A few weeks ago we published on Flashback Friday an early 20th century postcard view of Hillsboro St. as seen from the Capitol building. This week, we’re in the same time period, but the view is now looking up the street toward the Capitol itself.

This card dates from the ‘undivided back’ era, so the message was written on the front.

How are you these days?
Suppose this scene looks familiar to you.
Love from Blanche

A nice sentiment. But what strikes me most about this postcard view is that it reveals that Hillsboro was primarily a residential street in the early 20th century.

On the left can be seen the community grocery store, which in 1907 was operated by E.H. King. The two-story frame building itself had been on the site at least since 1872. In the mid-1920s it was replaced by a modern brick store front, which continued to serve the community as a grocery for many years. That building was demolished in the 1970s.

Any Goodnight Raleigh readers care to guess what occupies the site today?

Our postcard this week was published by the Rotograph Co. of New York.

The Rotograph Co. 1904-1911
684 Broadway, New York, NY

A major printer and publisher of postcards. They took over the National Art View Company in 1904 and republished many of their images under their own name. A wide variety of card types were issued in 19 letter series plus many other miscellaneous cards and printed items, but they are best known for their view-cards in color rotogravure. Many postcards were printed in the Rotograph style without their logo on them. These early cards may have been private contracts made with the Rotograph Company or from orders placed directly with their printers in Germany. Rotograph produced about 60,000 postcards that were printed in Hamburg, Germany, by Stengel of Dresden, by Knackstedt & Nather of Nancy, France, and possibly by Reinike & Rubin of Magdeburg. While Rotograph produced large amounts cards in clearly defined lettered designated sets, they also produced unique small card sets. Rather than assign small sets a new designation, they were often given a taken letter prefix that corresponded to their subject.

“Flashback Friday” is a weekly feature of Goodnight, Raleigh! in which we showcase vintage postcards depicting our historic capital city. We hope you enjoy this week-end treat!

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For Flashback Friday this week we feature a vintage postcard which captures a glimpse of Hillsboro St. which has long since been lost to memory. I love the image of the streetcar rumbling past the elegant mansions on its route up the dusty street.

Hello Lucy,
Sue and I have had a big time at the Raleigh fair. [The rest of the message is illegible.]
– Nellie [?]

Apparently this treasured card was pasted into a scrapbook at some point, and as a result the message has been obscured.

The large neo-classical mansion seen on the right was the home of Richard B. Raney, proprietor of  Raleigh’s famed Yarborough House, and benefactor of Raleigh’s first public library in 1899 — the Olivia Raney Library. Sadly, the mansion was destroyed by the state in the 1950s. The library itself was torn down in 1966.

All the buildings seen in this postcard view are long gone. But there is a single relic seen here that exists to this day — any GNRal readers care to take a stab?

Our postcard this week was published by F.M. Kirby.

Fred Morgan Kirby   1887-1997
Wilkes-Barre, PA

A publisher and large retailer of postcard views of the American South and mid-Atlantic region. These cards were sold from their Five & Dimes stores which numbered 96 in 1912.

“Flashback Friday” is a weekly feature of Goodnight, Raleigh! in which we showcase vintage postcards depicting our historic capital city. We hope you enjoy this week-end treat!

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For Flashback Friday this week, we present this beautifully tinted postcard depicting our historic state capitol. The fine finishing work on this card renders it almost three-dimensional in effect. There is a puzzle here, though. Can you figure it out?

Typically, a celebratory ‘toast’  is offered with raised glasses of alcohol of one sort or another. I wonder if our correspondent, J.S.G., was perhaps mocking the introduction of prohibition in North Carolina, which had been enacted a scant five months before he sent this card in October 1908 to his girlfriend ‘Irma’ in Virginia. (The state of Virginia itself legislated prohibition eight years later in 1916.)

North Carolina’s Official (Dry) Toast
Here’s to the Land of the Long Leaf Pine,
The Summer Land where the Sun Doth Shine,
Where the Weak grow Strong and and the Strong
grow Great –
Here’s to ‘Down Home,’ the Old North State!

J.S.G.

North Carolina’s ‘official state toast’ was penned by Leonora Martin and Mary Burke Kerr in 1904. In 1957 the North Carolina General Assembly officially adopted the original poem, which is actually four stanzas in length, as the official toast to the state.

Interestingly, the state toast was first delivered not in North Carolina, but in Richmond, Va., in 1904 when the Rev. Walter Moore, a Charlotte native, closed his speech to the North Carolina Society of Richmond with a recitation of Leonora Martin’s toast to the ‘Old North State.’

Painted by Margaret Lane, at Greensboro Methodist College, 1919. (Hill-Taylor Collection). Image credit Susan Taylor Block, a fellow North Carolina blogger.

So, in our holiday toasts this year, let’s all take a moment to remember, and to raise a glass to “Down Home, the Old North State!”

As to the ‘puzzle’ mentioned earlier: A distinctive architectural feature of the capitol building was apparently overlooked by the German artist who retouched the master halftone photograph for color reproduction. I’m sure our astute Goodnight Raleigh readers can figure it out.

This week’s Flashback Friday postcard is yet another example of the fine work of the the Paul C. Koebler Co.

Paul C. Koeber Co. (PCK)   1900-1923
85 Franklin Street. New York, NY and Kirchheim, Germany

Published national view-cards and illustrations in chromolithography and in black and white. Much of their color work has a dark heavy feel to it because of the many thick layers of ink they used. In their later years they published postcards using tinted halftones.

The Paul C. Koeber Co. trademark. The peacock (PCK) image probably represented the company’s extensive use of color in its postcards.

“Flashback Friday” is a weekly feature of Goodnight, Raleigh! in which we showcase vintage postcards depicting our historic capital city. We hope you enjoy this week-end treat!

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In several previous installments of Flashback Friday we’ve published vintage postcards depicting Raleigh’s ‘Main Street’. This week, however, the charm of this particular card is not in the visual depiction itself, but in the message written on the back.

Shaw Uni., Raleigh, N.C.

Dear Miss Sanders,
I am well and hope that you and family are the same. I am having a nice time here. The teachers and students are very kind. I went to the Fair Friday and had a fine time.
Love to all.
From, Berta

In a well-studied cursive hand, ‘Berta’ wrote this sweet note to ‘Miss Sanders’ in 1907 relating her impression of the ‘big city’ of Raleigh. This young lady was probably a freshman at Shaw University at the time, and was far away from home. Was Miss Sanders a beloved teacher of Berta’s, or perhaps a cherished mentor? — but then, I wouldn’t know. I do think Berta was perhaps a little homesick, and was looking for some gentle comfort in a familiar connection with home.

This week’s Flashback Friday postcard is another example of the fine work of the the Paul C. Koebler Co.

Paul C. Koeber Co. (PCK)   1900-1923
85 Franklin Street. New York, NY and Kirchheim, Germany

Published national view-cards and illustrations in chromolithography and in black and white. Much of their color work has a dark heavy feel to it because of the many thick layers of ink they used. In their later years they published postcards using tinted halftones.

The Paul C. Koeber Co. trademark. The peacock (PCK) image probably represented the company’s extensive use of color in its postcards.

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Goodnight Raleigh continues to explore our city’s forgotten past. In this, our second installment of Project Bird’s Eye View, we reveal the history of the former Raleigh Sandwich Shop building at 215 S. Wilmington St. This Raleigh landmark is located just a few doors away from our first project entry, Slim’s Downtown Distillery. Judging by the rough  common bond brickwork, the solid stone sills and lintels, and unadorned facade, 215 S. Wilmington likely dates from the antebellum period.

This inset from CN Drie’s 1872 Bird’s Eye View map of Raleigh shows 215 S. Wilmington St. (highlighted). Metropolitan Hall with its clock tower can be seen in the foreground.

Market Square

Following the erection of Raleigh’s first combination public hall and market house in 1840 in the 200 block of Fayetteville St., a cluster of brick and frame storefronts sprouted up along S. Wilmington St. over the ensuing 25 years. The 1840 building was destroyed by fire in 1868, and was soon replaced by a “modern” three-story brick Italianate-style structure on the same site.

The new market building extended through the block from Fayetteville to Wilmington Street. It housed a double arcade of market stalls at street level, with a public hall and municipal offices above. It was topped off by a tower which contained the town bell and clock. By 1871 the grand building had become known as Metropolitan Hall.

Metropolitan Hall ca 1900

As with the 1840 structure, businesses associated with market activity around the new building flourished in the 200 block of S. Wilmington. These included wholesale and retail grocers, dry goods, cotton factors, auctioneers, restaurants (also known as “eating houses”), produce stands, billiard halls, and saloons. Both white and African-American merchants owned and operated these businesses side-by-side. The 1872 Raleigh city directory identified ten grocers, two bars, a bakery and a retail liquor dealer on S. Wilmington St. in the vicinity of the market building.

Photo courtesy NC Division of Archives and History

The bustling 200 block of S. Wilmington St. about 1900. City Market can be seen on the extreme right.

215 S. Wilmington St. — The Early Years

Early Raleigh city directories rarely gave a specific address for business listings. For example, the 1875 directory listed “JJ Johnson, grocer, Wilmington near Martin.” The first documentation for 215 S. Wilmington St. in a city directory appears in 1880: JJ Johnson & JW Barbour, grocers and provisions, liquor dealers and saloon; located east side Wilmington, 6 south Hargett. The 1872 Bird’s Eye View map (corroborated by the 1881 Shaffer and 1884 Sanborn maps) bears this out to be 215 S. Wilmington.

In 1883, Raleigh adopted the “Philadelphia Plan,” which introduced a systematic numbering of street addresses. For the first time we see “Johnson & Barbour, liquor dealers and grocers, 215 S. Wilmington St.” The business occupied this address for the next 17 years.

In 1901 a saloon run by WD Bright replaced Johnson & Barbour. An African-American businessman, John Jones, operated an “eating house” at 215 from 1905 until 1910.

Then, two major events in early 20th century Raleigh history permanently altered the business composition of the 200 block of S. Wilmington St. — these were the introduction of state-wide prohibition in 1908 and the removal of the city market to Moore Square in 1914.

Photo courtesy NC Division of Archives and History

Laying Belgian block pavement around Raleigh’s new city market  in 1913.

Although the saloons disappeared immediately, and the produce stands and other market-oriented businesses migrated over to the new facility, the 200 block of S. Wilmington retained much of its character of earlier years. Black restaurateur George Latham operated an “eating house” at 215 from 1911-1916, and an African-American physician, Dr. LE Capehart, occupied the second floor from 1909 until 1912.

215 S. Wilmington St. — The Greek Era

In the years following WW I, with the enforcement of stricter segregation laws, most Wilmington St. African-American merchants and professionals removed to E. Hargett St., which was then emerging as Raleigh’s “Black Main Street.” It was during this time that immigrant Greek newcomers to Raleigh began to set up shop on S. Wilmington.

In 1919 Pete Lavlakos opened the Raleigh Fruit Store at 215 S. Wilmington St. He sold it to Michael Thevis in the early twenties, and by 1925 it was owned by John Capetanos. The Capetanos family still owns the building to this day. Three years ago the building was sold to Land Loch, LL. (Thanks for the update SAM.)

I’m not exactly sure what a ‘fruit store’ was in early 20th century Raleigh, but I imagine it was likely along the lines of what we would call a ‘convenience store’ today. Nonetheless, in 1936 John Capetanos’ Raleigh Fruit Store was listed in the city directory as a ‘restaurant.’ In 1937 he renamed it the Raleigh Sandwich Shop.

Photo courtesy NC Division Archives and History

The Raleigh Sandwich Shop as it appeared in the mid-1950s.

John’s younger brother Christ Capetanos arrived in the U.S. in 1950 and soon went to work for his brother. When John died in 1960, Christ assumed ownership of the restaurant. He and his wife Mitsa ran the venerable Wilmington St. landmark until his retirement in 1989. The building has remained forlornly vacant ever since.

The Raleigh Sandwich Shop as it appeared in 2010.

215 S. Wilmington St. — The 21st Century

There was an attempt to rehab the building and open a bar there a few years ago, but nothing ever came of that endeavor. However, recent projects in the 200 block of S. Wilmington St. have brought us Slim’s club, Taz grocery, and The Busy Bee and  Wilmore restaurants. Last month the iconic plate glass storefront windows of the Raleigh Sandwich Shop were boarded up. We can only hope that another project may soon be underway to resuscitate  this storied downtown landmark.

Sadly vacant and forlorn, the Raleigh Sandwich Shop patiently awaits revitalization.

Timeline for 215 S. Wilmington St.

• 1870 — City Market erected
• 1870s — grocers, produce stands, restaurants, saloons flourish on Wilmington St.
• 1880 – 1900 — Johnson & Barbour, grocers, provisions, and saloon
• 1901 — WD Bright & Co — saloon
• 1905 – 1910 — John Jones (AA), eating house
• 1908 — statewide prohibition
• 1914 — City Market moves to Moore Square
• 1911 – 1916 — George Latham (AA), eating house
• 1917 – 1918 — general merchandise
• 1919 — Raleigh Fruit Store, Pete Lavlakos
• 1928 — Raleigh Fruit Store, John Capetanos
• 1936 — Raleigh Fruit Store, restaurant, John Capetanos
• 1937-1989 — Raleigh Sandwich Shop, John and Christ Capetanos

About Project Bird’s Eye View

In 1872, artist and draftsman Camille N. Drie set out to document our small town, and drew his “Bird’s Eye View” of the City of Raleigh. It was just a few years after the Civil War. At that time Raleigh was a relatively small capital city in the South. Despite how it appears, his map was not drawn from a hot air balloon, as is popularly believed. Instead, Drie made a series of drawings by means of orthographic projection from vantage points across the city and then stitched them together to create his ‘bird’s eye view.’

Although the intricately detailed drawing shows hundreds of structures across Raleigh, most have long been lost. Project Bird’s Eye View is a new series in which we will attempt to document the remaining structures from this historic map, and to provide a small bit of history of the building over the years.

Unless otherwise credited, all photos in this article are by Raleigh Boy.

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This week for Flashback Friday we feature this beautifully tinted, chromolithographic postcard depicting Raleigh’s Edenton Street Methodist Church. The ‘newsy’ message written on this card provides us with a personal glimpse into everyday life as it was in North Carolina more than 100 years ago. It is a delight!

Aug-13-1908
Dear E.
Wish you were out here with us. you always enjoy the country. it is just fun and we are feasting on good things. Margaret is just delighted. she & Ethel and the boys play together real nicely. Miss Pattie [illegible] is out here. She wanted to know when you all were coming home. They are having a meeting at the col. church. we [?] can [?] hear them shout any time. [illegible] went up there last night. We are having such beautiful moon light. Mr H has gone to R. today. it is real hot and looks [?] like a dry spell. They say they need rain. I have not brought it [illegible] Tom & Addie [?] are both well.

Janie [?]

Elma [?] sends love. she is busy all the time.

I was able to transcribe most of the message from Janie [?], but there are a number of places I got stuck. Any help from our Goodnight Raleigh readers?

Edenton Street Methodist Church is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year. Organized in 1811, the congregation has occupied a sanctuary at this site ever since. Our postcard this week shows the third church building. Construction began in 1881 and was completed in 1887. At the time, at 183 feet, the central tower of Edenton Street Methodist Church was “the tallest spire in Raleigh.”  I wonder how many Goodnight Raleigh readers know what became of this beautiful neo-Gothic structure.

Paul C. Koeber Co. (PCK)   1900-1923
85 Franklin Street. New York, NY and Kirchheim, Germany

Published national view-cards and illustrations in chromolithography and in black & white. Much of their color work has a dark heavy feel to it because of the many thick layers of ink they used. In their later years they published postcards using tinted halftones.

The Paul C. Koeber Co. trademark. The peacock (PCK) image probably represented the company’s extensive use of color in its postcards.

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This week for Flashback Friday — we present Independence Hall in Philadelphia! Well, actually, not; the building seen in this postcard is Main Building, erected on the old Methodist Orphanage campus in 1903. But it has always evoked an image of Independence Hall to me.

I found the unsigned message on the back of this card to be rather cryptic.

Mon. morn. I reached here about dark without any rain. I may be back Easter anyway.

Huh? “About dark”? Guess it was Sunday night when our correspondent arrived in Apex, as the card is dated “Mon. morn.”  “Without any rain”? Maybe he was on foot or in an open wagon? And he MAY “be back Easter anyway”? Back to Garner? Which is about 15 miles from Apex. I guess the addressee, Mr Powell, knew some information about the writer that we don’t. Go figure.

Methodist Orphanage opened off Glenwood Ave. in 1899, and closed in 1979, as the focus for care for at-risk children shifted from campus-based to community-based programs.

Main Building, depicted in our postcard his week, was replaced by a modern administration building in 1933. It was demolished in the early 1980s, along with all the other early campus buildings — except one. I wonder if any of our Goodnight Raleigh readers know which building is the sole survivor, and what occupies the site of Methodist Orphanage today.

Oh yes, in case you are wondering, this is the ‘real’ Independence Hall.

Our featured postcard this week was published by F.M. Kirby & C0. Made in USA.

Fred Morgan Kirby   1887-1997
Wilkes-Barre, PA

A publisher and large retailer of postcard views of the American South and mid-Atlantic region. These cards were sold from their Five & Dime stores which numbered 96 in 1912.

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This week’s Flashback Friday postcard depicts the old YMCA building on the NC State University campus.

The YMCA was built in 1913 with partial funding from oil tycoon and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller.

The Y.M.C.A. is the center of social life of the College. Music entertainments etc. are held in this building.

The message on the card, written in a beautiful cursive hand, was mailed in January 1931 by G. Wilder Fort, Poultry Department, State Hospital (i.e. Dorothea Dix).

Many thanks for your kind Christmas Greetings etc. May God bless you & your good family in the year 1931.

The YMCA building was the first student union presence on the NC State campus.

[It] served as a center for social and religious events on campus. After the Student Union was built in the early 1950s and Danforth Chapel was added to the YMCA, the building enhanced its religious activities and was renamed the King Religious Center in 1956, after E. S. King, who served as president of the YMCA from 1919 until 1955.
–  Courtesy NCSU Libraries Special Collections Research Center

The building was demolished in 1975, and  Kamphoefner Hall was built on the site in 1978.

Author’s personal note:
The addressee on this postcard, Henry G. Early, was my grandfather. He was head of the Poultry Department at Baptist Orphanage in Thomasville, NC  from 1925 until 1960. He and my grandmother were also foster parents to  about a dozen boys resident in one of the ‘cottages’ on the orphanage campus. I often stayed a week or two with them during the summers when I was a boy. I have many fond memories of the times I spent there.

Founded in 1885, Baptist Orphanage was later renamed the Mills Home, and is now a part of the umbrella organization Baptist Children’s Homes of North Carolina. Today, the Michell House Museum, the oldest remaining cottage on the former orphanage campus preserves the legacy of the early efforts of North Carolina Baptists to protect and serve children at risk.

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It was 1966, and the gilded luster of the aged grande dame had faded long ago. With great trepidation I walked up to the front door. My buddy and I had been roving Blount St. for more than a year by then, exploring and photographing the once elegant mansions being demolished by the state in the late 1960s. And of course I always had my trusty Kodak Instamatic camera in tow.

The flamboyant Heck-Andrews House, with its faded and peeling yellow paint, rotting ornament, overgrown and weed-choked yard — and especially its decadent grandeur — had always fascinated me. I wildly wondered what fantastic treasures could possibly lay within! By looking in a Raleigh city directory, I learned the house was owned by Mrs. Julia Russell.

(Photo courtesy the N.C. Office of Archives and History, State Archives)

‘Knock, knock, knock’ on the heavy, leaded-glass oaken door — a grizzled old woman with coke-bottle glasses peered suspiciously from around the partially opened door. We introduced ourselves — “Hello Mrs. Russell” — and politely asked if we might see the interior of the mansion. “I don’t let ANYBODY in my house!” and she promptly slammed the door in our face. So that was the end of that — or so I thought.

This is the front door entry to the grand hall of the Heck-Andrews House.

Several years later, by then in my 20s, and ever engaged in my downtown explorations,  I encountered on several occasions a curious older woman who had the appearance of a ‘bag lady.’ She always wore a black cloth ladies’ hat, a plain black dress, and an overcoat — even in the warmest weather. Her hair was dyed shoe-polish black and her face was heavily powdered in white pancake makeup; her lips were thick with ruby red lipstick. I soon learned this intriguing woman was Miss Gladys Perry.

Another view of the grand front hall as seen from the southeast parlor.

The Youthful Gladys Perry

The old woman with the coke-bottle glasses whom I had encountered in 1966 was Gladys’ mother. Gladys was born to Julia and Henry Perry in 1907; before her fourth birthday in 1911, her mother had been widowed. Mrs. Perry later married Robert Russell, and by the mid-1920s, the family was living at 516 N. Person St. Gladys was a student at Peace College at the time, enrolled in the business curriculum.

Nicknamed ‘Shug,’ a diminutive for ‘Sugar,’ (also spelled ‘Sug’ or ‘Suge’) Gladys apparently was a well-liked young lady in the 1920s. She had many friends, went to movies and dances, and regularly attended Edenton Street Methodist Church. She also loved to cook and sew, and she wrote poetry. Gladys also had at least four suitors during this decade.

I Love You
I love you when you’re laughing
I love you when you’re sad
I love you when you’re teasing
And I love you when you’re glad
I love you when you’re fooling
I love you when you’re true
And the reason that I love you
Is just because you’re you.

– Gladys Perry

By the early 1930s Mrs. Russell was taking in boarders in the family home on Person St. Before the decade was out, Mrs. Russell once again found herself a widow. Gladys’ older brother Clark had married and left home to start a family; Gladys herself was employed as a typist and stenographer by the NC Division of Motor Vehicles.

In 1948 Mrs. Russell purchased the Heck-Andrews house from the Andrews heirs, who were probably very happy to unload the aging and decaying behemoth. And daughter Gladys moved in with her mother.

This is the drawing room of the Heck-Andrews house.

Gladys Perry, the Enigma

After 1948 there follows a gap of 25 years in what I know about Gladys, but she apparently retired from the DMV in the early 1970s.

This where the story picks up.

Nearly every time I went downtown in the 1970s I would see the phantom figure of Miss Perry rummaging through trash  barrels set on the street for pickup. I have no idea what items attracted her attention, but she always seemed intensely focused on selecting her acquisitions.

Gladys seldom spoke as she wandered through downtown collecting her treasures. The story goes that she powdered her face white believing people would think she was a ghost and would leave her alone. It was rumored she also carried a gun on her person for protection should anyone dare accost her.

As the years went on, I saw less and less of the mysterious black-clad figure with the ghostly white face.

By the mid 1980s, Gladys was spending less of her time roaming the streets of downtown Raleigh and more of it roaming the lonely and emotionally empty rooms of her Blount Street mansion.

The entrance to the tower stair. (Photo by John Morris)

The tower stair. (Photo by John Morris)

The tower room. (Photo by John Morris)

The State of North Carolina vs. Gladys Perry

In early 1987 a Raleigh Times article announced:

The state will condemn the historic Heck-Andrews house on Blount Street because its unsafe condition poses a danger to the elderly woman who lives there and to nearby chemical labs… the state will seize the property through its power of eminent domain, and will relocate the resident, Gladys Perry. … the home [is] virtually without heat and electricity, since her utility bills are only a few dollars a month. … Miss Perry couldn’t be reached for comment.

Gladys’ mother, Mrs. Russell, had apparently died sometime in the 1970s. She left no will, and the mansion passed to Gladys and her brother Clark.

Since the mid 1960s the state had been systematically buying up the properties in the Blount Street area, intending to transform the acreage into a state government office complex. Most of the Victorian structures were demolished and paved over as surface parking lots. Only a handful of the grandest homes were spared, and were re-purposed as state office buildings. By 1985, the Heck-Andrews House was the sole survivor remaining in private hands.

Gladys’ brother agreed to sell his half ownership to the state for $84,000, but Gladys remained steadfast in her refusal to sell. She refused to even discuss it with state officials. (Gladys claimed it was she who had bought the property in 1948 and had recorded it under her mother’s name. But as Julia Russell’s name was on the deed, she was recognized as the legal owner.)

During her two-year battle with the state, Gladys’ health began to seriously deteriorate. She seldom left the house now, and state workers in the neighboring office buildings who were familiar with the shadowy figure began to worry.

By the late 1980s, Gladys inhabited but a single room in the 5,000 square foot mansion. (Photo by John Morris)

Snow began to fall one afternoon in January 1987, and a concerned state employee went to check on Miss Perry. She had not been seen for days. As there was no response to repeated knocks at the locked front door, the police were summoned.

The police went around to the back of the house, jimmied open one of the windows, and climbed in. They were amazed at what they saw. Trash and rubbish from Miss Perry’s forays were piled chest-high throughout the house. There were old calendars, books and stamps, a pair of silver-glittered dancing shoes and old clothes, spoiled food and every other odd and end one could imagine. Narrow aisles and tunnels through the trash offered the only passage through the rooms.

The police snaked through the trash passages and finally found Miss Perry in her second-floor bedroom behind a six-foot trash heap. She was huddled under blankets in the frigid house. … Sick, she was unable to move from her bed. Rescuers … saw blue and red streaks running up her feet and legs.

She refused treatment and would not let them take her to the hospital.

–  Kathleen Christian, columnist, The Leader, November 1988

Ultimately the Good Samaritan state employee persuaded Gladys to see a doctor. She lost several toes to frost-bite and the early stages of gangrene had set in.

Gladys was later resettled in a small apartment in Raleigh, where she died a few years later. Thus, the state had won its battle against Gladys Perry.

Dark and gloomy, the mansion appears in this photo to be in mourning for Gladys Perry.

Following Gladys’ eviction from her home, the state began the onerous task of disposing of her belongings. An enormous plywood chute  protruded from one of the upstairs windows and workers unceremoniously tossed tons of her things down it into a huge industrial trash dumpster waiting below.

Ever curious, I used to go up there and poke around, hoping to find a way to get inside the empty mansion. I was unsuccessful in gaining entry, but one day I did find lying beside the dumpster a broken-open box — the contents of which lay strewn about on the ground. I made a quick inspection of the contents and was astonished at what I found. To the state of North Carolina the items in the box were merely trash, but to me it was treasure. I scooped up the box and ran home with it cradled in my arms.

The Box

I could not believe what I discovered in ‘The Box.’  Its contents revealed nearly every detail of Gladys’ life over the course of two decades from 1922 until the early 1940s. I found hundreds of items as mundane as utility bills, her pay stubs from the DMV (Gladys’ pay for the month of October 1937 was $60), typed and handwritten recipes (Tuna Fish Sandwich Spread and Easy Meringues, for example), a receipt for a purchase of film from Daniel’s Camera Shop, greeting cards, handwritten prayers and Bible quotations, notes to herself to buy fabrics (“3 1/2 yds lace for slips. Ask at Boylan Pearce”), her 1926 report card from Peace College (her worst mark was for spelling — ‘passing.’) and dozens of newspaper clippings from the N&O, including poems, recipes, movie ads and political cartoons.

The Box also contained a wealth of far more interesting items than just the mundane — such as Gladys’ handwritten poems and musings on love, a pair of 3-D movie glasses (a souvenir of the 1939 NY World’s Fair), and a WWII pamphlet instructing Raleigh residents what to do in case of an air raid.

This pamphlet provided detailed instruction on how to prepare one's household for an air strike, and what action to take during it.

Printed on the back of this pair of 3-D glasses: "This viewer is a souvenir of your visit to the Chrysler Motors Exhibit at New York's Wold Fair."

Below is an example of only one of the dozens of Gladys’ musings I found in The Box:

For a long time he had avoided falling in love
turning away from it while there was still
time, because it made life so complicated
and difficult.
Do you know what it is to be in love? To sit up
waiting until someone turns the key in the [illegible]?
To think of no one else? To be happy when he is in
the same room with you and miserable when he is not?
Do you know what it is like to go about saying it to yourself:
I won’t let him keep such a hold on me. I must escape from him,
and then never be able to escape.

However, the most amazing find among the heaps of ephemera was the love letters sent to Gladys by  four suitors over the decade 1922-1932.

Claude Pearson fell in love with Gladys in 1922, and was the author of several amorous love letters to her. He usually began with “Dearest Darling,” and spoke quite ardently of his love for her, sometimes closing with “Your future hubby.” Apparently, though, it was an unrequited love.

In October 1922 Claude wrote:

Where were you Sunday? I passed your house 3 or 4 times but did not see you either time [sic].
Guess you were out walking with some ‘guy.’ How about it?

By June of 1923 the pair had apparently broken up, as Claude wrote a rather terse note to “Dear Miss Perry,” asking for the return of a photo of himself he had given her — and signed it with his full name: Claude N. Pearson

Then, in 1924, Gladys was seeing a young man named Kenneth, who seemed to live and breathe Gladys. He would often end his letters with “Oceans of love.”

…and [went] to the theatre this afternoon. Sure wish you were up here to go with me for there sure are some swell places to go in Detroit to have a good time.
Well I must ring off for this time, write real soon.
Oceans of love and a kiss on ever[y] waive [sic].
A True Friend
Kenneth

I love Kenneth’s annotation: “This is the ocean”

Curiously, in this 1924 letter to Gladys, he begged her to not let her mother know he had written her. Perhaps because theirs was a ‘long distance’ romance?

Dearest Gladys,
…I hurry home every day to see if any mail has come for me, and when I am expecting a letter from you it makes me hurry home that much faster. …
Dear I must close my letter but not my love for you. Write me real soon.
From someone who loves you
Kenneth

PS. Listen Dear:
Please don’t let your mother or Clark read this. Destroy it when you read it. For they might get mad and stop you from writing to me and that would break my heart. So be careful Dear.
Just lots of extra love.

In the same letter, Kenneth pleaded:

Gladys, please don’t have your hair bobbed, for your hair is real pretty and you will be sorry after you have had it bobbed. All the girls up here are sorry they had theirs bobbed. So take fool advice and don’t do it.

Later, in 1927, Gladys was seeing a young man named Jimmie Page, a local boy who had moved to Warsaw, N.C. for his job. This relationship lasted the longest of the four — 1927-1933. In a letter to his sweetheart in 1927, Jimmie lamented that his job kept him away from her.

(Mid-Night Blues)
Gladys My Dearest
…I haven’t slept any to-night at all. I’m not even trying because I know there isn’t any use. I had planned for two weeks to surprise you. Now I had to have my plans all broken up. Gee it is tough. Dearest, life isn’t worth living no way if you can’t see and be with someone you love. …
Dear heart, please remember that I love you and always will whether I ever see you again or not. …
Sleepless nights I’ve laid awake all because of you. Jimmie loves you Dear.
Your own Jimmie

Their exchange of letters continued in a similar vein over the next five years, but they never married, and by 1933, the tone of Jimmie’s letters was more of that between friends than lovers.

Finally, Henry appeared on the scene in 1932. Gladys was 25 years old. And yet another young swain had been smitten by her allure.

Longing for my Baby.
My Own Dear Sugar Pie Darling Precious Baby Child!
How is this for a starter? Sure did miss being with you last night but I was with you in thoughts and always am. …Baby what are you supposed to do when you get someone on your mind and think of them all the time and just long and wish to be right with them every minute?… You know I ‘LO_E’ and wish for you. How about filling in the blank space  if you can find a letter that will fit.
Good by[e] ‘Sug’ until I see you soon.
Yours, Henry

And this is where the letters stop.

I found this photo of a young woman in The Box. Could it be an image of our Gladys? There’s no way to know for certain, of course, but I would like to think that the pretty and stylish ingenue seen here is indeed she.

However, the image of the Gladys Perry I vividly do remember, that of a reclusive old woman, her face powdered white, with ruby red lips and shoe-polish black hair, will always be fixed in my mind; for she will forever be the Ghost of Blount Street.

[UPDATE]

Following a tip from a GNRaleigh reader, another reader has located a photograph of Gladys Perry! He found it in the 1927 edition of Peace College’s yearbook, ‘The Lotus.’ She bears a striking resemblance to the ingenue pictured in the photo I published with the story. But of course, I cannot be certain the beguiling young lady seen in the earlier photo is for a fact Miss Perry, but I do know the one seen below is indeed she.

Note: Unless otherwise credited, photos are by Raleigh Boy
Special thanks to Ian F. G. Dunn

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This week for Flashback Friday we’re publishing six postcards depicting various ‘tourist homes’ which once lined US Route 1 (Wake Forest Rd./Person St.) through Raleigh. As Raleigh is about halfway between New York and Florida, our city became a popular overnight stop-over for the traveling public.

A GUEST HOME OF SOUTHERN CHARM
Mrs. L.H. McKinney, Hostess
Insulated — Steam Heat — Garage
Twelve blocks from Capitol
Telephone 2942
1209 Wake Forest Road (US 1) North Side
Raleigh, North Carolina

A ‘tourist home’ was what we would call a bed and breakfast today. Private homes were opened to travelers with bed and meals being provided. In 1926  U.S. Route 1 was established as the major north-south traffic artery through Raleigh. Soon afterward the growing popularity of the automobile in the 1930s and ’40s resulted in increased automobile traffic, foreshadowing the decline of train travel by the American public. By the early 1950s the classic American ‘motel’ had emerged on the scene, and soon virtually replaced the tourist home as the favored overnight stop-over for travelers.

Our featured postcard this week was mailed in 1939 by ‘Ma & Pa’ to family back home in Ottawa. Looks like they were headed to Jacksonville, Florida — a long, long way from Canada.

We arrived here this afternoon. had a lovely trip so far. weather just lovely. Bright and warm. leave for Jacksonville in morning. all well and feeling good. Ma & Pa

Below we present five additional postcards depicting other tourist homes along the Wake Forest Rd./Person St. corridor. All but one of these buildings are still standing today — and one of them, while not strictly a ‘tourist home’ these days, still takes in lodgers. Perhaps some of our Goodnight Raleigh readers might know which one that is.

Yellow Gables

Tour Inn

Tourist Rest

The Restover

Wooten’s Hometel

“Flashback Friday” is a weekly feature of Goodnight, Raleigh! in which we showcase vintage postcards depicting our historic capital city. We hope you enjoy this week-end treat!

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