One a Car Ran Free Here

Back in 1940, authorities in the DMV (long before it was known as that) came up with what they felt was a plan necessary to ensuring speedy emergency response for fire, police, and other services. They changed all the street names. Not all the names, but for the suburbs that had grown up in Montgomery and Prince George's counties the plan was to extend the street naming system used in the District. The problem was that the actual grid didn't always connect the city with the suburbs. That didn't stop them form developing a rough overlay with the occasional additional new street name that sort-of fit the pattern. They didn't all line up, the definitely didn't connect, but the system was put into place with street signs starting to change in 1941.

I haven't found records with our house's original street number, but when it was built (at least for a few months) the house was on Bayly Avenue. In searching for that name in old newspapers, I turned up one wild tale.

That version is from the Washington Evening Star, but the Washington Times–Herald also ran a version of the story. The the ditch where the car ended up coming to rest is likely the old creek bed that once ran through our side lot.

House History

Searching old newspaper archives for our address, I found some 1946 ads for our house! 

The first one is from late July, the second from early August. The $16,000 sales price appears in this Open House ad, but ones printed in a different paper gave the sales price as $6,000. I'm not sure which is correct based upon the title records.

I'm not sure how they counted rooms back then, but I guess the six rooms are the three bedrooms, the living room, dining room, and kitchen. I'm assuming the ½ bath in the first ad means the basement bathroom is at least partially original. The lot size in the first ad is the correct one. Thanks to last summer's implementation of WMATA's Better Bus Network reorganization, we're no longer a ½ block from the bus. Back then we would have been about a mile to the 82 streetcar stop; now we're around the same distance from two Metrorail Green Line stations (as well as from the nanobrewery named after the old streetcar line).

The lot was originally platted as part of resubdivision of Johnson's and Wine's Third Addition to Hyattsville Hills, and sold in January 1940 to Mrs. Tanya Ritzenberg. Ritzenberg seems to have been involved in building houses in the area; a 1941 Evening Star item says she was erecting 13 two-storey brick and cinderblock houses in the 4600 block of Clay Street NE in D.C.

Our house may have been a similar project as she sold the property a year later, in January 1941, to the Kelley family. The Kelley's turned up in some newspaper searches too as their son was a World War II aviator who was lost over Germany in November 1944 and declared dead a year later. [The side yard lot was also originally bought by Ritzenberg in February 1941, but apparently abandoned it. In September 1943, the county seized the lot and in January 1945 sold it to the Kelleys for back taxes.]

The Kelleys moved out Spring 1946, selling to the Harold and Helen Distad. Harold was born in China, the son of Lutheran missionaries, and he and Helen had wed in DC in 1940. It's not clear if they were buying the house (and side lot) as an investment or something, but they only owned it from April to September 1946 (and clearly had put the house up for sale as late as July 1946).

The house and lot were purchased by the Bennett family in September 1946, and it stayed in that family for the next 32 years. Fred J. Bennett, the principal of Bowie Elementary School, died in 1947, just a few months after purchasing the house. He was a Mason and it appears the house's deed transferred to a fellow; perhaps the member or lodge held a lien on the house. However, the same day, the deed was again transferred to Bennett's wife and son.

There may have a been a connection between the Bennetts and the Kelley's prior to the sale too. A September 1944 newspaper notice was placed by a "John D. Bennett," using the Kelley's address, saying that he was responsible only for his own debts. Fred's son was John Joe, not John D., so maybe this may just be a coincidence.

About a month before her death in November 1978, Leo (Fred's widow and principal of West Lanham Elementary) and John Joe sold the house. It then went through a series of owners selling in September 1980, March 1983, November 1989, and November 1992. The next purchasers, in June 2000, were us!