In the Way Back Machine with Bill Gulde: The Vollraths

The beautiful Dutch Colonial Revival home located at 218 South Audubon Road has been a fixture in southern Irvington since 1909. Charles Vollrath, a local grocer, designed the home and had it built just a few lots south from his corner grocery store at 202 South Audubon Road. His wife, Thermina, also known as Marie, stayed home and raised the couple’s six children in the house.

Victor Vollrath snapped this image of his childhood home at 218 South Audubon Road in 1950.

The Vollrath children had all of southern Irvington to use as a playground. The boys played baseball and football on two open lots just south of the house. The family also kept a pony on the property and they were seldom without a dog. Their most famous pet was “Fite,” a German Shepherd who helped the kids deliver newspapers. He would carry the rolled-up paper in his mouth and drop it on the front porches of homes throughout the neighborhood. He also guarded the kids as they slept out in their tent on warm summer nights. Not every neighbor loved Fite, but everyone knew him.

Victor Vollrath posed with his beloved German Shepherd, Fite, in 1926 next to his childhood home at 218 South Audubon Road.

In the 1920s, there were three grocery stores in the 200 block of Audubon Road including the Charles Vollrath Grocery at 202, the William Jones Grocery at 203, and the William Wallace Grocery at 212. F. E. Lederhaus also operated a barbershop in the block. The last of the Vollrath children, Victor Vollrath, who passed away in 2013, remembered getting his bobbed haircut for the first time at that barbershop in 1921 when he was five years old. Irvington residents could also shop at Gilmore Morgan’s drugstore at 203 and if they needed a radiator for their Model T they could drop by Keene’s Radiator Shop at 205 South Audubon Road.

The Vollrath brothers enjoyed a game of baseball next to the family home at 218 South Audubon Road in 1925.

Victor Vollrath helps his mother, Marie Vollrath, with yardwork in front of the family home at 218 South Audubon Road in 1927. Behind the pair, you can see some of the businesses in The Hub.

Because of their German heritage, the Vollraths frequently sponsored Germans who wanted to become American citizens. They provided funds for their arrival to the US and hosted individuals in their home. Photos from the Vollrath family reveal that many Germans in the early twentieth century started life in the US in southern Irvington before moving on as new Americans.

Dandy the pony lived next to the Vollrath home at 218 South Audubon Road c1925.

During World War II, hard times gripped the neighborhood. The Vollraths sent all of their sons off to war. Sometime during the winter of 1944, Mrs. Vollrath walked down to Irving Circle after a snowfall to take a photo of the park for her boys serving overseas. With tears streaming down her face she snapped an image and had it reproduced for all five of her sons. Thankfully, each Vollrath son came home from the war, but Mrs. Vollrath died soon after. Her son, Victor, who became a doctor, believes that stress and worry hurt his mother’s heart. Mr. Vollrath sold the family business as corner grocery stores struggled to survive in the mid-twentieth century as entrepreneurs opened a new kind of grocery called a supermarket. Both the Vollrath home and grocery remain an important part of the Irvington story.