Westmoreland

13 July 1909:
1. 436 Westmoreland: Juliene Baptiste Adoue (1879-1964), president of the Adoue-Blaine Hardware store at 702-704 Main and 914 Capitol. 2. 428 Westmoreland: Elbert C. Crawford (1851-1918) from Fayetteville, AR, manager of Houston Land & Investment Co., with offices in the Mason Block. 3. 406 Westmoreland: Col. William Duncan Myers (1851-1920), a real estate agent from Missouri rented this house before 1910, but soon moved to the Fairview addition and later to Avondale. The house was then taken up by William S. Baily (1877-1918), an attorney for Bankers Trust, and his wife Tallulah Prince Smith (1879-1968). 4. 3602 Garrott: James H. Putnam (1848-1917). Living with him was Earl M. Nutting, president of Westmoreland Investment Company, the developer of Westmoreland Place residential and Westmoreland Farms, orchard lands southwest of town in what would become Bellaire, TX. Earl worked in concert with the company treasurer, William Wright Baldwin, Jr. (1883-1918), living then at the YMCA, but within a few years he would die on the battlefields of France in WWI. 5. 3522 Garrott: John Curtis McKallip (1869-1921), with his brother William T. McKallip, were partners in Clarion Oil Company and Prudent Investment Company. 6. 401 Westmoreland: Walter W. Fondren (1877-1939), originally from Tennessee, was founder of Humble Oil (now Exxon-Mobil) in partnership with Ross Sterling, later the 31st governor of Texas. The Fondrens lived at this house on the corner of Flora and Westmoreland from 1905 until 1923 when the family constructed a larger house at 3401 Montrose (now La Colombe d'Or). 7. 407 Westmoreland: George Clint Wood (1869-1953) got his start in the lumber business in Beaumont, but after the oil strikes there, switched to the oil business, where he no doubt became acquainted with Walter Fondren, becoming his next door neighbor in Westmoreland place. George Wood moved to Wichita Falls in 1911 and was instrumental in exploiting the Burkburnett-Electra oil fields near there. 8. 415 Westmoreland: William T. Eldridge (1862-1932), president of The Cane Belt Railroad seems to have rented this house in between business interests in Eagle Lake and Sugarland. He was certainly not a man to be trifled with and was twice acquitted of murder involving business partners who threatened to kill him. In 1907 he had partnered with Galvestonian Isaac Herbert Kempner to found Imperial Sugar Company in Sugarland, and soon relocated there. 9. 421 Westmoreland: Henry T. Staiti (1874-1933), president of Prairie Oil Company and son of Santo Staiti (1834-1906), who immigrated to Marshall, Henderson County, TX from Palermo, Italy. Henry and his wife Odelia Reisner from Waco had no children of their own, but their expansive house and garden was frequented by close family members. Brother Grover Cleveland Staiti married Odelia’s sister Anna Leah in 1918, but sadly died of the pandemic flu within four months. 10. 439 Westmoreland was the residence of Rienzi Melville Johnston (1849-1926), publisher of The Houston Post. He was briefly a democrat senator Jan 4 - Feb 2, 1913 appointed by Gov. Oscar B. Colquitt to fill a short term vacancy. “Rienzi,” a house museum for the European decorative arts designed by John Staub in 1952, was given to the Houston Museum of Fine Arts by Harris Masterson, III in honor of his grandfather. Johnston is buried in Glenwood Cemetery

Hidden behind the trees in the next block were two large homes. The first at the corner of Garrott at 201 Westmoreland was the home of Mary Waldo and son Wilmer. Jedediah Waldo had built a fine home at 718 Caroline at Rusk in 1886 in the elite Quality Hill neighborhood east of the business district on Main Street, but when the block was claimed for the post office and federal custom house, his son Wilmer, a Princeton-trained civil engineer, de-constructed the house and moved it to Westmoreland. At 217 Westmoreland just next-door to the Waldo mansion was the home of William R. Nash and his brother-in-law, Frank B. Weeks, ranchers in West Columbia, Brazoria County. Similarly out of view, the Judge Harris Masterson Family at 3702 Burlington at Westmoreland lay just behind and to the left of the point of view of the postcard.

In keeping with their social status, the owners of all these homes in 1910 had servants, often quartered in rear buildings: [1] Juliene Adoue hired mulatto Lucy Kathy, a 55 year old widow; [2] Elbert Crawford hired Roxy and Andrew Mims, black servants in their early 20’s; [3] The Myers family had two black servants, Erline (35) and Isaac Durnis (27); [4] James Putnam hired Nettie Humphrey, 23 year old black servant; [5] The McKallips hired Hester Brown 25 and Floyd Graves 21; [6] Walter Fondren had three black servants: Emma Scott (18), Sim Fullmore (21) and his wife Willie (26); [7] George Clint Wood had three servants: Albert Chappel, a 30 year old Mulatto and his wife and Emma, black 23 year old, and a 12 year old black girl, Elnora Lock. [8]
William T. Eldridge had a mulatto servant, 43 year old Angelina Fisher; [9] the three Staiti family members had Sam Crawford, a 21 year old mulatto man as a servant; [10] Rienzi Johnston hired Matilda Franklin, black 24 year old married woman with a husband and child who lived elsewhere, and Maggie Wood, a “colored” cook who lived in a rear building.

The Masterson family hired Ben Holmes, a 32 year old black servant and Ida Heord, a female 27 year old helper. The Nashes hired three black servants: a 12-year old girl, Emma Fields, Joe Mills (26), and Gussie Strickland (22). The Waldo family of seven adults and two children hired black 49 year old servant Lusadary Adams.

22 November 2019: The lush landscaping visible from the base of elevated Spur 527 obscures the structures on the two block stretch of Westmoreland between Burlington and Garrott. Behind the viewer the site of the Masterson house, which was demolished about 1959, now underlies the elevated freeway linking the downtown grid with US-59. From the 400 block of Westmoreland, only the Crawford house [2] and the Fondren house [6] remain from 1909. The Adoue house [1] has been replaced by a small apartment complex. The Baily house at 406 Westmoreland [3] has been razed and is now an expanded garden for the adjoining 412 Westmoreland. The McKallip house [4] has been superseded by a wing of a large 32-unit apartment complex at the corner of Marshall and Garrott, while the Putnam house [4] has been replaced by 8-unit apartment buildings. The George C. Wood [7] house was replaced in 1933 with a larger brick home, now subdivided into apartments. The Staiti house [9] was obtained by the Houston Heritage Society and relocated to Sam Houston Park in 1986, where it serves as period home museum. The Rienzi Johnston house [10] has been demolished, and the remainder of that side of the block now consists of well-tended apartments and condominiums.

Postmarked: 13 July 1913; Houston Tex.
Stamp: 1c Green Ben Franklin #331

To: Miss K. B. Jones
Burlington, Iowa
718 N. 3rd

Message:
July 13 /09.
Dear Auntie:- Rec’ved your letter some time ago have been pretty busy. Will try & write long letter in a day or so. Lots are selling so fast all the best ones are gone. With love.
Daisy,

Daisy has not been identified, but she speaks of lots being nearly sold out, so she may have bad some connection to the real estate business, and possibly Westmoreland Place itself. The original investor in Westmoreland, William Wright Baldwin, Sr., was from Burlington, IA, and it is tempting to speculate that there might be a family connection between the Baldwin family and “Auntie” K. B. Jones. Unfortunately, no link between Miss K. B. Jones and the Baldwin family can be found, nor can anyone named Daisy from Burlington or Houston with an Aunt from a Jones family be identified with the information at hand.
  “Auntie” K. B. Jones is most likely Katherine B. Jones, daughter of Amos P. Jones, a carpenter from Troy, Rensselaer County, NY. Amos moved to central Illinois, first to Peoria by 1860, then to Warsaw, Hancock County, IL where Katherine’s sister Mabel married John L. Houke about 1869. Houke was a locomotive engineer, and railroads were big business in that part of the state as rail lines linked markets in Chicago with products in the greater Midwest. Kate Jones stayed with her sister’s family through 1880 and moved with them to Burlington before 1900. John and Mabel had a son Frank (May 1870), but otherwise no other children and Katherine remained as a part of the family. In 1904 she was listed as a saleslady for G. Moard, living in the 700 block of North Third Street.
John Houke died 23 February 1928 and was buried in Aspen Grove Cemetery in Burlington, Des Moines County, IL. Mabel died 26 May 1930 and is buried there as well, and also Katherine B. Jones, who died 7 April 1949 at the age of 89. Also in that cemetery are the remains of William Wright Baldwin, Westmoreland Place’s investor, (1845-1936) and his wife, Alice Tuttle Baldwin (1850-1926).