228 Goundry Street
This fine brick home was built by Dr. Heinrich Leonhardt.
Photo above: 228 Goundry Street, courtesy of Marcia Miner Poleon.
The existing home at 228 Goundry Street is one of two brick homes in this neighborhood from its era, the much older DeGraff mansion built circa 1882-4 at 273 Goundry being the other. Built as a yellow, clapboard 1-1/2 story home with a veranda across the front, 228 Goundry was originally the home and office of Dr. Allen T. Leonard. It then was purchased by Dr. Leonhardt.
Dr. Heinrich C. Leonhardt came to the United States from Canada. His parents, Johannes Leonhardt and Magdalena Klaum, arrived at Ellis Island on July 9, 1855, having left Manheim, West Germany. They lived in the United States for three years before moving to a small hamlet in Canada, then called Berlin, later renamed Kitchener. After they lived there for a few years, they moved to Brodhagen. Heinrich was born in Bornholm, just north of Stratford, on October 3, 1864, a twin to Christian Heinrich. There is a cemetery in that area which has in the neighborhood of 150 Leonhardts buried in it.
Heinrich left home at the age of 13 with 80 cents in his pocket “to seek his fortune,” and walked nine miles to get a job in a country general store in Mitchell, Ontario, at a salary of $2 a week. Within a few years, he was employed in a Toronto store, planning to one day own his own business.
He was invited to a medical lecture at the University of Toronto by friends, and became so fascinated by this lecture and others he attended that he decided to study medicine. He came to Buffalo to attend the University of Buffalo Medical School, graduating in 1890. Immediately after graduation, he moved to North Tonawanda and established his practice, specializing in proctology. He initially rented office space from Dr. Jennie Harris.
In 1894, he went to Austria for post-graduate study, and administered anti-toxin for the first time. As impressed as he had been by this experience, he long held that the most important contribution made by the medical profession had been the use of x-rays. He was in Austria during its heyday, and saw Emperor Franz Joseph riding in splendor through the streets, his royal carriage drawn by four white horses. Dr. Leonhardt dined frequently in the Beethoven restaurant in the home of the great composer.
Dr. Leonhardt married, had one child, a daughter Anne, and became a widower. A physician and surgeon who practiced eventually for 56 years, his descendents tell us that he had a horse and buggy and a driver and, when going on his rounds, handed the driver a list. The driver would take him on house calls, stop, Dr. Leonhardt would treat the patient, and proceed on to the next patient. When he first began his practice, he walked, later riding a bicycle, and eventually graduating to the horse and buggy with the driver. He was one of the first in the community to own and use an automobile.
Dr. Leonhardt was in the service during World War I, stationed in Puerto Rico. As an officer in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, he was sent into the interior of Puerto Rico during a severe epidemic. He had to take over schools, converting them into temporary hospitals. He remarried in 1907 and moved to Bayamon, Puerto Rico, where he had purchased land, built a plantation, and grew many different crops for the government, as Puerto Rico had been newly acquired during the Spanish American War. Another daughter, Margarita, was born in Puerto Rico in 1909.
Photo: 228 Goundry Street in 2006, courtesy of Donna Zellner Neal. This brick home was built by Dr. Heinrich C. Leonhardt.
Dr. Edward and Dr. Caroline Koenig lived in the clapboard house at 228 Goundry, probably while Dr. Leonhardt was in Puerto Rico. The clapboard home burned down during this period.
In 1921, Dr. Leonardt went abroad for further study, finding Germany quite different from Austria. There was so little heat in his room there that he had to wear his overcoat when studying. Later, he went to London to study rectal surgery under Sir Charles Gordon-Watson.
Dr. Leonhardt and his family had been traveling back and forth by steamship between Puerto Rico and North Tonawanda for some time. By 1923, they finally decided to move back to North Tonawanda to resume Dr. Leonhardt’s medical career here. His younger daughter Margarita lived in Niagara Falls with her mother’s family while the present red brick home at this site, a modern building at the time, was constructed for his office and home.
When Dr. Leonhardt was in his sixties, he went abroad again for post-graduate study. At 75, he flew to New York City to see the World’s Fair. During his career, he also found time to write a booklet on proctology for his patients. Dr. Leonhardt was recognized on the 50 th anniversary in the medical profession by the Medical Society of New York State for his “devotion to the service of the public in the practice of medicine.” On his 52nd anniversary, the Twin City Academy of Medicine honored him with a banquet. At the speaker’s table, he told his fellow physicians and surgeons, “If I had a chance to live my life again, I’d choose the same profession. No calling offers greater opportunities for service.”
On his 70th birthday he stated that he had no intention of retiring, repeating this pledge during World War II. “I’m needed more than ever now,” he told the Buffalo Courier Express, “for so many of our younger doctors have gone off to war, and six physicians of the Tonawandas have died within the last few months.” He said, “In war time, a doctor’s duty is as obvious as a soldier’s. He must stay on the job.” During World War II, he worked tirelessly to convert Tonawanda schools into emergency first-aid stations.
Dr. Leonhardt and his second wife separated after the marriage of Margarita to G. Norris Miner. They maintained separate homes in North Tonawanda until Dr. Leonhardt moved to St. Petersburg, Florida in 1946 and lived there until 1962 when he as almost 97 years old. He retired to St. Petersburg because he had earlier spent five winters there. In retirement, he engaged in gardening, with orchids and other tropical plants his specialty.
Marcia Miner Poleon, a granddaughter of Dr. Leonhardt’s says that the brick home he had constructed at 228 Goundry Street won an award from an architectural magazine. The house still has its original slate roof. Marcia remembers that her grandfather had installed a wall safe in the home with his name engraved on it in gold print.
Marcia’s mother, Margarita Leonhardt Miner, has shared stories of sleigh rides, the ice man, going to the Riviera when it opened as the Rivera in 1926, and the High Speed Line. She tells of dating being parties in the home, dances, and mothers having tea, lunch, and card parties. Margarita and Helen Rand and Isabel Thompson were great “chums” and used to walk to the Porter home at 378 Goundry at Niagara Street and watch the grand parties that went on there. The gardens at that home extended all the way back to Christiana Street. She remembers bands from New York City and grand dances at the Porter home and down the street at the Peuchen home at 329 Goundry. Mr. Peuchen owned Frontier Manufacturing on Erie Avenue.
The older Leonhardt daughter, Anne, married John Lentz and lived on Klaum Avenue (named for Dr. Leonhardt’s mother’s maiden name), eventually also moving to St. Petersburg. Dr. Leonhardt had also owned property off Nash Road, with the two streets in that area named Leonhardt and Klaum associated with this family.