Thomas O. Bemis House, Springfield, Mass

The house at 128 Maplewood Terrace, at the corner of Forest Park Avenue in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

This house was built in 1902 as the home of Thomas O. Bemis, a coal dealer whose father, Stephen C. Bemis, had been the founder of the Bemis & Call Tool Company. The company was probably best known for purchasing the patent for the first monkey wrench, which Bemis & Call produced for many years, along with other tools. However, Stephen C. Bemis’s business interests also included selling coal, and upon his retirement in 1868 his sons, Arthur and Thomas, continued the coal business with the firm of Bemis & Collins.

Thomas was still selling coal by the turn of the 20th century, and in 1902 he and his wife Sarah moved into this newly-built house in the fashionable Forest Park neighborhood. They were both in their early 60s at the time, and they moved here with their two daughters: Mabel, who was unmarried; and Emma, who lived here with her husband Charles A. Blodgett and their young daughter Miriam. However, Thomas did not get to enjoy his new home for very long; he died suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1903, at the age of 62.

Sarah and the rest of her family continued to live here following Thomas’s death, and after her own death in 1916 her daughters inherited the property. Charles, Emma, Miriam, and Mabel were all living here during the 1920 census, with Charles working as a treasurer of a shoe company and Mabel working as a clerk in the city assessor’s office. Mabel died a few years later in 1925, but Charles and Emma remained here until the mid-1930s. The 1934 city directory listed him at this house, and at the time he was working as the president and treasurer of the McIntosh Company, and the treasurer of the M.T. Shaw Shoe Company of New England. However, Emma died in 1935, and by the end of the decade Charles was living in Longmeadow with Miriam and her husband.

When the first photo was taken around 1938 or 1939, this house had become the Randolph Club, and the 1940 census shows eight men, all single and in their 20s or early 30s, living here. Their occupations included two managers, two salesmen, a heating engineer, a machinist, and a factory superintendent, and earned wages that ranged from $1,350 to $2,600 per year. Curiously, one of the men, Carl Hogland, apparently did not cooperate with the census taker, who wrote “will not answer any questions” on Hogland’s line of the census form. Along with these eight men, the house also included a housekeeper, who was paid $600 per year, and a houseboy, who was 24 years old but had neither an occupation nor any annual income listed on the census.

The house later reverted to a single-family home, and today it remains well-preserved. There have been a few minor changes, such as removing the right side of the front porch and enclosing the small porch on the right side, but overall it has retained most of its original architectural details, including the balustrade over the front porch and the ornate scroll pediments above the dormer windows. Along with the rest of the neighborhood, the house is now part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

John B. Phelps House, Springfield, Mass

The house at 114 Maplewood Terrace in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

This house was built in 1904, and was originally the home of John B. Phelps, the treasurer and clerk of the Hampden Savings Bank. He was about 43 years old at the time, unmarried, and lived here with his widowed mother Ellen and his sister Genevieve, who was also unmarried. John had been in the banking industry since he was in his early 20s, first working as a bookkeeper for the Agawam National Bank in the early 1880s before, by the middle of the decade, becoming a teller at Hampden Savings Bank. During this time, he and Genevieve lived with their mother on High Street, but by the early 20th century the family had joined many of Springfield’s other middle class residents in moving to the fashionable, newly-developed Forest Park neighborhood.

All three members of the family would end up spending the rest of their lives here. Ellen died in 1920, and John in 1936, but Genevieve was still here when the first photo was taken around 1938 or 1939. She died in 1956, at the age of 90, after having lived in the house for over 50 years. Since then, the exterior of the house has remained well-preserved, with only a few significant changes, most notably the loss of the balustrades above the front porch and atop the roof. Along with the rest of the neighborhood, the house is now part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

George Yerrall House, Springfield, Mass

The house at 88 Maplewood Terrace in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


George Yerrall was born in England in 1860, but he immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1866. In 1882, he married Anna Wood, a Springfield native, and the couple had two children, George Jr. and William. They moved into this Tudor-style house after it was built in 1905, where they enjoyed a prominent location at the corner of Maplewood Terrace and Randolph Street. At the time, George worked as a banker and railroad executive, serving as clerk and treasurer of the Connecticut River Railroad.

George Yerrall, Jr. became a real estate broker, and he lived here with his parents until his marriage in 1915. His younger brother William became a lawyer, and continued living in this house into the 1930s. Anna died in 1938, right around the time that the first photo was taken, but George remained here until his own death in 1945, about 40 years after he first moved in. Since then, the house has remained well-preserved. It is an excellent example of early 20th century Tudor Revival architecture, and it is part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Frank Doolittle House, Springfield, Mass

The house at 120 Maplewood Terrace in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


This Colonial Revival-style house was built in 1902, and was designed by G. Wood Taylor, one of Springfield’s leading architects at the turn of the 20th century. It was one of his many works in the Forest Park neighborhood, and it was even featured in the July 1903 issue of Scientific American Building Monthly. Originally, the house was owned by Frank and Emma Doolittle, who were both about 50 when they moved in. Emma died in 1919, and Frank continued to live here until his own death in 1933, only a few years before the first photo was taken.

Around 115 years after the house was built, the only significant change to Taylor’s original design has been the front porch. The left side of the porch is now gone, and the right side has since been enclosed. Otherwise, though, the house has been well-preserved, and along with the rest of the neighborhood it is part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.