Interview: A Car Ride with Mrs Katherine Richman Walton

A CAR RIDE WITH  MRS. KATHERINE RICHMAN WALTON

MAY 26, 1998

We started our ride with Mrs. Walton at the place she knew best, her family home, which is now Dot’s Market on Patterson Rd and Watervliet. The following paragraphs are her memories of people, places and things from long ago Belmont.

There was a large farm house that sat slightly behind were Dot’s Market is now.  The little house located at the point of what is now Watervliet and Patterson was built by my grandmother for my father after he was married in 1910.  This little house was a Sears house and cost $200-300.  I was 1 ½ years old when we moved in and  my sister and two brothers  were born there.  It was the first place my brother Nelson lived after he was married. He had to move out in 1940 when the government bought the land to build the Greenmont Community of Flat top houses.

My parents moved away and then returned in 1926 , two years after my grandmother died.  My two aunts, Ruth and Carrie, lived with my grandmother.  Ruth married Elmer Horlacher.  The western part of Dot’s parking lot was part of our big house’s yard and a ball field which was rented by  our next-door neighbor Harry Weng.

EAST ON PATTERSON

Two weeks before I was born in 1909, my grandfather died, and the farm was put up for auction.  Tate Weng, who lived next door, wanted to buy it but three of my aunts were successful in buying it.  

There was an old farmhouse located on what is now Barney Ave.  The Secores lived there and farmed the land.  The sisters did some farming but didn’t take care of it.  They lived there quite a while before it was platted as Richman Heights.

SOUTH ON WOODMAN

The Wengs owned the southwest corner of Patterson and Woodman.  They bought the land from the Newcombe estate.  Marietta Newcombe Shoup  inherited the farm.  When she married Ed Shoup, she sold the farm to Harry Weng.  The site of Kettering Delco was a farm owned by Del Newcombe Rohrer.  It was sold to the Bockmillers.

NORTH ON WOODMAN

The Newcombe farm went down to what was then called Shaker Creek.  This creek now runs under Woodman just north of the intersection of Vale Dr.  The creek had a popular swimming hole at that time near Woodman.  There was a farmhouse on the land.  Frank Newcombe was an only son and he inherited the farm when my great-grandfather died.  He lived there until he retired, then moved to Oakwood.  The Prughs owned the land behind it, starting on Dorothy Lane.  Frank Newcombe married Nettie Prugh.

My great-grandfather, Edward  Newcombe is buried in the historical Beavertown Cemetery.  Our 70-acre farm went back to a woods where Forrer Blvd. is now.  There was an orchard near the house that ran over to Culver Ave.

The 70-acre tract of land east of Woodman belonged to the Newcombe’s.  Lucy Newcombe married Oliver Rupe.  They had no children, and Lucy died young.  Oliver Rupe lived there until the government bought it in 1940.  The Rupe property went to the Shaker property border.  

The Woodmans lived up north on Woodman, closer to Xenia Pike (Route 35).  My grandfather sold some of his land (north of Patterson) to the railroad.  There was a small pond near where the fire station is now at Woodman and Patterson.

NORTH ON HORLACHER

Bob Barney built a house near where the barn for the old house stood.  He divorced his wife and remarried.  The house was approximately along Eastgate between Horlacher and Amesborough. The five children from his second marriage and his son and daughter from his first marriage lived there. The son from his first marriage married Marsha, Larry Ballweg’s sister.

EAST ON AMESBOROUGH AND DEBRA, SOUTH ON RUSSELL AND KENNEDY

The “bottoms” had “shaky ground.” An underground river ran through the “bottoms” which made the Barney farmland very fertile. Sometimes the plow horses would be frightened because the ground would shake.  Bob Barney rented some of this land to a man who grew big Bermuda onions there.  The Hewitt’s, of the Hewitt Soap Co., lived in a white house on Kennedy, along with the Koepnicks and Bricks.

My grandfather Ray Southern and Minnie Russell lived at 1607 Watervliet.  It was a log house with a shack in the back.  There was a basement, but no concrete.  We lived in that little house and there were no houses in between, just a truck garden.  The Harveys lived across the street on the northeast corner of Watervliet and Kennedy.

WEST ON PATTERSON

The Seths lived at 2204  Patterson (near Culver):  The black family, the Amsteds  lived in back of the field and barn belonging to my grandfather.  Their little girl was Alberta Amsted.  The Seths are listed at 2204 Patterson in the 1928 City Directory.

SOUTH ON CULVER

There were houses on Culver in 1926.  The woods on our farm went all the way to Culver.  Our fence line was behind the houses which are now on the east side of Culver.

EAST ON WATERVLIET

Charlie Weng’s house was at Watervliet and Wayland. The Wengs owned the whole block between Hazel and Wayland at one time.  Charlie was the brother of Jacob Weng.  Jacob lived in the red brick farmhouse down on Wayland.  Jacobs’ daughter built it.  The Kurtz’s lived on one of the north corners of Watervliet and Springmont.  Mr. Kurtz was one of the Vice Presidents of Winter’s Bank.  

OLD FARMS

The Fauvers lived and farmed across from the Breitenstraters.  My father knew Harry Fauver.  The Patterson Park land belonged to the Fauvers.  I remember visiting the Fauvers.  Their house was at the northeast corner of Patterson and Revere.  The Bradfords lived on Croyden. Stella Bradford held luncheons for the school teachers in that house.  Ella Rohrer married a Bradford.

Actor George Peppard’s aunt is Ella Bradford.  His grandmother’s house on Valley St. burned down.  His grandmother and my grandmother were sisters.  Frank Rohrer bought some of the land from his mother or grandmother.  He built two houses on Valley St.  He had a brother, Webster, who was eight years older.  My father would go out there to go camping with Frank.

WEST ON WATERVLIET

The Folkerths lived at 931 Watervliet across from Bellaire .  They were an old Belmont family.  So were the Burgetts.  Their daughter, Minnie, was the same age as my sister.  Fred Bovey’s two older unmarried sisters, Jennie and Mae, lived with Fred at 1109 Watervliet.  Harry Stein and a daughter, Mae, lived next door at 1115 Watervliet.  The Boveys and Steins were related somehow.  One of the Prugh girls was Mae Prugh.  There was an old garage behind Folkerths at the southwest corner of Watervliet and Bellaire, that probably fell down, so they built a new one.

WEST ON BELLAIRE

1206 Bellaire is the little building on the south side of the street that looks like a store.  I believe there was a shoe repair shop there.    1117 Bellaire is at the north side of Bellaire, next to the alley near Smithville.  The house was once part of a dairy farm.

The store at the northeast corner of Smithville and Bellaire was Kurtz’s Bakery. The store was  built around 1913.

WEST ON WATERVLIET

Pepper’s grocery store was at 845 and 847 Watervliet.  The Peppers lived in the rear. The D and X traction station [Dayton and Xenia Railway] was at the corner. The dispatcher for D and X  sat in a small, half-circle part of the traction station facing the point of Watervliet and Smithville. The blacksmith shop was next door and was  owned by the Dietz family.  Bauer’s Appliances was at 828 Watervliet.  The pool hall on Smithville  is where the original Immaculate Conception church would be built after Ben Barney decided not to farm anymore. He bought the buildings at 2420 and 2422.  When my father stopped farming, he went to work at John Routzong’s filling station located at the north east corner of Watervliet and Smithville.    

The Wunderlichs built a house on the southwest corner of Watervliet and Smithville and they had a dry goods store.  Another dry goods store predated the Wunderlichs, but it is unclear if the Wunderlichs built the house and the original occupants were tenants and employees.   The Everetts lived at 745 Watervliet next to Wunderlichs.  

Foltz’s Bakery, Wunderlich’s, the U.B. Church and Doc Haines’ drugstore were all on Smithville.  Dr. Haines had his office down from the car barn.  He was also a volunteer fireman.  I remember eating ice cream in a little parlor he had in his drugstore.

I started school at Belmont in 1915.  My father also went there (he was born in 1883, so he would have started around 1889), and the school house had a second story then.  My uncle also went there.  He was 8 years older than my father (he would have started around 1882).  I don’t remember anything about the original school on the east side of Smithville.  It seems that Cherrington’s drug store was always there.  A lot of the north side of the 700 block of Watervliet was vacant.  

Dr. Werner was the doctor for most of Belmont until  Dr. Cook came to Belmont after being a foreign missionary.  The eye doctor on Watervliet  was Dr. Walker.

The kids cleared off a vacant lot at the corner of Watervliet and Rosemont (or Westfield) to play ball

EAST ON WAYNE, NORTH ON KING

There was a quarry behind the Cleveland School.  There was a huge quarry on Smithville, behind the Immaculate Conception church.  My grandfather had built an ice house and used to go back there with horses and cut the ice for the ice house.  My father almost drowned there while he was showing off.  The Ohmers used to skate there.  There was another quarry at the corner of Wilmington and Nordale.  They used the stone from the quarry at Cleveland School to build buildings downtown.  

OHMER PARK

In 1917 during World War I ,we moved from grandmother’s house to Breighton, almost catty-cornered from the Ohmers.  We went to McKinley school.  It was an old school, but they were building a new one.  On day we went home for lunch.  When we returned, the old school had burned down.

Dr. Otto was on the corner, next to our house.  My aunt, a nurse, was good friends with Alice Ohmer, who taught school.  We went to Ohmer Park Methodist church.  Grawl’s grocery was at the corner of Wayne and Creighton.

As our ride with Mrs. Walton ended, we thanked her for sharing her memories and took her home.

Mrs. Walton has since passed, but her memories will be with us forever, in The History of Belmont, A Dayton Neighborhood.