Morris-Atkins House

(Durham County tax office)

(Below in italics is from the National Register listing; not verified for accuracy by this author.)

Intact two-story frame Foursquare. Double-hung sash windows composed of three slender panes over single pane.    Full-facade attached porch supported by box pylons on brick plinths. Handsome multi- paned entrance flanked by multi-light sidelights. House first appears in city directory as residence of Mrs. R.B. Morris, a widow.

(The information below in italics is from the Preservation Durham Plaque Application for the Morris-Atkins House)

This property was purchased by Robert B. Morris, Jr. on June 27, 1922, and the house is first
listed in Durham city directories in 1924.
Robert B. Morris, Jr. was the son of Robert B. Morris, Sr. and Sarah Robenia Cates Morris. This
house served as the family home of 3 of Robert B. and Sarah Robenia Morris’s adult children
(Robert B. Morris, Jr.; Margaret Morris Strain; and Ruby W. Morris) as well as a daughter of
Margaret Morris Strain, Mabel, and her husband Charlie T. Atkins, and their two daughters,
Nancy Atkins and Molly Atkins.

The Morris family was originally a farming family residing in Bingham Township in Orange
county [1880 census] and moved to Durham county by 1900 [1900 census]. They are first
listed in the Durham city directory in 1909-10, owning a home at 405 W Pettigrew. This was a
large frame dwelling located near the intersection of Pettigrew and W. Chapel Hill Streets
(about where the current Durham bus station is located). Several in the family lived here at the
time, and they also had 2 boarders. Robert B. Morris, Sr. died in 1913, and at the time of the
1920 census, the family residing at 405 Pettigrew were those that would move to 926 W. Trinity.
We do not know the architect or the builder of the house at 926 West Trinity Avenue. It is a
standard two-story frame American Foursquare with a full-facade front porch supported by boxpylons on brick plinths with a central entrance door. The door is multi-paned and flanked by
multi-light sidelights. The original windows on both stories are double-hung wood sash
windows with three vertical panes on the top sash and a single pane on the lower sash.
One enters the home into the spacious living room. A music room originally opened, likely
through French doors, to the right of the main living space. This room is currently still in place,
though the opening to it has been narrowed, and it now opens with a single panel door and is
used as an office. A powder room sits behind the music room. This may well have been
original, based on its placement under the upstairs bath and the similarity of the downstairs
bathroom window with that of the upstairs bathroom window. The size of the powder room
may have expanded.

Behind the living room, with its brick Craftsman fireplace along the west wall, is the dining
room with a large bay window along the west wall. The dining room originally opened to the
kitchen and was the only door to the kitchen. There was a back porch off the kitchen which
has been converted into a laundry area. The staircase has been altered, with the likely removal
of the box newel post, balustrade and handrail, so that a door to the kitchen from the living
area could be made.

Alterations have been made upstairs, as well, so that a bathroom could be added off the back
bedroom. The front two bedrooms and bath are likely positioned as they were originally. It is
unclear if there was a fourth room upstairs or simply a very large hall opening onto three
bedrooms and a bath.

There are six Morris/Atkins family members who are significant in the history of this house.
Though she never owned the house, Sarah Robenia Cates Morris was the matriarch of the
family and the oldest in the household when the family took up residence in 1923. She went by
the name Robenia and was born to Thomas and Adeline Cates in Orange County in 1855. She
married Robert B. Morris in Orange County in December 1875. They had seven children over a
17-year period, the oldest being Margaret “Maggie” Morris, born in 1877, and the youngest
being Ruby W. Morris, born in 1894. Robenia Morris died, suddenly, in the house at 926 W.
Trinity Avenue, possibly from a heart attack, on December 8, 1927, at age 72 and was buried
next to her husband, who had died in 1913, in Maplewood Cemetery.

Robert B. Morris, Jr., was the first owner of the home. He was the fifth child of Robert and
Robenia Morris and was born on July 20, 1886, in Orange County. He began working for the
Durham Traction Company (later the Durham Public Service Company) around 1906 as a street
car conductor and later a bus driver. He never married. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage in
the home at 5:30 in the morning on November 23, 1936 at the age of 50. At the time of his
death he drove the Holloway Street-Chapel Hill Street route and his death was front page news
in the Durham Sun, “Well Known Bus Driver Succumbs.” His funeral was held in the home on
November 24, 1936, and he was buried at Maplewood Cemetery with his family.

Margaret “Maggie” B. Morris Strain was the first child of Robert and Robenia Morris and was
born in Orange County on July 29, 1877. At age 17, she married William M. Strain, age 22, son of Henry Quentin and Nancy Mariah Sugg Strain, also of Orange County, on December 18,
1894. The Strains had two daughters, Myrtle, born in Orange County April 15, 1896, and
Mabel, born August 23, 1897. One of the great mysteries of this family is what became of
William M. Strain. By the time of the 1900 census, Maggie B. Morris [not listed with the last
name of Strain] is living with her parents and the rest of her family. Notations tell us she has
been married for 4 years and has 2 children. A W for widow appears over another illegible
letter (M for married or D for divorced). Her daughters Myrtle and Mabel are also listed under
the Morris surname. However, death or cemetery records for our William Strain are nowhere to
be found. In the 1910 census, Maggie and her daughters are listed with her Morris family but
are back to using the surname Strain, and Maggie is listed as a widow. When the Morris family
members move to 926 W. Trinity Avenue, Maggie Morris Strain and her daughter Mabel are part
of this group. Her older daughter Myrtle Strain had married George T. Featherstone of Durham
on September 14, 1917.

Maggie Morris Strain died at age 72 on December 2, 1949, in the home at 926 W. Trinity
Avenue after two years of declining health. Her obituary gives us only a glimpse into her life,
mentioning her membership in the First Baptist Church and a Sunday School class and
Women’s mission group. She had eight grandchildren when she died, six from her daughter
Myrtle and two from her daughter Mabel, so one imagines she would have been very involved
in their lives.

[note: There is another William M. Strain in Orange County who was older and fought in the
Civil War who should not be confused with our missing William M. Strain.]

Ruby Wilson Morris was the youngest of the seven children of Robert and Robenia Morris,
and she was born in Orange County on July 15, 1894. She was educated in Orange and
Durham County schools and attended St. Mary’s College in Raleigh. She became a milliner at
an early age and worked in this business as her lifelong career. For most if not all her career,
she was with Smith-Albright Company, a millinery shop owned by Julia S. and Julia K. Albright
and located first at 1031⁄2 E. Main Street and later at 129 E. Main Street. She played the piano
and, like her siblings, was a member of the First Baptist Church. She never married. She died
on March 11, 1977, at Durham County General Hospital after suffering a heart attack at home
at 926 W. Trinity Avenue.

Mabel Morris Strain Atkins was the younger daughter of Maggie Morris and William M. Strain.
She was born in Durham on August 23, 1897. She married Charlie T. Atkins, also a Durham
native, on November 7, 1923. The Durham Morning Herald reported on November 14 that the
couple spent their honeymoon in Washington and northern cities and “will return to the city this
week and will make their home with Mrs. Atkin’s mother, Mrs. Strain, on Trinity avenue.” Mabel
and Charlie lived their entire married life at 926 W. Trinity Avenue and became the owners of the
house on February 1, 1939. They had two daughters, Nancy S. Atkins, born April 11, 1929, and
Molly R. Atkins, born December 3, 1932. After Charlie died in 1968, Mabel remained in the
house until 1981, occupying the home for a total of 58 years.

Mabel died July 14, 1989, at age 91, at Hillhaven-Rose Manor Convalescent Center in Durham
after a long illness. Her obituary mentions that she had worked at one time as an operator for
the Durham Telephone Company and later worked as a receptionist at Elder’s Beauty Shop.

She was a member of the First Baptist Church and a member of the King’s Daughters
organization.

Charlie Thomas Atkins was born in Durham on July 4, 1890, the son of Josiah and Mary
Barbee Atkins. The family were farmers, and the Atkins farm was located in the Patterson area
in southern Durham county. Charlie T. Atkins enlisted in the U.S. Army on May 25, 1917, and
was a part of Company M, 3rd Infantry unit North Carolina. He served overseas from May 17,
1918 to April 13, 1919, and was honorably discharged, obtaining the rank of corporal, on April
17, 1919. Upon his return to civilian life in Durham, he married Mabel Morris Strain [see above]
in 1923 and became a grocer, owning and operating The Groceteria at 108 E. Parrish Street
(next door to the current Littler Restaurant) for 15 years. Like the rest of his family, he was a
member of the First Baptist Church. He was a member of the American Legion. He died at the
VA Hospital in Durham on December 2, 1968.

Following the tenure of the Morris and Atkins family at 926 W. Trinity Avenue, the house was
sold by Mabel Atkins to David and Beverly Berendsen in May 1981 for $33,000. In August
1982, Donald G. Davis took over the terms of the Berendsen mortgage. At this time, the
1981-82 city directory lists Elsie B. Trollinger, head nurse Duke Univ. & Hospital as residing in
the house. Neither the Berendsens nor Donald G. Davis appear in that directory.

In July 1983, Davis sold the house to Elmer J. and Barbara Rauckman. Elmer Rauckman had
earned his PhD in chemistry from Duke, and he was a professor at Duke from 1978-1983. In
1983 he began a job with the National Toxicology Program. We assume the Rauckmans were
owner-occupants of the home until they sold it in June 1990 to John H. and Wallacestean G.
Adams. We do not know if the Adams ever lived in the house, but we know they were renting it
out by 1991 (see below). They sold the house in March 1994 to Louis V. Niemeyer and wife,
Susan J. Auger. The Niemeyers owned the house together or separately or in the form of a
trust until they sold it to Scopa Properties in May 2015.

From a November 28, 2007 article in Indy Week (“A reunited Blind Melon reminisces about its
time in Durham,” by Grayson Haver Currin) we know that members of the band Blind Melon
lived in the house for about a year beginning in winter 1991. They called the house
Sleepyhouse, and they wrote a song with that title. Following Blind Melon’s year in the house,
it was rented to Duke graduate students, and one of the student’s brother later wrote about
their living in Sleepyhouse on his website:

“This is Sleepy House, the house which the band Blind Melon moved into in Durham,
NC, after getting signed and leaving Los Angeles. They wrote a song about it (called
Sleepy House natch), which appeared on their debut album Blind Melon.
My sister Cheryl and her roommates had the unique experience of being the very next
occupants of Sleepy House subsequent to the band moving out... They had just
graduated from Duke and for various reasons were renting a house in the area (the
house is just two blocks from Duke's East Campus). By simple dumb luck the
5-bedroom Sleepy House had just become available for $1000/month.

Alas no cool mementos from the band were left behind... Cheryl said the place was
completely empty except for aluminum foil covering the windows from the inside, a red
light bulb in one of the light fixtures, and melted candle wax all over. On the big front
porch there were some flower pots on which had been written "Sleepy House" and
"Blind Melon" but they didn't think much of them at the time... (Now Cheryl wishes she
would've taken them when she moved out!)

March 1991 - Shannon Hoon and his new band, Blind Melon, sign a $500,000 recording
contract with Capitol Records. He tells the Journal and Courier "I wanted to make a CD
they would sell at Musicland in Tippecanoe Mall. I wanted to show them I could do
something with my life, and I have." Blind Melon moves from Los Angeles to Durham,
N.C., to work on new material and to live together in a home they dub "Sleepy House."
At some point after its purchase in 1994 by Niemeyer and Auger, the house was made over into
apartments. The current owner has kept a list of the names on mail she has received since
owning the home in 2015.

After purchasing the house in 2015, Scopa Properties did the work to turn the house back into
a single-family home and sold it to the current owners that same year.