Preston Avenue from Bridge
2 September 1914: 1. 519 Preston: Prominently advertised on the corner of the building on the left is Hirsch Brothers Confectioners, proprietor Isidore Hirsch (1870-1938), a Jewish immigrant originally from Latvia; others in this block are Fidelity Building Real estate (517 Preston), Southern Tea & Coffee Company (521 Preston), George Nokes’ Full Gospel Mission (523 Preston), J. E. Rogers Feed & Grain (525-527), and R. E. Gentry wholesale produce (527 Preston); 2. 529-535 Preston: Ahrens & Ott, supplies for plumbers, steamfitters, mills, mines and factories; 3. 601-605 Preston: Showrooms for South Texas Implement & Vehicle Co., farm machinery, gasoline engines and supplies, buggies and wagons, pumps and windmills; 4. 613-615 Preston: Northrup & Clark Saddlery Co., owned by J. Don Northrup, harness, saddles, saddlery hardware, buggies, wagons and automobiles; 5. 401-405 Main: Scanlan Building, 12 floors, 1909; 6. 602-604 Preston: Tel-Electric Co., agents for Westinghouse Electrical & Manufacturing Co., electrical supplies, Arthur J. Binz, president and Jules J. Settegast, Jr., secretary-treasurer [See LINK Tozier Binz]; 7. 514-520 Preston: E. C. Palmer & Co., Ltd. of New Orleans, wholesale paper; Hogan-Allnoch Dry Goods Co., Inc., Edward J. Hogan president, Fred J. Alnoch, secretary-treasurer; Miller Brothers of Galveston, overalls manufacturers.
|
4 January 2014: 1. Sesquicentennial Park, a 22.5 acre park inaugurated in 1898 honoring the 150th anniversary of Texas; a larger-than-life statue of James A. Baker III faces a statue of George H. W. Bush across Buffalo Bayou (See Christ Church for an essay on Baker-Botts, the historic Houston Law Firm founded by James Addison Baker I); 2. 601 Preston: Houston Ballet Center for Dance, 6 floors, 2011; 3. Pedestrian-safe bridge connecting the ballet center with the Wortham; 4. 501 Texas: Gus S. Wortham Theater Center, 7 floors, 1987.
|
|
Postmarked: 2 September 1914; Houston, Texas
Stamp: 1c Green George Washington #405 To: Mrs Annie Brandt P. O. Box 993 Beaumont, Tex. Message: Houston T. 1. Sept 1914 2113 State Str. Dear Mrs Brandt, Received your card and best wishes for the little girl, hope she is healthy. Betty married last Sunday she got a fine husband. I gues we stay here in Houston over winter. The folks all do wish Best regards to you and yours from us all Else St[?] |
Annie Brandt was the wife of Ottomar Carl Brandt, an electrician from Germany working for the Beaumont Electric Company in Beaumont, Texas. At the age of 28 Ottomar had immigrated on board the “Edward II” on 5 December 1904 from Hamburg, Germany into Mobile, AL. Originally from Greussen, Ottomar filed naturalization papers on 16 November 1907, about the time he married Annie, taking the oath to become American on 21 November 1911.
When Annie received this postcard she was not quite 26 years old, with a four year old son, William Theodore, a daughter three years old, Marguerite Emma, and a daughter not quite a month old, little Annie Marie, to whom Annie’s correspondent wishes good health. Annie was the daughter of German immigrants herself. Her mother was Susan Borden and her father was Andrew Solleder, who had died nine years prior. Annie’s mother had remarried to a Greek restauranteur, Theo Milanopowlos, who himself had come from Athens in 1895. Annie and Ottomar had been living with her mother at 972 Forsythe as recently as 1910. By 1920 Sarah had divorced Theo, and since Annie and Ottomar had moved into their own place at 295 Summerfield (now Avenue D), she began to take in boarders. The author of the postcard was “Else” whose last name is crimped in the folds of the edge of the postcard (perhaps beginning with the letters “St...”). She had mailed the card from 2113 State Street in Houston where she was apparently a lodger in the boarding house of George D. Meyer. She mentions “we will be staying here in Houston over all winter,” and the general tone of her message suggests a certain formality not characteristic of a family relation or close associate. Her relationship to “Betty” who married “to a fine husband” on Sunday, August 30, 1914 is unclear, and no data on a marriage for this date has been found. Far too many people by the name “Else” existed in southeast Texas at the time, and none can be clearly connected to Annie and Ottomar, so it is not possible to identify her. Annie and Ottomar remained in Beaumont at Avenue E from 1930-1940 and added two children to their family: George Ottomar in 1918 and Florence Josephine in 1922. Magnolia Cemetery in Beaumont holds the remains of the Brandt and Solleder families: Annie’s mother Susan Borden Solleder Milanopowlos, died in 1934 and was buried next to her husband Andrew; Ottomar Carl died in 1952 and Annie Marie Solleder Brandt died in 1982. Theodoros Milanopowlos died at the age of 98 in 1967 and was buried in Forest Lawn in Beaumont. |
