Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Ren's Did You Know?




Miss Eleanor Freeman came to Ontario from Cincinnati in 1885 with her nieces Ella and Lizzie Agnew, just three years after the town founding by the Chaffey Brothers, and promptly set about building the Ohio Block building on the southwest corner of Euclid and A Street (now Holt Boulevard). Miss Freeman was a well-traveled, educated, worldly woman of independent means, which was a rarity back in the late 19th century. Born in 1848 in Pennsylvania, she moved with her family to ...Cincinnati when she was a young child. After high school she studied in Europe, then returned to Cincinnati and taught foreign languages at various area schools. Upon making her first visit to Ontario in August 1885 she purchased a 20-acre tract along with the Euclid Avenue lot that would become the Ohio Block, named undoubtedly for her adopted home state. Miss Freeman continued to travel around the world and would regularly give lectures on her travels to service and literary clubs and for fundraising events, and at one point also taught a course of Spanish for the local gentlemen. She was among the Ontario Public Library’s first board members and was a strong supporter of the library throughout the rest of her life, even providing space within the Ohio Block for a library reading room. Her niece Ella Agnew served as head librarian twice, from 1886 to 1888 then again from 1894 to 1899. Miss Freeman died March 9, 1904 from pneumonia and was buried in Cincinnati. The Ohio Block was demolished in 1931 to make way for the modern, art-deco styled First National Bank of Ontario building that still stands at the location today.
Post content and Photo credit: Model Colony History Room

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