March 1993 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

University and later moved to Chicago to begin working as an architect. He came to South Bend in the 1880s and formed a partnership with Oscar Dirham. Their most significant local commission was the Beiger House in Mishawaka. Schnieder went into business on his own in 1914; many young South Bend architects spent their early years under his tutelage, including Maurice • McErlaine, Ernest Young, and N. Roy Shambleau.[2] HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT The original house here was built circa 1896 for Philip H. and Lydia M. Woolman. It was located on Lot #32 of the St. Joseph County Agricultural Society Addition, platted in 1871 on the site of the old St. Joseph Country fairgrounds. The Woolmans purchased the lot for $725.00 in March, 1896 and probably built the house soon thereafter. Philip Woolman made his living as a masonry contractor. Nothing else is known about the couple.[3] In 1904 the house was purchased by Margaret M. Gish (1855-1934) for $.3800.00. Gish used the house as a rental until 1910 when she sold it to two brothers, Jacob and Louis Levy. Louis Levy and his spouse, Bessie, hired popular local architect Walter Schneider to redesign the residence; his conception borrowed heavily from the Prairie style that had a brief tenure of popularity in the teens and twenties. Like many of his contemporaries, Schneider simplified the style and provided the owners with a handsome, modernized residence. The house remained in the Levy family until 1942.[4] When they purchased the house, Louis and Jacob Levy were co-owners of Levy Brothers, a wholesale grocery business at 223 S. St. Joseph Street. Louis moved into the house with his spouse, Bessie; his brother resided at 722 Van Buren Street. The Levy brothers were Russian in origin and were of the Jewish faith. Louis was born in 1878 and emigrated to the United States in 1896. Bessie Levy was Austrian, born there in 1887. She and Louis were married in Chicago in 1909; they had one son (South Bend attorney Nathan Levy) and two daughters (names unknown). It is not known when Jacob Levy was born or if he emigrated with his brother. The brothers were in the grocery business together for at least fifty years with businesses at the above address and also at 312 E. Wayne ("wholesale fruits"). They also were in business with Charles C. Ward in the 1920s as the Levy -Ward Grocery Company at 401-403 S. St. Joseph ("wholesale groceries") and 326-33- S. Carroll.[5] In 1942 the Levys sold the house to Marian P. and Dr. Francis A. Turfler. Dr. Turfler was an Osteopath; he received his degree in 1932 from Kendallville College of Osteopathy. He was born in Rensselaer, Indiana in 1905 to a family that ultimately included more than thirty osteopathic physicians. He moved to South Bend in 1935. He and Marian (Phillips) were married in 1932; the couple had four daughters. Dr. Turfler was elected president of the Northern Indiana Association of Osteopathic Physicians in 1946 and was the president and secretary of American Osteopathic College of Radiology from 1953 to 1976.[6] The Turflers moved into rural St. Joseph County in the late 1940s and had the house remodeled into two separate apartments. In 1951 the house was sold to Horen Garabadian who moved into one apartment with his mother, Eva, •and rented the other. Horen worked for the Studebaker and Studebaker -Packard companies in the 1950s. Horen Garabadian passed away in Fresno, California in 1980. The house remains in the Garabadian family, currently owned by Hazart Garabadian, Horen's brother.[7] I