Shakin' the Family Tree

I finally took my camera and went in search of four homes where my Baldings, Chapins, and Williamses lived in Little Rock.

The first one - the address listed on the World War I draft registration card of my great grandfather, Victor Claude Balding - was at 223 Rice Street. He signed his draft registration card on 12 Sep 1918.

The house is still there - although I'm sure it looks a bit different today than it did 93 years ago.

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Next, I went in search of the houses at 213 and 217 Dennison.

They are next door to each other.

My maternal grandparents, Joe Duffie Williams and Doris Geneva Balding, lived at 213. I found them at that address in city directories from 1940 to 1949.



A whole bunch of people lived at 217 for many years - including my grandmother's parents and siblings, as well as her maternal grandmother, Eada Belle (Parrish) Chapin after the death of Fred Chapin right after Christmas in 1938.

According to Polk's Little Rock/North Little Rock City Directories, Fred and Eada lived at 913 North Valmar, and Eada was listed at that address in the 1939 City Directory. (I'll have to make another photo journaling trip to see if that one is still standing.)

But by 1940, Eada made her home with her daughter, Hattie Belle and son-in-law, Victor, at 217 Dennison.



In 1940, the house at 217 Dennison must have been full to overflowing, with Victor and Hattie Balding, Hattie's mother, Eada Chapin, and adult children, Ellington (Linky), daughter Marion (Murney), Marvin and Vera. All the children were employed except Linky, who was the youngest.

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Across town, my grandfather's parents, Jo Desha Williams and Maxie Leah Meek, lived at 2310 South Ringo Street.



That was the home to which my grandfather, Joe Duffie Williams, took his bride Doris after they married on Halloween in 1926. They were still there when the census was taken in 1930.

This is a weekly blogging theme from Geneabloggers.

The questions suggested for this week's theme are:
Describe the house in which you grew up. Was it big or small? What made it unique? Is it still there today?

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The house I grew up in - the one I have the fondest memories of - was at 9001 Bailey Road in Little Rock.

It was a modest house by today's standards - 3 bedrooms, one bathroom, and hardwood floors.

I don't remember how long we lived there before my mother decided the hardwood needed to be covered up with carpet.

My dad was a brick mason, and we had the neatest screened in porch where the simple patio once was, with a brick barbeque. There was a clothesline in the backyard - the very same clothesline where my little sisters and I destroyed a couple of handmade quilts we used to make tents back there. Dad built a decorative brick wall around the yard.

We lived almost at the end of our street. In the summer when school was out, we played outside all day long, only coming in long enough to get sandwiches for lunch, and then staying out until the street lights came on.

It was a street where kids could play.

It was the street where I had my first - and worst - bike wreck. But I won the race before I hit that parked car.

This is a Google Earth photo of my house, taken in September 2010...



Actually, it's what used to be my house.

When I was 12, we had to move to make way for Interstate 630 to come through.

They called it progress.