Thursday, January 9, 2014

1012 E. Erie Avenue

The house fire at 1012 E. Erie Avenue on Dec. 9 that claimed the life of Vicky Kwasny and several family pets was a terrible tragedy. (Here's the link to The Morning Journal's coverage.)

According to The Morning Journal, the house has been traced back to 1894 by the Ohio Historical Society. The house was interesting to me, because for decades it was right across Idaho Avenue from the Ebeneezer Gregg/Myron Foote House (which I wrote about here).

I looked up the house in the city directories to locate the earliest listing. As usual, it wasn't easy, because of the renumbering of many of Lorain's street addresses in the early 1900s. It appears that the house started out with an address of 1004 E. Erie.

The 1903 directory had the house as the home of John and Catherine Snitzler and their family. John Snitzler was a contractor and carpenter. The family also included daughters Kathlyn, Louise ("Lou") and son Jay, who was also a carpenter.
I don't know if John Snitzler built his own home, but it would seem to make sense. It was a beautiful house.

Members of the Snitzler family (spelled 'Schnitzler' in later listings) – specifically "Lou" Snitzler as well as Jay and his wife Ida  – would continue to call the house home until the late 1920s.

Interestingly, in at least one listing (the 1921-22 edition), Jay Schnitzler was listed as being a writer.

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3 comments:

  1. -Alan D HopewellJanuary 9, 2014 at 12:59 PM

    I remember going past that house so many times, and wondering what it would be like to live there....how tragic!

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  2. AnonymousJanuary 10, 2014 at 9:05 AM

    Agree wiith Alan, I think this was broke up into apt at one point??? Also remember The Foote mansion barely we heard it was haunted.
    rae

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  3. Tom H.February 2, 2014 at 9:37 AM

    Vickie was a nice person, I met her and Mark in the mid 1990's after they bought the house. I assisted them in tracing the history of the house, and it was broken up into apts at one time. They were converting it back to a single family home. 1004 East Erie is the corner lot next to the house, we believe there may have been a house there before their's was built.

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