September 2022 – Truxton Is In Shaw

Black Home Owners of Truxton Circle: Olinian Hollaway- 1611 New Jersey Ave NW

photo of property

I found an earlier post when the house was up for sale in 2005. Also this property was at one time owned by the Broadus family until they lost it in 1927.

January 1948, Olinian A Hollaway purchased 1611 New Jersey Avenue NW from Percy and wife, Valentine Waddill. Mr. Hollaway took on a $4,500 debt with trustees at 6% interest, and paid it off in September 1964 when he and his wife, Natalie, sold the house to Collier & Vogel Inc.

Usually for every trust/ mortgage there is a release noting the end of the debt. Sometimes when I don’t locate the corresponding release or trust, it is usually something that got lost with fat fingers or bad OCR. I had a release for the Hollaways and did not see an obvious trust. After they sold in July 1964, there were two releases. The first, from September 17, 1964 paid off a 1948 $5,000 trust between the Waddills and the Perpetual Building Association. Olinian’s name doesn’t show up anywhere in the original document. However, the document was part of the January 1948 sale.

Since Olinian is such an unusual name, it was fairly easy to look up his history. When we first find Olinian in the 1950 census on New Jersey Ave NW, he is a clerk working for the city post office. His wife Natalie was a stay at home mom caring for their, then 9 year old, daughter Janice. They lived with two older men, roomers.

Olinian Arthur Hollaway (sometimes spelled Holloway) was born September 6, 1907 in New York City. He served in the New York National Guard, 369th Infantry, off & on between 1928-1930, as a musician. According to his service card he was a deserter, twice.

Olinian married Natalie Clementine Cooke in June in 1939. Very soon their daughter Janice was born in 1940. The family lived at 2025 4th St NW in the mid-1940s. In the 1940 census they lived at 2715 Georgia Ave NW. Janice was not listed.

After selling 1611 NJ Ave NW they bought 413 Jefferson Street NE.

Olinian died in 1985. Natalie was a widow for a very long time until she too passed on May 10, 2010. Despite being dead the house on Jefferson Street is still in both parties names and paying taxes. Since their daughter would be the logical real owner, and she was born pre-WW2, I’m not going to get my undies in a bunch about the senior citizen homestead exemption the Hollaways have.

Black Home Owners of Truxton Circle: Bessie Broadus- 1607 NJ Ave NW- cul de sac

I should be pretty much done with the Broadus family. But Bessie Broadus was listed as the head of household in 1950, so let me tie up this loose end.

I already went over most of the Broadus family history with the ownership of 1607 NJ Ave NW being in the Broadus family for about 100 years. Just a reminder, Wallace Broadus’ ownership can be traced back to 1919. He may have owned it before then. Then Arvid and his siblings owned the property.

Bessie Broadus was Wallace’s sister. As far as I can tell her name did not appear on the property. But she was a member of the family that owned 1607 New Jersey Ave NW, so close enough.

Bessie Broadus was born around 1899 to Berry and Louise Broadus. She worked at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. And she never married.

Memory Lane: Morgan St NW Stairs, ca 2003

I was looking through my old Flickr account because I am going to either shut it down or something where I am not paying a large annual fee to keep it.

So flipping through some old photos, I found this photo from 2003-ish.

Memory Lane: 1623 New Jersey Ave, 2003

I was looking through my old Flickr account because I am going to either shut it down or something where I am not paying a large annual fee to keep it.

So flipping through some old photos, I found this old gem from 2003, maybe. I don’t trust the date.

As you can see a pop up is popping up in this picture. The 2004 photo hides the pop up.

Black Home Owners of Truxton Circle: Arvid Broadus- 1607 New Jersey Ave NW

We’ve seen the Broadus family on this blog before. The earliest was in 2010 after Arvid Broadus had died and the rear of the house, 1607 New Jersey Avenue NW, appeared to be on its way to falling down into the alley. There’s also a Black Home Owners of Truxton Circle for Wallace J. Broadas post from 2021. It appears I didn’t focus on the DC Recorder of Deeds. They borrowed so much I could not cover it here in a decent narrative fashion. So I will just put it in a table below.

Wallace J. and wife, Madge V. Broadas appear in the earliest online land records in 1922. Records hint that they owned the property as far back as 1919 and the family appear in the 1920 census. Madge died in 1922. Then Wallace was married to Alberta, then after 1928 she no longer appeared on property documents. Wife Hattie B. shows up once in 1951 and is never mentioned again.

In 1966 Arvid, son of Wallace, and his siblings became the owners of 1607 New Jersey Avenue. Then the ownership gets whittled down to Arvid and sister Evelyn Broadus Shears in the 1980s. There are a slew of wrongful housing documents, where DCRA is the other party, spanning from 2010 to 2014. The house was sold to Cameron St LLC in 2013 for $185,000. I noticed the house was in poor condition, threatening to fall into the alley and exposed, in April 2010. All those wrongful housing documents started up in June 2010.

The table of the whole drama of real estate documents will be under the fold. It took 2-3 weeks to research this, looking at every stinking document, and I just want to be done with this house.

Anwho. Arvid or Arvide Wallace Broadus was born in 1919. He served in World War II as a private. In 1943 he married Mary Louise Jackson and in 1950, in Florida, they divorced. In 1944, they had a son, who grew up to be the Rev. Tyrone Livingston Broadus. Tyrone was born in Washington, DC so they may have lived at 1607 NJ Ave NW. Tyrone seems to have floated between DC and Florida. In 1967 Tyrone Broadus was one of the 13 honor guards chosen to escort the Kennedy family and President Lyndon B. Johnson to the consecration of the John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame grave site. In the 1950s Arvid was a Pentagon security messenger. Arvid died in 2009.

Continue reading Black Home Owners of Truxton Circle: Arvid Broadus- 1607 New Jersey Ave NW

Memory Lane: Shaw Library 2006- the ugly one

I was looking through my old Flickr account because I am going to either shut it down or something where I am not paying a large annual fee to keep it.

So flipping through some old photos, I found this old gem from August 2006. Above is the Waltha T. Daniels Shaw Library in 2006. There is a much prettier library in that spot now.