Grayson County TXGenWeb
 
Christman - Krattiger Family


931 West Woodard Street
built 1912
ca August 2010

This house was built in 1912 by Constantine (Mack) Christman (1874–1925) and wife Annie Christman, prosperous owners of Home Steam Bakery. They had immigrated to Odessa, Russia, and then to the United States. According to their grandson, Freddy Lessly, the house was "one of the first, if not the first, house in Denison to be equipped with natural gas. The candles that lit the walls were not candles at all, they were natural-gas burning outlets." Freddy says that his mother (Helen A. Christman Lessly, 1916–2000) was born in the upstairs master bedroom of that house. His grandfather Mack died in the same room of a heart attack at age 52.

Freddy Lessly recalls :
That house has a storied past, as it once fell into the hands of the Harlow family!  Olan (Puss) Harlow was known as the highest-volume bootleg dealer in town.  They
said on weekend afternoons, people were lined up at the back gate of 931 W. Woodard, buying pint and half-pints of bootlegged whiskey!  Clyde Driggs and the Harlow family were good friends.  Often the line would stretch [down the alley and] out into Scullin Avenue, according to some old-timers that I interviewed some years ago. 
I'm told that the Harlows had the basement made into sort of a pool hall, and guys loved to hang out at the Harlow home.  Many would play hooky from school to go over to the Harlows' basement and shoot pool all day! 
In 1948, my uncle, Milton (Dutch) Christman, bought back the house. My uncle, in the late 1950s, I think, sold the house. 
I think that house started life as a white house but has been green or gray all my life! My uncle had a light green on it that really looked good back when.  However, the white likely looks best on that house.
 

Southwest corner of the house.  Visible is the half-moon window where Fressy Lessly's cousin, Marianne Christman Hughes (DHS Class of 1953) had her bedroom ~ the room was built to be their grandmother's (Annie Christman) sewing room




Families
Susan Hawkins
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