More Urbandale meandering today. Near the southernmost end of South Fairview Avenue, just south of the barely-existing-street known as Harton, I found this curb walk stamped by W.P. Bowerman. It’s in front of the only house on the east side of the 700 block, and near the southern end of the sidewalk there. The west side still has sidewalk to the end, at least for now. (And that’s foreshadowing of something I plan to get to soon.)
Tonight I’m returning to the E.M. Vannocker driveway apron from the west side of Shepard Street between Marcus and Elizabeth. The reason for this return visit is that I realized on a later walk that it is not just one stamp but a series of three. The first three houses south of Marcus all have this stamp in their driveway apron, yet I haven’t found one anywhere else yet.
I expected to find that all three houses were built at the same time, but sadly it wasn’t as neat as that. From north to south, they were built in 1924, 1923, and 1926. The ’24 and ’23 houses are similar, possibly identical, bungalows. The ’26 house is an American foursquare. Perhaps Vannocker was the builder of all of these houses, or someone the builder worked with regularly.
This is a new contractor for me, found on the west side of South Fairview Avenue between Elizabeth and Harton, in the Urbandale neighborhood. I can’t seem to find out anything about H. Widman the contractor. There was a Harry Widman who was active in the Capitol Grange in the 1940s and 50s, but I don’t know if there is any relation.
The stamp is in front of a house with a walk-out basement, which is very unusual for the neighborhood. I don’t think I’ve seen another like it around here.
Today’s stamps are kitty-corner to each other on the northwest corner of North Magnolia Avenue and Vine Street, meaning that one is really on Magnolia and the other on Vine.
H. Plummer can be found advertising concrete work in late 1960s and early 1970s Lansing State Journal classifieds pages. It turns out his name was Henderson Plummer and he lived in Mason, that is, when he lived in Michigan. He seems to have spent at least some of his time in Texas. While trying to find more about him, in hope of turning up a history of his contracting business, I found some pictures of apparent relatives, and was surprised to discover that they were Black and thus he probably was too. I say surprised because so far whenever I have managed to turn up a picture of a contractor featured in the blog it has been a White man. So, it is nice to find some diversity in the business. (I will also be very excited if I ever find a woman, but I’m not holding my breath in the meantime.)
I haven’t found much about Plummer, but I did find this page from a Plummer family reunion newsletter in which he gets a brief mention in “Notes of Interest”:
Henderson Plummer will complete his tour of duty in Texas, where he works on the toll-road in Houston. He will return to his extensive contractor business in Michigan where his family resides.
Reunion News, June 23, 1987, p. 7.
The reference to the contractor business gives me confidence that it is the same Henderson Plummer who had a concrete business in Mason and who poured this sidewalk.
There is a squat brick storefront, built in the 1950s but attached to a rambling older house behind it, on the north side of East Michigan Avenue at the east corner of Custer. It currently houses the Applause Salon. I don’t know what was in it before that, only that in the 1960s it was Stasi Hair Fashions, a wig shop. Out front is this stamp.
The sidewalk also hosts a bit of graffiti from Lisa W. of the salon. The building and the house are currently owned by a Lisa and Jon W., so I assume Lisa is the owner. (They don’t live in the house, though. They apparently rent it out, disappointing me in my desire to see an old fashioned owner-resident situation.)
I took a late walk after a lousy day, so this is the best I can do. It’s a Paul Wright stamp on the south side of Jerome Street between Clemens and Fairview. My brain wants to fill in the mis-struck final digit to make a 3, but when I compare it with the other Paul Wright stamp I’ve collected from North Magnolia Avenue nearby, it looks like it matches the shape of the 2 from that one. I’m inclined to guess they’re both 1952.
I found another diagonal DPW stamp, on the west side of Shepard Street between Marcus and Elizabeth. This one is very, very worn, so it’s not surprising that I’ve apparently overlooked it on many walks through this block. I know what it says only because the shape of a DPW stamp is so familiar.
The date is practically illegible. As with several other diagonal DPW stamps I’ve found in the area, the last digit is clearly a 1, but the penultimate digit is obscure. It looked almost like a “3” to the eyes but when I leaned down and felt it, I thought it felt like a 2, same as the others.
This pair of stamps is on the east side of North Magnolia Avenue between Vine and Fernwood. I’ve been striking out a lot recently on identifying contractor histories; I wasn’t able to find anything on Dumeney. It doesn’t help that there was a Gary Dumeney who served as the spokesperson for the Meridian Township Police for many years.
I found another diagonal DPW stamp! A pair, this time, on facing blocks. This is on the west side of Shepard just south of Marcus, in front of the house on the corner.
The year is extremely hard to read. I can definitely make out that the last digit is a 1. The decade digit is a lot murkier. Feeling it I thought I made out 2, thus 1921, but I can’t be at all sure. 1931 is another possibility.
Here’s a faded old Department of Public Works stamp on Elizabeth St., at the southwest corner of Allen and Elizabeth. It’s next to a house that kept my spirits up by leaving their Christmas lights, including a tree on their screened porch, up well past Christmas. I used to walk to Allen specifically because of a few houses on the street that still had lights until the end of January or so.
It’s funny now that I used to think 1920s stamps were a big deal. They’re actually fairly common. It doesn’t stop me from trying to catalogue them all, though. 1930s and later is really where I draw the line and say “I don’t need that one” if it’s not an unusual contractor.
