This is a 10-year-old post from my old Mourning Doves blog. Houses hold their own kind of history and this is a micro-study of a family that became apart of that home’s story.
This eye-sore was chock full of eye-soreyness since the day we moved in across the street in 2006. It didn’t have any graffiti on it yet, but it was in horrendous shape.
My neighbors who have lived around this neighborhood longer than I could tell me more I’m sure, and I’ve heard bits and pieces as to why the house at 705 was in the shape it was in, but frankly such recent history is none of my business.
Whatever the reason it can’t be a happy one.
We begged the city to tear it down in 2011 and 2012 – we had our house on the market and though values on all houses were down, this pile of wood and blocks was not helping. Scrawled on it in white spray paint for the last 7 years was “Paint Me” and “Mom” and “I <3 Ashley”. And so we all called it “The Paint Me House”. Sounded better than the Mom House or the I Heart Ashley House, I thought.
The family next door to it shared with me last fall it would be torn down in November. I guess things needed more time. And then last week flags started going up. Water line. Gas. Phone line. I was hopeful.
Yesterday the big excavating equipment was brought in. The kids loved seeing the show. They started away at the porch, then took a dinner break.
We left for the evening and when we came back- gone!
We missed it.
I decided to do a quick search about the beginning years of the heap of bones of a house across the street. In a way, it’s kind of bittersweet. It lost its dignity years ago and if I had grown up in that house and seen it meet its end like that, it would make me sad.
A Brief History of 705 Eastern Avenue. Or affectionately known as The Paint Me House.
My 3 year old house on Banning watched as it was being built in 1923. Soon the Patrick McKay family bought and moved in from their house on Edgehill. Patrick immigrated to the US from Ireland at the turn of the century and made his way from New York to Akron to Ashland. He worked as a pump assembler at the FE Meyers Pump Factory. They lived right next to his wife Rosene Marie’s mother, Rosa Yeagle. They and their young family grew to have four (that I know of) children, Mary, Cecilia, Theresa and Patrick Jr.
Cecilia graduated in 1939
from Ashland High School.
Theresa graduated in 1945
from Ashland High School.
Patrick Jr. graduated in 1949
from Ashland High School.
The McKay’s made a home in that house for more than 3 decades, and watched as their son and youngest child went off to serve as a Corporal in the Korean War. Then in 1959, his father (in his mid 70’s) died at Samaritan Hospital, right up the street.
That was a chapter in someone’s life. It held memories of new babies, school days, war times, and losses. No house will stand forever. Miles was worried that would happen to our house, but I assured him we’d never let it go that far down hill while we owned it.
Miles also consoled me when I shared my disappointment with not getting to see the actual demolition of the whole house. “Mommy, don’t worry- they can just build a new house, let it get old and then they’ll do it again! You’ll get to see that one!”
I hope not:) It would actually just be great to have green space there for a while. (from a 2013 post)
Don’t miss the next Get a Clue post.
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See the video: https://vimeo.com/90895267 (Sources from ancestry.com: Census records from 1930, 1940, Ashland City Directories from 1919-1959, the Ashland County Auditors website, and the Ashland County Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society’s webpage.)
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