When we started talking about having the house on the summer tour, I told Matt we needed to fill in the missing pieces of the priests who lived in the house. Although they were the longest residents (40 years) nobody seemed to know for sure who they were. We were told they were Oblate priests but that doesn’t narrow down the search much. I did some research and decided the most likely answer was they were from the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. It seemed strange that an order of missionary priests would have a home in Toledo at that time.

I went to their website: oblatesusa.org and learned this:

• The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate serve poor and needy people in the United States and more than 60 countries around the world.
• Today nearly 4,000 Missionary Oblates are ministering in some of the world’s most difficult missions, reaching out to serve those most in need.
• Saint Eugene De Mazenod was born into an aristocratic French family in 1782.  The French Revolution forced his family into exile.  In 1807, he had a profound religious experience, and he committed himself to Christ and the Church. As a young priest Eugene was appalled by the condition of the Church in southern France.  The poor were being neglected.  In response, Eugene gathered around him a small group of priests and began to preach directly to the poor.  Eventually this small band became the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
• By the time of his death on May 21, 1861 the congregation he founded had grown to 415 priests and brothers in seven countries.  On December 3, 1995 Pope John Paul II formally declared Eugene De Mazenod a saint.

Matt called the headquarters in Texas and was told all records for the order were kept by their archivist in Washington DC. Matt was given the contact information for Sister Ann Diehl CSJ. She told him she had never heard of there being a mission house in Toledo but she would look into it.

The next day she sent us an email with these details. Apparently she was intrigued and excited to have learned something new.

• The house on Robinwood was originally purchased by the Oblates to use as a “Mission House” – a home base for priests who travelled around giving parish missions and various retreats.  Besides the “missionaries” who travelled about, several priests lived there who did  pastoral work, mainly chaplaincies, in the Diocese of Toledo.  This provided a lot of variety in the community.  In addition, the house had many visitors from around the country and around the world, including more traditional “missionaries” from other countries. 
• Giving parish missions to help revitalize the religious life of the people was the primary purpose for which the Oblates were founded in 1816, following the devastation of the French Revolution.  But they also served the other religious needs of the areas they were in.
• Until very recently it was customary in every Oblate community to maintain a “Codex Historicus” to record significant events in the community.  She included some of those pages for us.

• By the mid-70’s most of the works the Oblates had been doing in Toledo had been phased out, including, apparently, the Mission Band. 
• In April of 1977 there were only three Oblates left in the diocese, and the Robinwood house was too large and too expensive for three to maintain, so it was decided they would look for an apartment and sell the house.  (They moved to an apartment across the street in Ann Manor directly below the one where Matt’s parents now live.)
• Apparently a realtor they had hired (Michael Murray) to help them sell the house liked it so well he bought it himself.  The next year the last three Oblates were reassigned out of the diocese.

She also included this article from what I believe is The Catholic Chronicle 3/11/1938.

We also now have this bill of sale from the 1938 purchase. Knowing the Oblates purchase included the contents of the home gives mere credence to the story that after leaving The Toledo Club very late one evening, Mr. Bell came into the house after he had sold it to the Oblates and woke the priests playing the piano and singing. The piano would have been familiar as it had been his previously and rumor has it his late night serenades were a common occurrence when he lived here.

So we now know a little more about our home. I’m not sure how the history of the Oblates had been lost when they were here such a long time and it hasn’t been that long since they left. Sister Ann sent several other things as well. I will post more soon. We have enjoyed learning more about the house’s story.

When we were looking for colleges for oldest we stayed in a beautiful historic home in St. Louis.  The owner had a fleur de lis somewhere in each room of his house.  I thought it would be fun to incorporate something similar here to tie all the rooms together.  I started looking more closely at the details of our house and noticed a pattern that seemed to repeat in a lot of places, a trefoil.  I did some research and it was very commonly incorporated into gothic architecture, particularly in building cathedrals. The trefoil of course is a representation of the trinity.  I love that we have so many already here and hope to find a way to incorporate a trefoil of some sort in all 33 rooms!  Some examples:

The history of the house is part of the charm.  There are a lot of stories about the home and we have been trying hard to determine what is fact and what is fiction.  We feel it is part of our job as good care takers of a historic home.

Construction began in 1901 for Alvin B. Tillinghast.  He was a bicycle manufacturer, licorice tycoon and patron of the arts. The house is an eclectic mix of Tudor half framing and French gothic architecture.  The attention to details is over the top. Mr. Tillighast frequently visited the construction site to inspect the quality of the work and rumor has it he went bankrupt while building the house.  The original plan for the home was 30% larger than it is now.  Whether it wasn’t built due to bankruptcy or just down sized during the construction is unknown.  We were told Mr. Tillinghast  never lived in the home but city records show the family was living here in 1909, the year the construction is presumed to have been completed.

The construction company did retake possession of the house and sold it to John North Willys, founder of Willys Overland which eventually became the Jeep Company.  Another unsubstantiated fact is the home was traded to Mr. Willys in 1909 for twelve Pope automobiles.  Mr. Willys lived in the home until the death of his wife in 1921 when the home was purchased by Mr. Arthur Bell.

The Bell family lived here until 1938.  The house next passed to an order of Catholic priests.  We are confident the priests lived here and we are in possession of the original blue prints converting the third floor ballroom into a chapel but which order of priests this was is still a mystery.  We have been told The Oblates (but which Oblates?)  The Society Of Oblate Fathers is one guess but I can find no order that goes by that name.  The Oblates of Mary Immaculate?  Maybe but again I can find no link to Toledo for them. This is a mystery that requires further investigation.  In any event they resided here until 1978.

Here are some facts we believe are accurate:

• The home was intended to be 1/3 larger than it presently is
• The front porch was originally a covered carriage driveway and was enclosed many years later
• The stone foundation is 28 inches thick
• the original roof was stone
• the porch and sunroom floors are hand laid tile
• the living room fireplace surround is made of pottery tiles from Rookwood Pottery in Cincinnati
• The stained glass and carved wood living room light fixture is original and designed for the house
• The four brass sconces in the master bedroom are original as well as the hand carved Della robia chandelier in the dining room.  These fixtures all feature the same design of pomegranates, acorns and other fruit
• An open window was installed in the sunroom by the priests to hear confessions
• Two of the bathrooms have original toilets with the tanks located inside the walls
• All four tubs appear to be original ceramic
• The half bath, the master and the girls bathrooms have what are probably original sinks.  The beautiful pedestal sink in our sons bathroom is not original and was produced in 1954
• The “stained glass” transom windows in the living room are peel and stick decorations available at a big box store.  To say I was disappointed to discover that fact is an understatement!
• Many of the push button light switches are inlaid mother of pearl
• The fairy lamp on the newel post is not original.  I am curious as to what was originally there.
• The church pews on the front porch are not original and were probably never actually inside the house

Those are your fun facts and stories for today!

My summer is now spent juggling the kids summer activities and a small army of contractors rather than sitting by the pool reading.  A good friend of ours has a heating business and he came by to measure for some venting in the roof.  Apparently what we have is inadequate.  He has been by before but there is a lot to see here.  This time he noticed the crest on the side of the house and asked  if I knew what it said.  It is hard to read way up there.

Be Just and Fear Not

I knew that the crest would have been chosen by Mr. Tillinghast since he was the one who had the house built but I had no idea what the significance was of the crest.  Steve was curious and later texted me that he had found the quote he thinks it references.  It is from Shakespeare’s Henry VIII:

Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not:
Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s,
Thy God’s, and truth’s; then if thou fall’st, O Cromwell,
Thou fall’st a blessed martyr!

Steve is sure that Mr. Tillinghast chose that because he built this giant, ostentatious house on a prominent corner lot in the neighborhood. (In fact, he went bankrupt building the house and a third of the home was never completed!) Perhaps the words were a reminder to not worry about the envious tongues?

Whatever the reason I am grateful to Steve for figuring out the reference and I like the stanza as a whole.  There is a lot of history in this house, much of it we will never figure out.  We still don’t know why this line was important enough to Mr. Tillinghast (or maybe to his family?) that it was placed on the crest but it is fun to try to solve the little mysteries in our historic home.