by Local History Librarian David
With holidays and family gatherings right around the corner, let Bexley Public Library be your place to discover family history and preserve your memories – for free! We have special genealogy programming this October in honor of Family History Month, and we invite you to explore the tools in our Memory Lab.
By Local History Librarian David
August 10 is Bexley Day, the day Bexley was established as an incorporated village with its first charter in 1908. For the second year, the Bexley Public Library, in partnership with the Bexley Historical Society, are celebrating Bexley’s birthday with an honorary program and cake. This year, Historical Society Trustee, Larry Helman, will present on how the community developed over time. Join us for the event at 7 PM on Thursday, August 10 in the library auditorium. It will also be an opportunity to learn about a new effort to mark and recognize those houses of 100+ years in age.
by Local History Librarian David
Bexley Day, which falls on August 10, 2022, marks the 114th anniversary of the first council meeting of the Village of Bexley. This year Bexley Public Library, in partnership with the Bexley Historical Society, is celebrating Bexley Day with the program, Mapping Bexley From Wilderness to Village.
by Local History Librarian David
Thousands lined the streets of Bexley for a 68-unit parade of marching bands, floats, bagpipes, and drill teams, reminiscent of the city’s annual Independence Day celebration. However, on this day, in mid October, royalty was celebrated. On the last float, cradling a bouquet of red roses in one arm and waving to the crowd with the other, sat Laurel “Laurie” Lea Schaefer, Bexley’s own Miss America 1972.
by Local History Librarian David
For over a century downtown Columbus was home to numerous clothing retail stores with a common story, they were founded by Jewish immigrants escaping the anti-Semitism of Europe. Simon Lazarus established the Lazarus Department Store in 1851, The Union was opened in 1891 by S. M. Levy, and The Fashion in 1924 by Allen Gundersheimer Sr. Then in 1930 Louis Madison, born in Russia in 1893 and immigrating to Albany, New York in 1903, opened Madison’s.
by Local History Librarian David
For much of the twentieth century, an updated Abstract of Title was required when transferring real estate. Such a document was a compilation of all the transactions made for a specific piece of real estate, thus tracing the owners back to the early 1800s. The purpose was to ensure against any encumbrances on the property, guaranteeing a clean title.
By the mid 1970s, Abstracts of Titles were becoming less common. Replaced by title insurance, many lenders dropped them as a requirement. Homeowners no longer had to update the abstract when selling their property, and many were discarded. Those that survive are valuable documents providing a glimpse into the past.
by Local History Librarian David
War time rationing of the food supply combined with shortages in production found many front yards across Bexley converted into vegetable gardens. These Victory Gardens that first appeared during World War I were encouraged during World War II by the Bexley Garden Club.
by Local History Librarian David
One of Bexley’s oldest businesses, Rubino’s, was established in 1954 by Ruben Cohen, who adapted his Jewish name to sound more Italian as the name of his pizzeria and spaghetti restaurant. There were only ten places in Columbus for pizza at the time, and Cohen made Rubino’s special for its thin crispy crust and “fairly secret” sauce recipe.
by Local History Librarian David
Research for this article contributed by Scott King-Owen, Ph.D, Teacher, Bexley City Schools.
One month before the First World War ended a second wave of the deadly Spanish Influenza pandemic, initially spread in military encampments by troop movement, found its way into the civilian population of central Ohio. Like Covid-19, a century later, the absence of medicine for treatment or a vaccine for prevention necessitated avoiding crowds, through isolation or quarantine, to control spread of the respiratory virus.
by Local History Librarian David
The feeling of a ghostly presence, knickknacks moved out of place, someone or something tapping one’s shoulder, but is Jeffrey Mansion, the Jacobethan Revival home on North Parkview Avenue, haunted?
Tales of its haunting have been attributed to unidentified individuals and their mysterious and unreported deaths. Perhaps it’s the spirit of a young woman, said to have been murdered there, that haunts the third floor, or that of a man, one supposedly hung himself in the tower while another from the staircase.
Donated to the City of Bexley in 1941, the original owner, former Mayor of Columbus Robert Hutchins Jeffrey, had the stone and brick residence built in 1905. He had long since moved out when he died in 1961 at Grant Hospital. His wife Alice Kilbourne Jeffrey died inside the home in 1922, but only after an illness lasting several months.
During the seventies, children experienced sightings of a witch, her white hair outlined by light in a second floor window. Then, opening the window, in a “scratchy, shaky, haunting voice,” the woman scared the children off.
But, that was just Violet Ketner, who with her husband John, were live-in caretakers for nearly two decades. “I’m not really afraid,” she told a reporter from the Dispatch. “I’ve never seen anything.”
For more ghostly tales and scary stories from around Columbus and Ohio explore these titles:
