52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks (2020-04)
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is a series of weekly prompts to get you to think about an ancestor and share something about them. The weekly prompt is provided by www.amyjohnsoncrow.com. The prompt for the week of January 22 is "Close To Home."As a response to this genealogy blogging prompt, I have decided to update an early family history blogging post that I wrote in 2015. How does this post fit the topic? My great grandparents, their daughter (my grandmother) and their son all lived side by side in North Merrick, New York.
My Great Grandparent's house was located at 1464 Rhode Avenue, North Merrick, NY 11566. Based on real estate records on the internet in 2015, their house was built in 1922. The house was originally a WWI army barracks. Edward Gillen bought the building in 1922 and had it delivered via freight on the LIRR to N. Merrick and paid about $1,075 for it from the United Portable Building Manufacturer Corp. (Based on the CPI Inflation Calculator $1075 would be about $16,346 today.)
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| Digital image of the order for Edward and Caroline Gillen's House from the original in the private collection of my mother. © Edward R. Olsen 01.28.2020 |
But that's not really the beginning of the story of the Rhode Avenue Houses.
In 1905 Frederick Gillen (1849-1941) purchased 4 lots on west side of Rhode Avenue. Each lot measured 25 x 125 feet. Two were required to build a house on, so each house was on 50 x 125 foot property. Frederick purchased the lots in the development called Merrick Manor from the Long Island Realty Company and paid $196 for them all. He paid $20 down and then $6 on the first of each month for 29 months and a final payment of $2.
We don't really know the reason why Frederick and his wife Mary Kraher (1860-1915) purchased the property. At the time they likely only had their two youngest children, Edward and Frank (1891-1961), at home. Their other three surviving children had left home by this time and all were married. Edward would have been about 17 and Frank about 14. Since Frederick purchased the lots on a payment plan, it's possible that he was either purchasing the property as an investment or planned to move there later.
But by 1922 Edward had purchased the property from his father as well as the lot just North of those 4 lots from a family friend. I believe that since a family friend had also bought property in the development, it had most likely been an investment purchase that Frederick originally did in 1905. Since in those 17 years of owing the property, nothing had been built on the lots.
By 1922, when the house was built, Edward Gillen and Caroline Schmitz had been married for 12 years. They had two young children, Anna (my grandmother) was 11 (born in 1911) and Frank was 7 (born in 1915.) I'm not exactly sure why the family had moved from Queens, New York to Long Island. One of the reasons may obviously have been to move out of the crowed city to the country (not yet the suburbia it is now.) Some internet research has provided some context for the time frame:
Sunrise Highway was constructed in the 1920s as a four-to-six lane arterial highway from southern Queens east to Massapequa in Nassau County. 2
The book Memories of the Merricks asserted that “The 1920's hit Merrick like a bomb; development went up on all sides...". 2
%2BAnna%2BGillen%2Bsummers%2C%2BFrank%2BGillen%2C%2BEd%2BGillen%2C%2Bpeggy%2BKarber%2BGillen%2C%2BKen%2BSummers%2B(2).jpg "1464 Rhode Ave., North Merrick, NY 11566") |
| Easter, 1962 (L-R) Anna Gillen Summers, Frank Gillen, Ed Gillen, Peggy Karber Gillen, Anna's son. Scan of original photo from the private collection of my mother. © Edward R. Olsen 7.15.2015 |
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| Image downloaded from Google Maps on 2.20.2015. Image dated from October 2012. |
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| Garage image downloaded from Google Maps on 1.27.2020. Image dated from October 2012. |
"Funny thing, Jimmy told me the builder found horse bones on the property (when the house was torn down in 2014). My Father (Frank) told us when we were little that Grandpa (Edward) used to drive a horse and wagon to the Merrick Railroad when they moved to Merrick. It probably died of old age and he buried it in his yard." 1Unfortunately, I don't remember much about the inside of the house. Even thought I visited my grandparent's house often, I can only remember being in the house a handful of times. I do remember that the garage had a mechanic's pit, so that they could work under the car easily. That garage was the only time I ever remember seeing a mechanic's pit in a garage.
The house was bought by one of Frank's daughters after Edward died in 1969. And their family owned it until it was sold in 2014. When it was sold, the house and garage were demolished to allow a new house to built on the property. The property remained in the family for over 100 years! Anna and Charles' house and Frank and Peggy's house, although no longer in the family, are still standing today.
How I'm related to Edward and Caroline Gillen:
Edward Louis GILLEN = Caroline SCHMITZ
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Charles (SOLTIS) SUMMERS = Anna Marie GILLEN
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Dad = Mom
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Me
References:
1. From email sent by one of Frank and Peggy's daughter to Anna and Charles' daughter (my mother) dated: Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 1:43 PM.
2. Keogan, B. (Ed.). (n.d.). History of Merrick, NY. Retrieved February 17, 2015, from http://merrickhistory.pbworks.com/w/page/26467400/History of Merrick, NY
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