North Tonawanda History Museum © 366 Goundry Street

This was the home of John E. Oelkers, who had a large grocery business on Webster Street, corner of Tremont. This home was built in 1890, next door to that of James Sweeney Thompson. Mr. Thompson wished it to be a suitable companion to his own pretentious house, so he and Mr. Oelkers planned it together.

Mr. Oelkers was a prosperous grocer and conducted a combination grocery, meat market and dry goods business from the 1890’s through 1930. His business was at the site of the buildings which later housed Wilder’s Hardware and G. C. Murphy’s.

There were seven Oelkers children. The oldest, Dorothy, died at the age of 10. Heidi married Stuart Cramer. Carl Oelkers, married Florence Stevenson, graduated from the University of Michigan and later became City Engineer. Evelyn married Richard Pendleton. Elsie, a talented organist, married Mr. Van Wiggeran. Margaret married Mr. Coller.

The Oelkers home was very beautiful. Like all the old homes on Goundry Street, the wood inside was exceptionally beautiful. The dining room was paneled in birds-eye maple. One whole side had built-in china cupboards or buffets, which reached from the floor to the ceiling and gleamed with sparkling glassware and china.

There was light oak trim in both the parlor and sitting room. In the huge downstairs hall (as large as a living room) there was lovely paneling of dark oak in squares and oblongs, and this also extended up along the long flight of stairs.

The library downstairs was also paneled. In a small recess in one wall was a marble “washstand,” with water coming out of a long arched gooseneck faucet. On the wall hung a huge picture of a St. Bernard dog with a small girl dressed in pink resting her curls on the dog.

Off from the kitchen was the “butler’s pantry,” where the everyday and kitchen dishes were stored in huge cabinets above the sink. Here the extra dishes were prepared while the cook worked in the kitchen. It also provided an additional place to wash your hands when the kitchen was in use. Next to this was a dumb waiter, which was a standard fixture in most of the large homes in the city. This was really a small cupboard, which was hauled up and down to the cellar by attached ropes, and sometimes went from the cellar to the attic. The Oelkers used theirs in the winter to send up the wet washed clothes to dry in the attic.

The cellar was divided into rooms. There was the fruit and vegetable room, which housed hundreds of cans of fruit “put up” or canned in the Fall. There were also bins for the many bushels of apples, potatoes, bees, and onions. And there was a laundry room with the “set tubs” of zinc, at one of which Mrs. B, the “washwoman” presided over every Monday. In those days, no one ever washed on any other day but Monday. If you did, you were considered a “slattern.” Mrs. B. rubbed the dirty clothes on a washboard and they then went into the second tub for rinsing. Often there was a third tub for bluing. Many clothes were boiled in a large copper washboiler on a coal fire. Outside, a huge veranda ran around three sides of this home. In the summer, it was shaded with awnings, and the whole family, plus any neighbor children who happened by, spent most of their time there. Sometimes small plays were performed on the veranda, and there was always cold lemonade available on a hot summer day.