WELCOME ADDITIONS

By John w. Goodwin jr.

Famous house in Hubbard gets historic upgrade

The historic McBride House on Hager Street near the center of Hubbard will again be open to the public after a monthlong hiatus.

Cecilia Cooper, a member of the Hubbard Historical Society, said the house will be open to visitors every second Sunday of each month from 2 to 5 p.m. beginning in March. The house, which showcases pictures and memorabilia from the city’s past, was closed this month.

Cooper said the house’s closed status was not in vain. Members of the historical society used the time to bring in a number of items.

The first addition visitors are likely to notice is a large finished-wood clothes tree in the first room of the house. The massive antique piece of furniture has a large mirror in its center and racks on which clothes can be hung. There is a storage unit at the base where shoes were traditionally stored.

“We have no idea how old this is, but I can say that it has come back home because it was here before someone put it in their garage for a long time. The person who donated it just decided to send it on back,” Cooper said.

There also will be a copper washing machine, purchased new in 1912, delivered to the house this week. Cooper said the machine still works, though no clothes will be washed in it at the McBride House. It will be sitting in the kitchen.

“We had no place else to put it. Besides, back in those days, they did put washers in the kitchen because they didn’t make use of the basements with all the coal and mud,” Cooper said. “We try to set everything up like we live here.”

When visitors come back to the house in a few weeks, one upstairs bedroom will be set up like a little schoolroom of days gone past. The other bedrooms will remain relatively the same.

Many original items from when the McBride family lived there, besides the newly added clothes tree, remain, including several chandeliers, a china closet, a grandfather clock and a dress worn by Ethel McBride for her wedding in 1909.

The house, according to society member Lucille Wilson, once had an outhouse before the indoor bathroom was installed, but an original upstairs bathtub and sink remain from that indoor installation, as does much of the home’s hardwood flooring.

Society members bought an early 20th-century stove at an auction for $5 that is fully functional. The house also has a Victorian pump organ as well as teapot and teacup collections.

The lot on which the McBride House now stands originally was owned by Samuel Tylee, first settler of Hubbard. The land was willed or sold to several different people before the house was actually built in 1883.

The house and land was passed on through the McBride family, who operated a jewelry and watch repair business on Main Street, before being sold to the Rite Aid store that now stands next to the house. Rite Aid divided the land and gave the old house to the historical society.

Cooper said there is a lot of city history in the years between the house being built and today. She said the society tries to capture that history and leave it on display for interested area residents.

“We want to give them a feeling of years gone by. We try to decorate to the season, and most do say it feels like home. We want it to feel like home,” Cooper said.

jgoodwin@vindy.com