ZNEWS Articles beginning with the letter (h)
happy
Happy Holidays, Neighbors While we're not having a ZNA meeting until January, we thought we'd update you on news of interest to our neighbomood.
From: 1995_December happy
help
Help
The reason that I am humbled by this newsletter task is that it enters an area where I feel a total incompetence that grips my throat with fear at the thought of ever doing it again. Give me a stopped up commode or a famine, things I can more comfortably handle. Please, make no mistake I am begging, someone out there call me at 445-7033 to volunteer to be our neighborhood newsletter editor. THANKS
From: 1997_January help
hike
3. Hike and Bike Trail
- Butch Smith, Parks Planner with the Austin Parks and Recreation, will discuss the Comprehensive Urban Trails System, and how it could affect the Zilker Neighborhood.
From: 1994_October hike
history
CHILDHOOD AT 1610 VIRGINIA AVENUE
In 1875, Lucy and Isaac Van Zandt Davis, the owners of 49 acres of field and pasture in South Austin including the Virginia Avenue area, contracted a carpenter to build the house now standing at 1610 Virginia Avenue. The house is currently owed by the Cater Joseph family and is referred to by the Heritage Society of Austin as "Wisteria." The total cost to the Davis family, including labor and materials, was $1155. The 22" thick stone walls were built of hard-rock quartz which was quarried at Oak Hill, and all the doors were built with transoms.
In 1893, the Griffin family bought the property, and sold it to my grandfather, George P. Kinney, in 1916. The price he paid for the house and property was $7,500. That same year, George P. Kinney undertook an extensive remodeling project on the house which included the addition of the two-story front porch and a frame two-story addition at the rear of the house. Thus the Kinney occupancy of 1610 Virginia began in 1916, and the Kinney family maintained possession of the property for the next 50 years.
I remember the lovely lavender wisteria that snaked and curled around the trunk of the huge live oak tree in the front yard and draped lazily from the lower branches. But when I lived there, from 1946 to 1966, the residence was not named after the vine; then the stone still retained its natural color and the place was simply the Kinney Home.
One thing about the house that I remember with particular fondness is the safe feeling I always felt while I lived within the sanctity of those massive stone walls. Whenever there was a tornado warning, some of the neighbors would scurry over to our house so they would be safe from the storm. Of course then it would develop into a party and everyone would forget all about the storm, and sometimes some of the folks would end up staying all night. I always felt safe in that house, and proud of it, too.
And the upstairs sleeping porch-how wonderful it was to sleep on that porch! We always slept there, even in winter. It was only screened in, but we had lots of warm quilts and blankets. I remember how on cold nights all of us kids would stand right inside the door that led out to the sleeping porch and gather our courage to make that frantic, barefooted rush to the beds. The porch floor would be icy cold and the sheets, too, for a minute or so. But then our body heat would warm up the bed and we'd be just as comfortable as could be, all snuggled up looking out through the trees into those cold, starry nights. And although some people thought it was unhealthy, we hardly ever had colds. I think it was because we breathed in all that cold, fresh air instead of old heated-up inside air that kept in the germs.
Another thing that helped us stay healthy (though at the time I considered it a terribly unjust system of forced labor) was working in the big garden on the north side of the house where now there is a swimming pool. I must have spent a full 1/3 of my childhood pulling nut-grass in that garden. And no matter how much we'd pull, the next week there would be twice as much there again. My dad, Girard Kinney, Sr., would stand out there without his shirt and drink his beer, and lecture us on the merits of doing a job right. Of course he worked hard too, and he'd show us about digging way down to get the nut out, not just breaking the grass off the top. I think there may be something metaphysical about nut-grass, but the ground would get sunbaked and rock-hard, and I never got really good at getting the stuff out-my heart just wasn't in it. When we weren't working, we'd take what money we'd earned or begged from mother (Cleora Kinney) and we'd walk up to the "little store" at Kinney Avenue. I'm not sure what the building is used for now, but then it was a neighborhood center of activity. I'd walk up there to get something for mother and buy a BabyRuth dr something with the change. Of course, I'd have to eat whatever it was on the way back in order to get rid of the evidence. Or if we didn't go to the little store and it was summer, we'd walk to Barton Springs through the woods east of Robert E. Lee Road. There would always be millions of stickers in the field just before the east entrance to Bartons, and one of us would always have left our shoes at home and have to be carried over the sticker patch.
Something else that was a constant source of excitement at the Kinney Home was the rabbit pen in the backyard. The bucks were kept in hutches, but we built a really nice natural-habitat pen for the does and babies. First we dug an 18-inch deep trench around the perimeter (about 30' x 30'). Then we laid long cedar posts lengthwise in the trench, end to end, to staple chicken wire to. Next we put the verticle posts in, stretched the wire, stapled it to the posts in the bottom, and finally filled back in the trench with rock and dirt. The pen held the rabbits really well, usually, but at times they'd dig out anyway, no matter what we did. Inside the pen, the rabbits had it made. They had a nice water pond and countless holes with a labyrinth of interconnecting tunnels all over the place. When the baby rabbits were born, there would often be thirty or forty furry black, tan, grey, and spotted puffs of energy popping up and down all over the pen. It was great fun trying to catch them, although we were supposed to leave them pretty well alone. I think the rabbit pen was built in about 1956, when I was ten.
There are many more stories about my life at 1610 Virginia Avenue, that truly reflect the changing of the times, and I'm sure the current residents have stories of their own that would also be interesting to hear. But one thing remains constant amid the myriad of changes that inevitably accompany the passage of time: those stone walls will be there, essentially unchanged (except for the paint), to challenge the imagination and enlist the respect of many generations to come.
by George E. Kinney
From: 1982_December history
home
Home-birth Heaven ! -
David and Marcellina Kampa, and big brother Derek welcomed Maura Rose, who was born March 12 at their Treadwell Street home with the aid of All God's Babies midwife Barbara Christman. Madeleine Mae Marine was also born at home to Jennifer and David and sister Sophie on April 19. The Marine family lives on Kinney Ave. Baby Benjamin was born on May 10 to Kalie and David parson of Dexrer Street. Kathy Gregor and Andrew Poris of Josephine St. had a girl, Adeline Rose on January 31st.
From: 1995_May home
housing
2. We've received an information packet from the Neighborhood Housing and Conservation Department on Community Development Block Grants (CBDG's). These are federal funds administered by the city for the purpose of meeting neighborhood needs (i,e, repair of homes of fixed income neighbors, development of a neighborhood conservation plan, etc.) We'll discuss this program briefly.
From: 1990_April housing