Home sweet home: Siblings share memories of living in historic home

The red brick farmhouse was a landmark on Lima’s east side.

Built by Josiah B. Roberts in the 1800s, the house stood at what is now the corner of Leonard and Lenore avenues. Roberts farmed about 200 acres that stretched from the current Lima Memorial Health System — at that time, the Allen County Fairgrounds — to Lost Creek Country Club.

The house passed through three generations of the family. It went first to Roberts’ daughter Lenore Holdridge, wife of Hiram Holdridge, owner of Model Mills. It later went to Lenore’s brother Thomas C. Roberts, and he passed it down to his daughters, Florence and Ruth Roberts.

By 1960, the house was purchased and turned into Luigi’s Italian restaurant.

The full history of the house and its use as a business was featured in The Lima News last month, but this story offers a glimpse into a period of its history that is less documented.

There is a 30-year time period — from the 1930s to 1960 — when the house’s day-to-day history isn’t as clear.

Enter Janet Miller and Jim Smith. The siblings spent some of their childhood in that house and recently shared details of the home. Miller now lives in Pensacola, Fla., and Smith is owner of Lima Armature Works and lives in Lima.

Both were quite young at the time — both in elementary school. Smith was born in 1930, and Miller was born in 1932.

Their parents, the late Cecil and Lillian Smith, rented the house for a few years in the late 1930s to early 1940s, Miller said. Cecil Smith was a farmer.

“He farmed land there and across (Harding) Highway,” Miller said. “He rented lands to farm then.”

Cecil Smith’s parents, James and Grace Smith, also lived in the house with them. Grandfather helped father with the farm.

“The house was divided into two sections,” Miller said. “It was just a wonderful house. We lived in the larger of the two sections. We had three bedrooms in our section.”

The young family’s portion of the house used the front door, and the grandparents’ portion used the back door.

Upon entering the front door, visitors first stepped into a large hall with an open staircase. The stairs were stained, not painted, and featured a big railing.

“It had the wooden staircase that you could slide down,” Miller said, chuckling. “It was nicely finished inside.”

She also remembers a barn standing out back. Between the house and the barn was a large garden, which the family used.

Her father used Belgian horses on the farm, so the barn was necessary.

Nearby was open land where the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus would set up.

“They used to have the circus right next door,” Smith said. “I can vaguely remember them using elephants to pull stuff out of the mud over there. We could watch them from the upstairs window. It was an interesting place to live.”

His sister has a lot of memories about the holidays.

“I remember one Christmas, it must have been probably when I was about 6, that my father had bought a Shetland pony and he brought that pony into the house through the back of the kitchen, clear into the big living room where we had the Christmas tree,” she said. “It was great, and we kept that pony for a number of years even after we moved out.”

“We used to ride the pony around the area,” her brother remembers.

Christmas in that house was illuminating. There was a heating register that you could see through from the upstairs to the downstairs.

“I can remember that’s when we learned there was no Santa Claus,” she said.

Miller remembers having friends who lived in the Lost Creek area.

“It was still rural but developing at that time,” she said.

The house faced Harding Highway and was back a long dirt lane.

“I can remember as kids playing, they’d come down and we’d ride our bicycles up and down the drive,” Smith said.

When they lived there, there were big trees in the front yard, Miller said.

“I remember we used to walk up that drive to the end. I believe there was a rootbeer stand already there,” she said.

Her brother also remembers visiting the rootbeer stand at “five points,” the intersection of Kibby and Bellefontaine.

Miller started first grade at Bath schools when they lived there, riding the bus to school with her brother. They continued on at Bath until their father and grandfather bought a farm together at Stewart and Lutz roads. At the time Bath schools only offered through the eighth grade, so the siblings continued their schooling at Lafayette Jackson High School (now Allen East).

The Smith family moved on, as did the house and the real estate on which it stood. The house was still standing in the mid-1970s, but it was razed at some point after that to make way for development.

“It was a great house,” Miller said. “I have very fond memories. It’s too bad. I was sorry when they ended up tearing it down.”