245 Trowbridge St NE
195 Trowbridge before 1912
http://maps.ci.grand-rapids.mi.us/website/countymap/image.pl?ppn=41-14-19-333-016
E 32 FT OF S 30 FT OF LOT 9 & E 32 FT OF LOT 10* CORBIT S & CO ADDITION
It was built about 1880. It has pine floors and trim, plaster walls with a coal stove, one bath, five rooms on the first floor, two up. The garage 8x11 was added in 1915.
Permit History
April 7, 1924 J Hubbard
Add'n at rear of house (could this have been the bathroom?)
Jul 17, 1945 J Hubbard
reroof
Sep 12, 1967 Mrs. Hubbard
conversion to gas burner (finally no more ashes on the sidewalk)
When I was an adult I had the chance to inspect this house. I couldn't believe it. I was finally inside. The driveway was just a two-track and leading off it was a low basement door. I had to stoop down to get in. The floor was loose dirt. Looking up I found a "secret" room, a 4 foot square vertical extension that had no floor but would have been between the stairs and the bathroom on the first floor. It was obvious the bathroom had been added onto an old porch. The front door entered into the center dining room. To the left was the front room and opposite the dining room was a small bedroom and the stairway going upstairs. The very small kitchen was in the rear. Upstairs there was a short narrow hall on the west side above the small downstairs bedroom that led into two bedrooms, one above the front room and one above the dining room. There was a high rear diamond-shaped window that looked out over the kitchen in the back bedroom.
The house had red asphalt siding and a big hedge around the front yard. Mrs. Hubbard lived here and had a dog chained in the fenced rear yard that barked constantly. We would sit on the front steps and she told us wild stories The only one I remember is that she said the old lady who lived with her was an India who would stare at us through the front screen door, and if we tried to go into the house, she'd scalp us. The house was right in the center of the hill and during the winter Mrs. Hubbard would put her ashes out on the sidewalk and ruin the sliding.
The Residents:
1900 Census Page 58 - David Carew (The census seems to have 195 and 199 switched) A Robert Carew lives at 118 Clancy.
1912 - Ward Hubbard
From article My neighborhood
From Heading History and the City of GrandRapids
From web site: MyCityofGrandRapids.info