In a backyard in Brooklyn, Oregon, we talked and wondered who had been there before. Who had lived in that sweet little house? Why had they painted this, or opened that? Every house has a story - some much longer than others. This house was a hundred years old. It had a lot to tell.
The neighborhood of Brooklyn lies on the Eastern shore of the Willamette, just level with the Northern tip of Ross Island. Today, it is a quiet, comfortable little area bordered by busy Ross Island bridge to the North, bustling 99E highway to the West, throughway 39th Ave to the West, and industrial shortcut Holgate to the South.
The unique qualities of the area hearken back 12,000 years to the Missoula flood, which rerouted the Willamette and deposited tons of sand and gravel onto the area now known as Ross Island. The East bank of the Willamette was soft and naturally crisscrossed with streams, marshes, brooks and wetlands, which made the West side much more desirable for development and shaped the differences in character between East and West Portland in its early days.
The Sellwood streetcar route was extended through the area in 1892, fueling explosive growth and subdivision of the stretch of land between Ladd's Addition and Sellwood between approximately 1900 and 1925.
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| Source: Oregonian, September 25, 1910 |
Addition after addition was platted, sold and built en masse, so quickly that city pavers could hardly keep up.
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| Source: City of Portland Archives Via the Vintage Portland Blog |
It was at this time that the high ground in Brooklyn was styled as "Benedictine Heights" after the Catholic parish that had briefly claimed, and then sold, a large tract in the area.
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| Source: Oregonian, April 16, 1911 |
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| Source: The Oregonian, July 6 1913 |
The house I was visiting was platted and sold to a developer named Frank Bovies (or possibly Bevler), in 1922.
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| Source: Oregonian, June 4, 1922 |
Mr Bovies then hired contractor William Chase to build a modest 1 1/2 story frame house on the land, receiving the address designation 808 East 9th Street South once building began.
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| Source: Portland Maps |
Construction was completed in early 1925, and the house was ready to welcome its first occupants, the Grano family.
Pietro Arturo di Grano was born in Mangone, Italy, in 1888. He was the third of seven children born to Alessandro Grano and Rosa Tucci. When Pietro was 12 years old his cousins Dominico, a laborer, and Stanislao, a tailor by trade, had immigrated to New York. Three years later Pietro traveled to Naples to board the
Citta di Milano alone, lying about his age to obtain his ticket -- he stated he was 21 when he was in fact only 15.
He also neglected to obtain his cousins' New York address before his departure. After a voyage of seventeen days he found himself unable to disembark without being able to prove he had a destination address, having answered "nobody" to the question of whom he was going to visit.
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| Pietro's answer at bottom |
After three days he was able to contact his cousin Stanislao, who provided the address for him and had him released. He may have stayed with Stanislao and Dominico in New York City for a time, but by 1908 they had relocated to Portland, Oregon, where he, Dominico, and Peter's younger brother Adolfo shared rooms at 322 1/2 First Street, an address now occupied by the Oregonian building.
The brothers formed a corporation with some fellow Italian immigrants, variously called "Costanzo & Grano" and "Costanzo, Grano & Esposito," for which Pietro, now going by Peter, acted as chauffeur. Over the years he drove a Studebaker and then a Buick, according to license records. They participated in local Italian advocacy groups, scraping together $10.00 in 1909 for relief from the devastating Messina earthquake back home. In 1915 Peter was caught speeding and rather humorously written up in the Oregonian:
In May 1918 he was again involved in an automotive mishap:
Over this period he frequently lived with relatives or shared rooms, and eventually gained a position in the local fire brigade. For a time he lived at 784 Kelly St, now 3214 SW Kelly Ave.
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| Source: Google street view of 3214 SW Kelly Ave |
In June of 1918, however, he was drafted into the Army and sent to Fort McDowell in California to be trained.
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| Source: Oregonian, June 3, 1918 |
He was assigned to Company 'E' of the 63rd Infantry regiment before being
transferred to Camp Meade in Maryland in anticipation of being shipped to Europe in the fall. Influenza hit the camp, however, forcing widespread quarantine of units and resulting in the
deaths of at least 98 soldiers by October 4. By early November their departure date was once again set, but with the Armistice declared on November 11, 1918, he ended up remaining in the United States to finish out his term of service and was discharged in May of 1919.
On his return to Portland and now 31 years old, Peter rejoined the fire brigade and moved into his cousin Dominico's old rooms at 424 2nd Street downtown (now approximately 1510 SW 2nd Ave), located just half a block from his old lodgings on 1st Street.
In December of 1920 he married 21-year old Cecelia Attanasio, a second-generation Italian immigrant.
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| Source: Oregonian, December 16, 1920 |
They moved several blocks south of downtown to the same street as her parents, Caruthers Street, located near the present-day South end of the I-5 river crossing and quite close to OHSU's Schnitzer Lot on the South Waterfront. Their first child, Arthur Alexander Grano, was born on January 4, 1925.
Three months later they spent $5100 to purchase a brand-new bungalow in Benedictine Heights, overlooking the Willamette River.
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| Source: Oregonian, April 12, 1925 |
Peter must have been incredibly proud of his purchase of a fine new home for his family. Sadly only a year later, he was injured in a large blaze while working as a City firefighter.
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| Source: Oregonian, July 31, 1926 |
In 1926 the Ross Island Bridge was constructed, changing the face of the Brooklyn neighborhood forever. One 1912 plan, however, would have linked Ross Island to the East and West banks of the river and made a resort area out of the island itself -- unfortunately, the idea never came to fruition.
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| Source: Vintage Portland |
Over the next few years the 99E "Superhighway" was under construction as well, linking North and South Portland on the East side.
Its completion in 1932 would end the free access to the shores of the Willamette that had been enjoyed by Brooklyn residents until that time.
Peter and Celia's second child, Gloria Anne Grano, was born in 1930.
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| Source: Oregonian, September 11, 1930 |
In 1933
Portland underwent a massive address reorganization that renamed nearly every street and renumbered nearly every house, creating the cohesive "five quarters" system we know today. Peter's house, 808 East 9th St South, became 4030 SE 9th Ave.
Sometime before 1937, however, Celia and Peter separated. Celia asked for a divorce, resumed her maiden name, took the children with her and moved back to Caruthers Street with her sister Mary and her husband, leaving Peter alone in the home.
In February of 1937, when Peter was 49 years old, a 24 year-old widow placed an advertisement in the Oregonian.
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| Source: Oregonian, February 7, 1937. |
The young woman, Patricia Loraine Purchase, was born in Nebraska in 1913, and at the age of 17 married a young man named Merle Howell Hearn in Washington state. In 1932 she gave birth to a son, Oran Eugene, and in 1933 a daughter, Betty Alice. Tragedy struck three years later, when Merle died of sepsis.
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| Source: Oregonian, April 29, 1936 |
Patricia moved back with her parents in Washington, and began to advertise for work as a housekeeper. In August of 1937 she tried her luck with advertising again:
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| Source: Oregonian, August 1, 1937 |
It is unclear how Peter and Patricia met -- perhaps he answered her ad -- but a month later, they were married in Skamania, Washington.
The marriage was short-lived. By the time the census was taken in 1940, they were divorced. Patricia moved to Kansas, where she married again and had three more children before her third husband died in 1960. They had also apparently separated, as he posted bail for missed child support payments just a few months before he died. Peter Grano is not mentioned in her obituary.
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| Source: The Manhattan Mercury, September 28, 1999 |
With Patricia gone, Peter Grano was once again living alone at the house. In 1940 secured a pension from the fire department, possibly related to his prior injury.
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| Source: Oregonian, February 6, 1940 |
In October of 1940 Peter was married a third time, to 26-year old Elizabeth Elaine Reed McGuire, a native of Lane County, Oregon and beautician by trade. Peter was 52 at the time of their marriage. Elizabeth, known as "Betty," had been married once before at the age of 16, to a man named James Robert McGuire in Gaston, Oregon, and had a son, David, and a daughter, Delores, who turned seven the same month her mother remarried. Betty left her children behind in Butteville, Oregon, where her ex-husband James and the two children helped out on his parents' farm. Before 1946 James would move to Spokane, leaving the children with his parents.
In 1942 America joined World War II, and Peter registered for the draft, listing Betty as his emergency contact and his employer as "Burdick-Union Stockyards." By 1943 Peter had taken work at the airport, then called Portland Columbia Airport. Betty was still living with Peter and working at Darwin Jones Beauty Shop in downtown Portland.
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| Source: Oregonian, February 28, 1944 |
In 1943 Peter's oldest son Arthur Grano dropped out of Benson Polytechnic High School to work at Willamette Iron and Steel corporation, no doubt feeling an obligation to aid the war effort. He entered the Army in November of the same year and was trained with a tank destroyer outfit at Camp Hood in Texas. He was sent overseas in May of 1944.
On his 20th birthday Arthur was reported missing from the Belgian front.
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| Source: Oregonian, February 15, 1945 |
In April 1945, Arthur was reported as having been taken as a prisoner of war. By May, he was back in the United States.
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| Source: Oregonian, May 8, 1945 |
In April of 1946, another blow struck Peter and Betty Grano. Betty's little daughter Delores, who had been living with her grandparents in Butteville, Marion County, died. I wasn't able to discern the cause.
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| Source: The Capital Journal, Salem, Oregon, January 7, 1946 |
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| Source: Findagrave.com |
Betty must have been devastated by the loss. It is unclear if she left Peter shortly before or shortly after her daughter's death, but she was married a third time, to Donald Hensel Ross, in 1948.
The house at 4030 SE 9th Ave was apparently put on the market in 1947 and 1949, though does not appear to have actually changed hands.
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| Source: Oregonian, September 12, 1947 |
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| Source: Oregonian, April 3, 1949 |
By 1950, all of Peter's siblings except his oldest brother Domenico has emigrated from Italy to the Pacific Northwest, and had Americanized their names.
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| Source: Oregonian, September 3, 1950 |
Peter's younger brother Adolfo, who had briefly roomed with Peter just after they immigrated, relocated to Tacoma, Washington, where he changed his name to Jack Silver, entered the lower-tier boxing scene, and was married six times.
Cecelia Attanasio died in 1957.
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| Source: Oregonian, August 4, 1957 |
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| Source: findagrave.com |
Peter and Cecelia's son Arthur would eventually attain the rank of corporal. He married in 1948 at the age of 23, to 26-year old Lois Aycock. He mostly worked odd jobs, such as street cleaning, driving a truck or as a grocery clerk and continued to live with his aunt, uncle and mother on Caruthers Street. By 1954 he had divorced Lois and married Virginia Sipp, a young woman of striking good looks.
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| Virginia Sipp. Source: Ancestry.com yearbooks. |
It is unclear if they separated in the interim, but on the day after Christmas in 1957 he and Virginia "remarried" each other. Around this time his mother Cecelia passed away, and he relocated to Camas, Washington, to be nearer to his sister Gloria. By 1964 Arthur was again divorced, and married a third (or fourth?) time, to Dolores Ramsden. They divorced in 1975. He died in 1998, and is buried at Willamette National Cemetery.
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| Source: findagrave.com |
Peter and Cecelia's daughter Gloria Anne Grano lived with her aunt, uncle and mother on Caruthers until her marriage in 1955 to Charles W. Atkins, a paper mill worker in Camas. They had three children, and she died in 2002.
Peter died in 1961, having lived alone in the house for several years until his death.
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| Source: Oregonian, July 15 1961. |
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| Source: findagrave.com |
It was time for the house to find a new family.
Gerald Ellis Dean was born in Washington state to Richard and Inez Bergey Dean in 1932. He was raised in Spokane and worked odd jobs after graduating high school. At the age of 22 he was working as a gas station attendant in the community. Sometime before 1960, however, he relocated to Portland and moved into 7405 N Newell Ave, just off of Lombard in the far north Kenton neighborhood.
At the age of 28 he married Janis Marie Vezzani, a 20-year old secretary who lived in the Westmoreland neighborhood and had graduated from St Mary's Academy two years earlier.
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| Source: Oregonian, October 23, 1960 |
Their first child, Georgia Anne Dean, was born March 9, 1962. By 1964 they had moved into 4030 SE 9th Ave, and were living there when their son Michael was born on March 31. By 1966, however, they had outgrown the home and it was put on the market again. Gerald and Janis would divorce in October of 1976.
The next owner was probably Thomas J McCurley Jr, who applied for exceptions to code on the house including too-short ceilings and too little head clearance on the basement stairs in 1971.
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| Source: PortlandMaps.com |
Thomas was born in Portland in 1912, son of a large family of Irish and Scottish immigrants. His father, for whom he was named, was born in Buenos Aires, possibly as a member of the
Irish Argentine. Thomas' grandparents appear to have changed their minds about South America, however, and moved back to Ireland for a time before emigrating to the United States. His father was a streetcar conductor while Thomas was growing up in Portland (hopefully not the same conductor whose car was bashed by Peter Grano on Hawthorne).
In 1930 Thomas finished his training at Benson Polytechnic High and began work at a print shop at the age of 17. He married Wilhelmina Rice and had a son by 1939, Thomas J McCurley III.
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| Thomas J McCurley and Wilhelmina Rice. Source: Ancestry.com member-submitted photo |
In 1940 the family were living at 3537 SE Belmont Ave and Thomas was working as a railway operator.
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| Street view of 3537 SE Belmont Ave |
The McCurley's daughter Marilyn was born in 1945. Thomas Jr would have already moved out of his parents' household by the time his father bought the house on 9th, having married in 1961, but Marilyn married in July 1966, right around the time the house at 4030 SE 9th was purchased. It is unclear, however, when the McCurleys moved or why. It's also possible that Thomas bought the house as an investment, and rented it to the next young couple to live there, the Kindricks.
Victoria Bea "Vicki" Karns was born in Hood River, Oregon in 1947, and attended the local high school. Here she is at age 16:
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| Vicki Karns. Source: Ancestry.com yearbooks. |
At 20, she married 19 year-old Joseph Leon Whitaker, from nearby The Dalles, Oregon. They had been living together in The Dalles, both providing the same address on their marriage license.
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| Joseph Leon Whitaker. Source: Ancestry.com yearbooks. |
They were married on April 25, 1967, and he was deployed to the conflict in Vietnam less than a month later, on May 22. On August 29 he was killed when the helicopter he was flying crashed.
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| Source: The Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon. November 24, 1967. |
A year later Vicki was living in Portland, renting half of a duplex on the corner of SE Francis and SE 28th Place. She remarried in March of 1968, this time to a strapping young man from Texas named Larry Joe Kindrick.
Larry was born in Wellington, Texas, in 1948, so close in age to his sister Lydia that they were in the same grade in school. His parents, Cecil Ray and Sally Pauline, named their five sons Terry, Jerry, Gary, Larry and David. Four more daughters named Ruth, Loretta, Nadine and Anita rounded out the large family.
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| Young Larry Joe Kindrick, from a Texas yearbook. Source: Ancestry.com |
At least part of the family moved to Hood River before Larry Joe started high school, and he threw himself into sports in his new home, participating in basketball, track and football.
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| Larry Joe Kindrick on the football team in Hood River, Oregon. Source: Ancestry.com yearbooks. |
Larry Joe joined the Army or was drafted on May 8, 1968, just two months after marrying Vicki. His service was short, for unclear reasons, and ended August 19, 1969. Vicki and Larry do not appear to have had any children. They moved into the house a 4030 SE 9th sometime before 1975. Larry Joe died young, however, of causes I could not discover. He was buried in Willamette National Cemetery in 1975, having died at just 27 years of age. Vicki does not appear to have remarried.
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| Source: Oregonian, June 7, 1975 |
In 1977 the house was again put on the market -- this time, in very 1970's fashion, having been carpeted wall-to-wall and the basement converted into a "party room."
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| Source: Oregonian, February 27, 1977 |
After that, records become much more scarce. But from the mundane to the tragic, this little house has seen its share of Portland history.
