Time Machine: House of teachers

CEDAR RAPIDS - George M. Olmsted had been ill, but seemed to be improving when in December 1896 he moved his family into the new Queen Anne style home architects Josselyn and Taylor had designed at 1403 Second Ave. in Cedar Rapids.

The five-bedroom home with third-floor ballroom was built on land that originally had been a driving park and fairground. A pony barn that housed the park ticket office, built in 1871, still stood.

Olmsted arrived in Cedar Rapids in 1865 and within a decade had become a prominent businessman. He formed a limited partnership in March 1875 with general partner E.F. Pomeroy and special partners T.M. Sinclair and H.B. Soutter. Their business was a soap and candle-making firm located at the east end of the James Street (14th Avenue) bridge. Pomeroy & Olmsted's Excelsior Soap and Candle Works grew quickly and soon had customers across the state. In just a few more years the company made 50,000 pounds of laundry and toilet soap and 5,000 pounds of refined tallow each week and was shipping goods to Minnesota, Nebraska and the Dakotas.

Olmsted married Ella Shaver, daughter of Isaac H. Shaver, on Oct. 31, 1878. Isaac Shaver and Edsel Dows owned the Shaver and Dows Company cracker factory. The Olmsteds lived at 120 Eagle St. (Second Avenue). They had two children, Esther and William.

In 1880, Pomeroy was thinking about starting a similar business in Minneapolis and decided to dissolve the partnership. Olmsted, Sinclair and Soutter then formed a corporation, G.M. Olmsted & Co., to manufacture and sell soap. The company also had a rendering business.

After 10 years, Olmsted changed directions. With his father-in-law, he started the Shaver & Olmsted Cheese factory, selling wholesale butter and cheese. Olmsted also served on the city council as an alderman and in 1890 as acting mayor.

During the first year he lived in his new home, Olmsted suffered from Bright's disease or acute nephritis. He died Sept. 12, 1897. His daughter was 14 and his son was 9. The funeral was held at the house.

Olmsted's family lived there until 1909. Then it became the home of the Rev. Hiram Huston and Mary Ellen Rogers Brownell. Hiram was pastor of the Grande Avenue Presbyterian Church at the corner of Grande Avenue and 17th Street SE.

The Brownells had four daughters, all of whom attended Coe College. Grace, who set up a studio in the house and taught piano, became the Coe College librarian in 1925. Maude began teaching in Iowa City public schools in 1910, eventually coming back to Cedar Rapids to teach at McKinley High School. Louise began teaching in 1914. She taught at Harrison, Johnson, Adams and Taylor elementaries. In 1922 she was hired as the algebra teacher at Roosevelt High School. Florence married Dr. Lester DeYarman, a dentist, in a 1920 wedding at the Brownell home officiated by her father. The DeYarmans gave the Brownells their only grandchild, James Huston DeYarman.

A nephew, Harry H. Rogers, also was reared in the Brownell home after being orphaned in 1905. Harry and Florence were the only children to marry and move away from the house.

The Rev. Brownell died in 1924. Grace and her mother died in 1945. Louise died in 1949 after teaching for 35 years in Cedar Rapids.

Maude continued to live in the house. In 1954, she entertained her cousins, Harry and his brother, Wyoming Gov. Clifford J. Rogers, and Rogers' wife. Maude retired from teaching in 1955 after 45 years.

In 1971, Dr. DeYarman, whose wife had died in 1969, sold his home and moved into the house with Maude. She died in February 1986 at age 98. Lester DeYarman died that July.

The Brownell family, with the exception of Harry, is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery.

Sylvera Wenger Anderson, the widow of former Delaware County Sheriff Carl R. Anderson, was the next owner of 1403 Second Ave. SE. She had been a teacher in Hopkinton and Olin and worked as a substitute teacher in Cedar Rapids public schools. She renovated the house's interior and had the exterior restored to the five colors of an original Queen Anne home. The house received the Cedar Rapids Board of Realtors 'Landmark” award while she lived there and was often part of the group's charitable house-and-garden tours.

Anderson died in 1995, passing the house on to her friend, Ray Westrom.

Today it is the home of another teacher, a Coe College graduate.