and by the time Edyth began work her third and final house in 1949, they'd all left pretty much left home.

Richard, on the slope leading down to the house from N 32nd Street.

Richard and Walker

Edyth

Richard in the alley  which leads to the house  between N 32nd and N 33rd Streets.

Richard, kicking up some dust. I think each of the boys had their own motorcycles for a awhile. 

The alley, as it looks today (2016)

The house, as it looks today (2016)

Edyth's Houses Part 1 - 3202 N 33rd Street

From city records, we know the house at 3202 North 33rd Street in Tacoma's north end was built in 1936, the same year that Arthur and Edyth moved in. So it's a reasonable conclusion that Edyth had a hand in it's design and construction. One of these days I may do some digging to learn more about its history, and what, if anything, was on the lot when they bought it. It might very well have just been grass and weeds.

Imagine the two of them standing in that vacant lot looking north over Commencement Bay to Brown's Point and Puget Sound. They're in their late 30's. The boys are approaching adolescence and had lived in rentals all their life. Arthur's parents had both died the previous year (1933) and it's likely that Arthur's share of the estate was a substantial boost to their savings. Should they invest their capital in real estate?  Arthur was probably calculating construction costs and the time it would take to travel each day to the College and back. Edyth, we can assume, was enchanted with the view and already laying out out the rooms in her head.  

The view (approximately) from the north end property Arthur and Edyth purchased in Tacoma around 1935

The boys would have been thrilled. Below their property was a wilderness of trees and brush, and beyond the woods were railroad tracks, a lumber mill and a beach that stretched from downtown Tacoma to Point Defiance, from the Gothic towers of Stadium High School, past the ruins of Old Town, the bustle and rolling logs of the Dickman Mill and the toxic wasteland of the Ruston Smelter. Today it's a parkway and a popular pedestrian trail lined with restaurants and waterfront parks, and the path they would have taken to the beach is now the private access road of a gated community. But in the 1930's it was a boys' paradise.

This is either the Dickman Mill (below their house) or the Ruston Smelter (further north)

Dave, Dick and Walker on the bluff below their house.

We don't have pictures of the house being built, but we do have some of the garden shed under construction. It must have been well built, because it's still there, as is the house.

William Zaytzef (lodger & carpenter) with Dick, Dave and their dog

Dick, Dave and Edyth with their dog.

The building of the garden shed at 3202 N 33rd, Tacoma.

The carpenter is William Basil Zaytzef, a recently-arrived immigrant from Russia who they took in as a lodger after the house was built. There's more to his story, and he'll likely be the subject of a future post.

The house was bigger than anything they'd lived in before -- nearly 3000 square feet on a lot that was a full third of an acre. It had, has, four levels, counting the finished basement and attic, three bathrooms and three bedrooms. Its grandeur must have made them feel a little aristocratic, and in some of these photos you almost expect to see a footman attending to matters in the background.

Lillian and William Grohndorff, Edyth's parents, and Dave.

The boys with their Grohndorff grandparents who were visiting from Wisconsin.

The house at 3202 N 33rd, front.

The house at 3202 N 33rd, rear.

Dave and Dick with one of their dogs. The other dog is in the background, by the garden shed.

Richard on right with an unknown friend. This photo gives a good idea of the view, which has diminished only slightly in recent years from trees and development. 

Today, the house looks pretty much the same. The decorative shutters are gone, a shed dormer has been added to the front of the house, and the rear porch as been expanded. Edyth's garden shed is still there, and the view is just as enchanting.

3202 N 33rd, today (2016)