This past weekend, we went to Fort Wayne, Indiana to see the 2005 Illsley Place Home and Garden Tour (read more). Normally we wouldn’t drive almost 5 hours to see something like this. However, one of the homes was where my mom grew up – 1134 Illsley Place.
The house was built in 1926 and my great grandparents (VanArnam) bought it in 1930. My grandparents (Allen and Betty Simmons) were married in the living room and had their reception in the backyard in 1937. In 1952, when my great grandfather died, my grandparents (along with my mom and her brother and sisters) moved in and lived there until 1962.
It was cool to be able to see such a wide range of residential architecture from the early part of the 1900s. In the house next door, I noticed that there was a faucet in the upstairs bathroom labeled “Ice Water”. I couldn’t figure out what in the world it could possibly be. Then, however, in the basement, there was an old (original) water cooler. They really did have ice water “on tap” in the upstairs bathroom.
Several houses down was the house that my mom’s uncle built. It wasn’t open for the tour, but we talked to the current owner and she let us see the house. She told us that they had found a small rectangular hole in the floor of the dining room and couldn’t figure out what it was. It turns out that it was for a button on the floor that the head of the table would press to call the maid.
Illsley Place is a pretty cool street. It reminded me of the streets you see in movies, with huge trees, gorgeous old houses and kids safely playing in the street. In fact, every Memorial Day for over 60 years, the street is blocked off and the kids put on a parade. At Christmas, all the kids go caroling.
In the end, it wasn’t just the gorgeous old homes and gardens that we were impressed with, it was the community that existed in this block. Community that is so sought after in neighborhoods today.
Wow Shawn!
Oh well– forgiven! It wasn’t quite 60 yrs ago that the Memorial day parade and Christmas caroling started, but close! I was probably in about 4th grade when we started those traditions that have lasted all these years (which would add up to about 47 or 48, I think!) For the caroling, our moms made us white choir-like robes to wear (probably over our coats)..and Mrs Ingebrand had Nancy sing a solo verse or two of Silent Night! 
It was so much fun filling the current Illsley folks in with some of our memories and a little more history than they’d uncovered previously. One interesting thing was that almost every house had beautiful hard-wood floors that had been covered up by carpet for several decades, as that was the thing, back in our era! What goes around comes around, right? 
Well-enough said…except that I remember crying when we moved away in 7th grade, to a neighborhood where I could barely sell any Girl Scout cookies at all!! ;-( It just wasn’t the same as good ole Illsley! Love ya — Mom
Neat description of our fantastic weekend tour on Illsley!! It was so–o awesome to share my favorite street in the whole world, with my family! Oh yea– you forgot to mention it wasn’t just your grandparents that moved into that house in ‘52, but also your mom and her sisters and brother!!