Our Lafountain Street Neighborhood in the 1940’s - Part 2

There were seven businesses mixed in with the residences in our neighborhood. That was not so unusual for the 1940s. We had a gas station, a hair dresser, two neighborhood groceries, a barber shop and a construction company. There was also the Beamer Baptist Church on the corner of North and Lafountain.

The Milners were our neighbor to the south (#2 on map). Mr. Leon Milner owned and operated a company that specialized in moving big objects - like houses or heavy machinery. He represented the third generation in the business. His father, James F. Milner, moved to Kokomo in 1892 to become a partner with his father, William. Leon’s father, James Milner, lived across the street from us. I have no memory of him, but there is an image of an old man wearing a long overcoat that appeared in an 8mm silent movie that Dad took during the winter of 1943-44. He shot it in front of the house during a snowstorm while Don and I were sledding in the alley. Someone would always remark during later showings that the man in the overcoat was old Mr. Milner. His red brick house (#22), modest to today’s standards was probably the most elegant on the street. There was a portico that covered the driveway. It was attached to the house on the north side and supported by two brick columns on the south. The detached brick garage was located at the end of the drive. It housed a shinny 1930’s black sedan. James Milner died in 1944 at 79, and his wife had passed many years before. That may explain why the house seemed without activity and the car was always in the garage. I don’t believe anyone lived there during those years - not until after we moved in 1950.

Leon Milner’s business property lay across the alley, behind our house and his. It occupied a good portion of the block. The main stem of the alley ran north-south, separating Mr. Milner’s house from his business, which consisted of two buildings and a large open lot (#12). Building #13, shown in the satellite photo, appears to be a small church, but it stands where Mr. Milner’s long barn stood. The narrow barn ran parallel and next to the crossed-T alley and was open on both ends - like a covered bridge. That is where he stored the hefty pieces of lumber used in house moving. The beams were close to three feet square in cross section, 30 or 40 feet long - maybe longer - and stored on both sides of the drive-thru barn. The west end of the barn opened onto the alley right across from our garage door. The other building was a combined workshop, garage, and tool storage place. It was right behind Mr. Milner’s house and parallel to the alley. A gravel driveway ran between it and the barn, traversed the lot, and connected back with the alley. More lumber piles were stored around the edges of the field.

I remember us kids playing on the squared-off logs. My brother, Don, broke his arm in there after losing his grip while swinging from a rafter. He wore a white diaper as a sling for several weeks. The lot was used very little; so we kids played there, and it was just big enough to function as a miniature baseball field.
Mr. Milner seemed quite old to me but I guess he was about sixty (born in 1889). I use to sit with him on his front porch, swinging and idling time. He was a nice grandfatherly type, always with a stubby cigar in the corner of his mouth. I remember seeing him twenty years later when I was working for Grave’s Sheet Metal shop in the mid-sixties. The shop had received delivery on a large metal shear, and he was there to unload and place it. I watched as he, with cigar in mouth, instructed the workers to tie ropes at certain points, and direct them to pull at different angles as he easily maneuvered it into place. It was apparent that he knew what he was doing. Leon Milner died a couple years later in 1968 at 79 years.
GO TO: Part 3