The house at 37 Magnolia Terrace in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.
The house in 2017:
This house was built in 1895 for Fred R. Brown, a wholesale grocer who ran a successful business here in Springfield for many years. He and his wife Isabella were in their mid-20s when they moved into the house, and they went on to raise two daughters here, Dorcas and Kathleen. They lived here for about 35 years, before selling the house around 1930 to Fred Stephenson. According to the census records, he was an executive manager for the Community Chest, a fundraising organization that was a predecessor to the United Way. He was still living here when the first photo was taken in the late 1930s, along with his wife Mary and their two children.
Today, Magnolia Terrace is a centerpiece of the Forest Park neighborhood, with historic late 19th and early 20th century homes lining both sides of the street. Like most of the other houses, this one has been well-preserved, with no noticeable exterior differences between the two photos, and in 1982 the entire surrounding neighborhood became part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.