Julia West Howard
By Eileen and Paul Goldfinger Re-post from 2011 on Blogfinger.net
It was June, 2008, and there was a knock on our front door. A young woman named Cathy Midkiff was standing on the porch. She said that she was visiting Ocean Grove from Maryland and wanted to see the house that had a special meaning for her. We invited her in. She looked about curiously and then proceeded to tell us her story.
Cathy had recently inherited a piece of furniture—an armoire. It seems that a celebrity named Julia West Howard had lived in our house at 113 Mt. Hermon Way from 1938 until her death in 1947. Cathy’s aunt, a friend of Ms. Howard, had acquired the armoire from the Howard estate.
The aunt, Wilma Bodine of Bangs Avenue in Asbury Park, had owned a funeral home there and that’s where the armoire remained until Cathy acquired it. The armoire is a carved walnut piece that was appraised as being from the 1930’s, so probably Julia had purchased it new to furnish her OG house.
Cathy left us copies of photographs and some news clippings. We were intrigued, because the Asbury Park Press, in 1947, had printed a photo of the house, and the caption said, “Home of Famous Actress Sold—Julia West Howard, whose picture was emblazoned on billboards, posters, and in newspapers from Broadway to San Francisco more than 46 years ago, spent the last years of her retirement in this home at 113 Mt. Hermon Way, Ocean Grove, which has just been sold by the estate to William and Nellie Major. Before her death, Miss Howard completely remodeled the property.”
The photos of Julia West Howard were wonderful—showing a stylish and coquettish woman with her hair up, as was the way in the early 20th century.
An obituary in the Ocean Grove Times, dated August 29, 1947, said that Julia West Howard had been born in Germany and resided in New York City before moving to OG in 1938. She had been married to Frank Howard and was survived by her sister W.H. Osborne of Ocean Grove. Her funeral service was at the Bodine Funeral Home.
The photograph of the house showed striped awnings, coincidentally just like the ones we installed 5 years ago. We also were able to verify the appearance of the columns, the gull wing roof and the balustrades. There were trees and shrubs around the dwelling. If only the house could talk.
MUSIC: Imagining Julia West Howard (Maude Maggart Sings Irving Berlin)
Hi! I’m writing from Austria/Europe. Just found your lovely blog during my newest reserch. I’m a relative of Julia West Howard. JWH was the aunt of my grandpa.
Would be nice to get in contact. Best regards, Jan
Reblogged this on Blogfinger and commented:
This is a lovely story to share from 2011 and even further back to the 1930’s. —Paul @Blogfinger
A few years ago, when my mother and I were walking home from the beach, there was a yard sale at a house that had been owned by some of my distant relatives from approximately 1890 through the 1950s. After we mentioned this to the current owner, he produced an album of old photographs that had been given to him by someone (probably another distant relative) shortly after he purchased the house. It was great to see these photos, but I wish he’d given them to us when he moved….
Blogfinger editors:
Thanks for sharing this unusual bit of Ocean Grove history. Makes one wonder what more is out there, as in “if these walls could only talk!”