Historic Houses

When she died in 1964, Elizabeth Dean left the city of Ann Arbor nearly $2,000,000 to "repair, maintain, and replace" its trees. All that rnoney wasn't able to protest the elm tree in the front yard oí her childhood home. Last week the old elm in the yard at 120 Packard was chopped down, a victim of the Dutch elm disease. A motherless Elizabeth and her older sister, Clara, grewup in the Packard Street house, built about 1860. Conveniently located, the big house was only blocks away f rom the large grocery store on Main St., owned by the girls' father, Sedgwick. Not only groceries, but china, toys, Christmas deco r ations, and cans of gasoline for the town's first cars, were sold in the store operated by Sedgwick and his brother Colonel Dean. At the end of the day, Sedgwick could slip a few of the store' s famous hotroastedpeanuts in his pocket for his younger daughter andherfriends, and jog home in his carriage. Elizabeth might be sitting on Be steps waiting for him. The lolder Clara had plenty of beaus jto keep her busy. Because her mother died jwhen she was born, Elizabeth Iwas raised by an aunt, and an trish nursemaid, Julia. Elizapeth was a f iercely independent [girl. Not liking to study, she jquit school in high school. She was extremely loyal to her city and her country. Although she ■ enjoyed traveling, she never went out of the United States. When she grew up she moved I to a smaller house, andsoldthej Packard Street house to thel Stellhorn f amily. By putting up I and tearing down walls, Mr.l Stellhorn, a Lutheran minister, E made many changes in the E xurious house. Af ter Mr. Stellhorn died, his I heirs sold the house to Donald I Van Curler, an architect. 9 fore seeing the inside of the I house, Van Curler planned to I te ar it down and build an I ment. But after lookÉat the gracious house withTCs high ceiling, chandelier, and marble washstands - which the Deans had installed in the bedrooms as the height of luxuryi - Van Curler couldn't destroy the place. So he moved his family in, and decorated it with striking modern furniture of a different era, but of the same s weeping and dramatic feeling as the rest of the house.