Robert Ohaver (b. 1920) lived most of his life in Clintonville and on West North Broadway. He had many stories of old Clintonville to share with us. On September 12, 2003, several community members (Ann and Alan Woods, Barbara Hotchkiss, Nancy Kuhel) interviewed him and preserved the conversation on tape. Now you, too, can listen to Mr. Ohaver’s oral history.

Sadly, Bob Ohaver passed away on June 11, 2009. You can find his obituary here. There is another small entry about his aunt on this web site here.

Bob mother was Laura Ohaver and his father was Walter Harvey Ohaver. Bob also had an older brother named Jack Ohaver who lived in Clintonville at 116 E. Dunedin with his wife Clara Ohaver. Clara passed away May 24, 1993, and Jack passed away on June 14, 2000. Jack and Clara had two daughters. Sue Bowman was born May 8, 1940; she passed away January 4, 2000. Sandra Urban born July 30, 1945. [This family information came to me from Jack’s granddaughter and Sandy’s daughter, Lisa Adkins. Thanks, Lisa!]

Each file is about 30 minutes long.

Contents

Track 1.
Brief Ohaver biography; origins of his family moving to West North Broadway; his World War II years; Clinton Theatre; businesses and homes at the interesection of North Broadway and North High Streets; drugstores and candy stores in Clintonville; the house behind 3391 North High Street; Dispatch carrier’s substation; Olentangy Park; the streetcar storage barn at Arcadia.

Track 2.
Olentangy Park cont’d; street fair at North Broadway and High to celebrate Clinton Theatre, the opening of Clinton School pedestrain subway, and the paving of North High Street after a new sewer line had been installed; the Olentangy River; 3 canoe clubs; development of West North Broadway (“the Broadway Extension”) and the Scott farm; development of the area along the adjoining river bank; the Herron [spelling uncertain]/Zinn home at 285 West Kenworth; Bill Moose AKA “Indian Bill”; Chief Leatherlips.
Note: the “Dr. John Scott” is William H. Scott, president of OSU 1883-1895. See my book, page 17, for a photo of his house.

Track 3.
Chief Leatherlips cont’d; house at 273 Erie Road and excavation of nearby gravel pit; the Fuller farm/Whetstone Park; rambling through the woods; Indian Springs golf course; Bill Moose AKA “Indian Bill”; Olentangy Park; North Columbus including the Ramlow Building; Picadilly Theatre; streetcars and interurbans.

Track 4.
Southwick funeral home; Joy Hunt home; Graceland Shopper’s Mart and Patrick Murnan; Clinton Theatre; the Great Depression; Ohaver family; Brighton Road development; Ohaver’s WWII and postwar years.

Track 5.
Ohaver’s return to Columbus from California in 1962; bombing of the Clinton Theatre in the 1930s.

A wonderful picture of the Weisheimer Mill including the Jacob Weisheimer home (which still exists) and other buildings at the mill complex. The photographer would be looking north up Starrett Road to Weisheimer Road. You can click on this image to see the distant details. I show some other images of the mill and Weisheimer homes on pages 21-22 of my book. (Photo courtesy of the Columbus Metropolitan Library.)

Between 1948 and 1950, the Columbus-based Lustron Company made 2,500 all-steel, prefabricated houses and shipped them nationwide. Unlike the more traditional architecture of Sears homes, Lustron houses offered a sleek, modern aesthetic. They were easy to maintain, and affordable. Despite a backlog of orders, the company went bankrupt in 1950. There are 4 porcelain-steel Lustron homes in Clintonville; this one is located at 272 East Weisheimer. (Photo courtesy of Lynn McNish)

Revised post!
These two photographs were found among the papers of Kenneth Hauer, a local photographer who had a studio on North High Street. The photos were taken in 1948 at the intersections of Summit and Maynard.

The first photo is taken from the west side of the accident, looking toward the businesses on the northeast corner of the intersection of Summit and Maynard. The building’s address is 2336 Summit Street.

The second photo is taken from in front of that business building, looking west/northwest.

Now to be clear, in my original post I got it all wrong! Larry L Lower was instrumental in discovering the location of Kenneth Hauer’s accident pictures. (Previously, I’d placed the accident at 4139-4147 North High–though admittedly the buildings there today have significant differences from the old photos–because I couldn’t find any other location and Kenneth Hauer’s studio was at 4139 North High.)

I do not how many hours Larry worked on this but he deserves some sort of prize! He said,

The storefront property in your photo matches an existing building on the northeast corner of Summit and Maynard. Across the street on the northwest corner are two buildings that match the two buildings in your second photo.

The storefront photo shows First National Cleaners in the far left store front. The 1947 Polk city directory showed a business of the same name in the same position of the building at Summit and Maynard, which is 2340 Summit.

Summit and Maynard are one-way in 2012. They were two-way in 1948. That would explain the direction of all of the automobiles in your photos.

Larry undoubtedly got it right; both the building and the houses across from this building match the photos that Kenneth Hauer took exactly. Thanks, Larry! (Note: you can compare the 1948 pictures with the intersection today using Google’s Street View.)

Other readers: Charles (Coryn), Nina, Bob, Terry (Seidel), and Genie (Hoster) also contributed critiques and/or theories of how to solve the puzzle. Without doubt my original post, wrong as it was, garnered more comments than any other post on my web site.

You can click on the photos to see them in more detail. (Photos courtesy of Marge Hauer.)

Original post:
These two photographs were found among the papers of Kenneth Hauer, a local photographer who had a studio on High Street. The photos were taken in 1948 at the intersections of Westwood and Overbrook and North High Street. I have compared the photos with the same location today, and remain puzzled (Note: you can do this online using Google’s Street View.

The first photo is taken from the east side of the accident, looking toward the businesses on the southwest corner of the intersection of Westwood and North High Street.

The second photo is taken from in front of that business building, looking east/southeast. I’m amazed at the houses that are shown on the east side of High Street. Today, these houses are no longer there—and the land where the houses sat does not exist anymore, either. Today, the land falls away steeply into Overbrook Road and Ravine.

Could the land have changed this much?

Another snippet: I’m told that there used to be a “party house”—i.e. a building that could be rented for parties–just south of this location.

You can click on the photos to see them in more detail. (Photos courtesy of Marge Hauer.)

Jan Bradley Zenisek shared these two family pictures with me. Her father, Dr. D. H. Bradley, operated his veterinary clinic on the ground floor of the home originally built by Henry Cooke and shown in my book and here. The Bradley family lived upstairs.

The photo on the left shows Jan’s mother, Ellen May Bradley, with Jan in 1941.

The picture on the right shows Jan’s father (Dr. Bradley) holding Jan’s cousin Neal Cooper, and Jan’s grandfather George Cooper with Jan, outside the clinic/house in 1943. (Photos courtesy of Jan Bradley Zenisek.)

The house was later destroyed to make way for a car dealership. Jan salvaged the lovely arched windows and they now adorn her Riverlea home.

It breaks my heart to learn about the Overbrook Ravine Earthwork (an Indian Mound) located at the southeast corner of Yaronia and Wynding Drive. The earthwork consisted of two earthen mounds surrounded by a 400-foot diameter circular earthen embankment, built over 2500 years ago. Though the city and developers were glad to build a park around the mounds, residents worried about traffic such a park would draw. In 1953 the mound was destroyed to make way for housing construction. (Map courtesy of Franklin County Engineers)

In a previous post, I mentioned that Engine House 19 won the Dispatch’s annual holiday decorating content. This house at on East North Broadway won the contest three years in a row. (Photo coourtesy of Judy Kress)

An October 15-2010 note from Joe Motil:

There was a large 3 story barn located behind the property across from Immaculate Conception Church. Attached to this barn was also a residence. The name of the family that lived in this residence was “Butts”. This would have been around 1966. I have a photo from my families back yard at 360 Clinton Hts. of the top of the barn. The barn burnt down sometime in the early 80′s or late 70′s I believe. There was also a small barn behind the brick house on the south side and about 3 or 4 house east of Calumet. Sorry I don’t have the address at hand. It was tore down maybe in the late 70′s and a new garage is currently there.

There’s an update to this information here.

About a year ago, Joe Motil sent me some information about a fire on East North Broadway:

There was a large 3 story barn located behind the property across from Immaculate Conception Church. Attached to this barn was also a residence….The barn burnt down sometime in the early 80′s or late 70′s I believe…

I happened to have some friends who had also grown up in that area so I asked them for some additional information. That barn behind the house on E.N. Broadway was indeed located behind the house they lived in, 379 East North Broadway. It burned approximately October 1976. A young doctor’s family lived there. They had photos! which I’m sharing with you here. (Photos courtesy of Kristin Farrell-Logsdon and Mark Logsdon)

Joe Motil then countered with some information and images of his own. In the first photo below, the top of the barn (Cantlon and Farrell families) can be seen. This picture is looking north from the backyard of Joe’s home at 360 Clinton Heights Avenue, and was taken on his dad’s 50th birthday August 12, 1974. The elevation of the property in which the barn sat was higher than that of Joe’s backyard. The snow covered yard and garage picture of Joe’s backyard was taken on March 13, 1958. (Photos courtesy of Joe Motil)

For the residents of East North Broadway, widening their roadway has been a seemingly endless struggle of defending their property against City Hall. Joyce Schatz–for many years an officer in the East North Broadway Street Association–has kept an archive of the issue, and I’ve linked to it here.

The city claims the right of way is 100 feet. Some research shows that it is 70 feet. Residents’ deeds and surveys are all over the place. Some have 15’ listed, many don’t, including recent purchasers. The majority of the parcels at the end of the street do not have the 15’ easement in their deeds. The deed to Steve and Ann Wilson’s home (one of the three slated to lose their yard), specifically includes the footage and states “…Together with the Fifteen (15) feet off the North Side of East North Broadway vacated by resolution of the County Commissioners of Franklin County, Ohio, on October 7, 1952.”

For those of us who don’t live on East North Broadway, the issue is less “Can the City do it?” but “Should the City do it?’ For the time being, the city is not actively pursuing the widening.