John & Mary Dennis House

(The information below in italics is from the Preservation Durham Historic Plaque Application for the John & Mary Dennis House.)

The house at 1113 Iredell Street was probably built in late 1921 by E. P. Woods. The first occupants of the house were Arthur John Dennis (1900-1980) and his wife Flora C. Dennis. A. J. Dennis was to have a long association with the property and the public record of his life there reflects his personal difficulties and the troubles of the times. 

John Dennis was the third of eight children born to William J. and Lizzie Dennis. W. J. Dennis was a dairyman and grocer. With the help of his wife and sons, he operated a grocery store 1110 Broad Street throughout the early decades of the 20th century. The family home place was at 1018 Broad Street. As the Dennis children matured, they bought homes in the relatively new neighborhoods bordering Broad Street. In 1922, John Dennis and his older brother, Andrew, pooled their resources and together with their new wives purchased two new homes on Eighth Street. Andrew and his wife, Fannie, moved into the house at 1111 Eighth and John and his wife, Flora, took the subject property, the house at 1113. Andrew was just 24 and John was only 21 years old at the time of the transaction. 

Both brothers continued in the family business on Broad Street until about 1928 when John began to operate his own Broad Street business, a filing station, sweet shop, and drug store at 737 (this is the three-fronted commercial building at the corner of Markham and Broad Street). At about the same time, the brothers separated their ownership of their homes by conveying them to their younger brother, Ralph, and then having Ralph convey 1111 back to Andrew and Fannie and 1113 back to John and Flora. 

The depression years were hard on the Dennis family. In 1930, Andrew and Fannie Dennis sold their Eighth Street home. Andrew continued with the grocery store until about 1933, when he became an attendant at John's filling station. John and Flora remained in their Eight Street home, but in July, 1933, the bank foreclosed on the house. Soon after the foreclosure, the bank sold the house to John's younger sister, Margaret. The Dennises stayed in the house after that, tenants in the home that had once belonged to them. Their business continued, however, buoyed probably by the trade of Duke University students and textile workers at nearby Erwin Cotton Mills. The city directories from the early 1930s show John variably as druggist and proprietor of the business. Flora is shown as a clerk or saleswoman. By 1935, Andrew and Fannie moved in with Andrew's and John's sister, Margaret, at 1018 Ninth Street. 

By 1937, John's marriage to Flora began to crumble. According to the 1936-1937 city directory, Flora still resided at the Eighth Street house, but she no longer worked with John at the store on Broad Street. Instead she was a saleswoman at Lerner Shops. In 1938, the directory indicates that Flora and John are no longer married and no longer reside on Eighth Street. Flora Dennis moved to Holloway Street and John Dennis and his new wife, Mary Gray Dennis, moved in with John's parents at 1018 Broad Street. From 1938 until 1940, the house at 1113 Eighth Street was occupied by two families, Cedric B.

Peed and his wife, Christine, and Henry R. Fuller and his wife, Jackie. Peed was a partner at Aldridge Motors, Inc., downtown, and Fuller was the foreman there. 

Another blow to the Dennis family in 1938 was the death of John's brother, Andrew Dennis. He was only 41. His obituary attributed his death to a "complication of diseases." 

John and Flora Dennis had at least three children, Elizabeth, Mary Frances, and John, Jr. (These are the three children listed in the 1930 U. S. Census. According to his obituary in the Durham Morning Herald, August 13, 1980, John also had another daughter and another son. These were his children by his second wife, Mary Gray Dennis). When John and Flora separated, Elizabeth appears to have gone to live with her mother. In the 1940 U. S. census they are listed together as boarders at 1120 Eighth Street. Flora is listed as a saleslady and Elizabeth, then 20 years old, is listed as a bookkeeper. John, Jr., however, stayed with his father and step-mother. By 1940, John, Mary Gray, and John Jr., were living back at 1113 Eighth Street. Whether the division of the children was a practical decision made necessary by the Depression, or whether it was caused by some bad-feeling in the family cannot be determined from the records. That Margaret Dennis conveyed the Eighth Street property to Mary Gray Dennis, John's new wife, in 1939 and not to John tends to indicate that John wished to keep the title to the property out of Flora's reach. 

John and Mary Gray Dennis made the house at 1113 Eighth Street their home together until John's death in 1980. He continued to operate Dennis's Service Station on Broad Street until his retirement in 1966. Mary stayed in the Eighth Street house until 1986. In that year she sold the property to Manuel and Kena Alonso. Norman Dennis, her son, signed the deed as her attorney-in-fact. Mary went to live near her daughter in Akron, Ohio. She died in 1993 at the age of 82. She and John are buried side-by side in section 1 of Maplewood Cemetery. See Mary Dennis's obituary, Durham Herald Sun, June 9, 1993. 

The Alonsos do not appear to have lived at 1113 Iredell Street (as Eighth had become during the Dennis's tenure). Instead they leased the house to Judy Stewart, a physician according to the city directory. Following Dr. Stewart was Stewart Sweidler- also a physician. Dr. Sweidler occupied the house as the Alonsos' tenant during 1989 and 1990. In 1990, Fabienne Worth purchased the property. Ms. Worth, a university professor, resided (and still resides) next door. She also used the house as an income- producing property. During the period of her ownership, 1990-2003, the city directories indicate only one tenant, R. Ricci, in 2000. No occupation for Ricci is listed. During the other years of Ms. Worth's ownership, the directories indicate "Not Verified."

In 2003, Ms. Worth sold the property to Edwin Williamson and his wife, Melissa Smith. Although the directories indicate that Williamson and Smith resided in the house, no occupations are indicated for them. In 2006, they sold the house to another owner- occupant, Elizabeth Brooke Buchanan. Ms. Buchanan is an event planner. Her ownership of the property was brief. In 2008, she and her husband, Peter Sigal, sold the house to Jennifer Snook, an environment and business analyst, researcher, and consultant. In 2011, Ms. Snook sold the property to the applicants, Brian and Melissa Shaffer. 

Originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the Shaffers relocated to North Carolina in 1996 and purchased the 1113 Iredell in 2011. Brian Shaffer is a Pitt/NCCU graduate and a teacher and counselor at Wright School. Melissa is also a Pitt/ECU graduate and a licensed social worker with Durham County Mental Health. 

The house is in substantially original condition. The most significant change made to its appearance has been its recladding with asbestos shingles. This was probably done in the late 1940s or 1950s. The shingles are striated to resemble cedar and have a shallow wave at the bottom edge. They are in very good condition. The house is a front- gable bungalow with a rectangular plan. It rests on level ground on a high pier-and- curtain brick foundation. The deep front porch is disengaged. Its pediment is open and is supported by an exposed kingpost truss resting on bungalow-style posts on tall brick pedestals. The porch rafters are exposed as are the rafter tails along the eaves on both side of the house. The roof overhang is supported by simple triangular bungalow knee braces. 

The front door is centrally located and is symmetrically flanked by double-hung window pairs. The window lights are organized in a distinctive four-over-two-over-one pattern. These same windows were used in the similar house at 1115 Iredell Street indicating that the two houses were built by the same owner/builder as speculative properties. 

There is a simple, engaged gable in the middle of the long run of the roof on both sides. These are decorative only and do not cover any bay or other deviation in the rectangular plan of the house; nor do they denote or set apart any feature of the interior. The original chimneys, fashioned in light-colored bricks with corbeled tops, remain. There was once a shallow engaged kitchen porch on the northern side of the rear of the house. At some point, this was enclosed. 

The front door opens into the living room. The interior ceilings are high. The case work and deep moldings are all original. Sheetrock laid over the original plaster has diminished the reveal. The living room fireplace was designed to burn coal - typical feature of early bungalows where fireplaces were not merely decorative, but designed to supplement the early central heating system. The mantelpiece rests on simple volute supports. The ceilings are 10 feet high - another indicator of an early bungalow. There are deep cornice moldings at the top of the walls in this room and the adjoining dining room. The six-panel doors and their simple brass hardware are original. The floors are pine. 

The house has three bedrooms. One of these is a parlor bedroom - a common feature in Victorian residential floor plans, but less common in bungalows. The coal- burning fireplace in this room has a very elaborate mantelpiece which, while original, is more in keeping with Victorian tastes than bungalow design of the house. The other bedrooms and the original bath open onto a small common hall. This arrangement is more typical of bungalow design. 

The kitchen has been updated over time and the small engaged back porch has been enclosed and reworked at least once in the past, concealing the original organization and purposes of the spaces at this corner of the house. What appears originally to have been a pantry has been converted to a second bath. 

There is a small shed at the rear of the lot which is probably contemporary to the house. Its German siding suggests that the house is clad with similar material under the asbestos siding.