If This House Could Talk...

By Bonnie Heidinger

The Anna house featured in the February 15 Gazette is located at 311 W Spring, and the current owners are Chuck and Linda Bugle. Susan Hase received the prize from P.A.S.T. for reading her Gazette Democrat early and correctly identifying the house and its owners. Her husband Richard rented a room in the house in 1950 and 1951 so that he could attend school at Anna-Jonesboro High School and work.

The history of the house harks back to earlier days when Anna was developing as a town. The two lots the house now sits on were a small part of 80 acres the United States government granted Levi Craver in 1839. The land’s title enumerates many sales until Catherine H. Miller in 1892 used a part of the land sold to her by Caleb M. Miller to plat 3 lots recorded as the Catherine H. Miller’s First Addition to Anna, with Spring Street on the north side and Miller Street to the west. Miller Street is now Green Street.

Alonzo and Kate Bohannon purchased lots 3 and 4 of the Catherine H. Miller’s First Addition in 1907 for $1500, a high price for then if a house was not already there. The Bohannons paid taxes on sewerage, waterworks, and paving improvements, indicating the progress and growth of Anna.

In 1918, Ed F. S. Leib and Anna Wiley Leib paid $4,000 for lots 3 and 4. The rather high price for that time indicates that an improved house most likely was included. F. S. Leib was a fruit grower, who had lived in the Makanda area where he and Anna married in 1877.
Mrs. Anna Leib was the daughter of Ben L. Wiley and Emily Davie Wiley. Emily Davie was the daughter of Winstead and Anna Davie, the founders of Anna.

After Edwin F. S. Leib died in 1925, Ruth Leib Alden and her family moved from a Jonesboro farm into the house to live with Mrs. Leib. The two Alden children, Margaret, age 2, and Blair, age 7, grew up in their grandparents’ home

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Margaret, now residing in Marion, recalls that a bedroom for her was added to the southeastern corner of the house. Her Uncle Paul Leib lived in the one upstairs bedroom.
Mrs. High remembers that her parents changed the house by enclosing a front porch on the northwestern side and knocking out a wall to enlarge the living and dining room area. The only entrance to the house when she lived there was the western one where concrete steps at the street led up to the porch all along the western side.

Margaret High has fond memories of people coming to the house to celebrate the Fourth of July and shoot off firecrackers. It was a good location to do so when she was young because there were no close houses on the other side of Spring Street and to the west and south were fruit trees and farmland.

The Alden family continued to live in the house after Mrs. Anna Leib died in 1932 until they sold it in 1946 to C. Earl and Dorcas Hughes. Mr. Hughes, an Anna banker, made a few expansions in the upstairs for rentals. Margaret High and her new husband Robert rented the upstairs bedroom and kitchen for awhile.

After Mr. Hughes death, Mrs. Hughes sold the house in 1975 to Lester and Havi Swink. In 1976, Wes and Kay Boie bought the house and made numerous improvements, including adding an in-ground pool on the eastern side and landscaping the lots. They took out a wall in the kitchen to expose the staircase to the second floor and added a decorative banister. The sun room on the eastern side had already been added by previous owners.

Phil and Pat Bridwell, wanting to move into town, switched houses with the Boies in 1987. The only change the Bridwells made in the 7 years they lived there was to finish a small room in the middle of the attic area where the roof peaks to give Phil a “get-away” place to pray and think. After Phil’s death, Mrs. Bridwell sold the house to the current owners, Chuck and Linda Bugle, in 1993.

Yes, changes have occurred in the house over the years, but many original features remain: the ten-foot ceilings, the oak hardwood floors downstairs, and now a partial front porch on the north side similar to the original. When Paul Hamm built the porch and redid the bathrooms, he noticed the 1” wood under the siding and remarked that he thought the house was tornado proof. This marvelous historic home is likely to be around for another hundred years or so.

P.A.S.T. applauds the many owners of this structural treasure who have helped to preserve a part of Union County history. To find out more about P.A.S.T. and its activities, visit its website at www.pastonline.org.