RON’S RAMBLINGS
In the 1920s, a lawyer and realtor named Charles W. Kaeppel began developing the College Heights area from which Ott St. evolved. During the same decade, a Muhlenberg College fraternity moved into the former Juruick home. However, by 1931 the effects of the Great Depression had reduced their membership number so low that the fraternity closed its doors. Nine years later, in 1940, a local school teacher named Ada V. Wright opened what was known as a Montessori school at the Ott St. home. Italian educator Maria Montessori developed a method of teaching that was based on lessstructured education. In the words of one educational authority, “teachers were encouraged to stand back and ‘follow the child,’
BY Ron Epstein The 16-room mansion at 933 N. Ott St. in Allentown’s West End is a very unique home. It was built in 1918 by Maximilian Juruick, who was a consulting engineer and a manufacturer of ice and refrigerating machinery, as well as an inventor. Included among his patents were a large door for big cold storage units, and a complex burglar alarm system. With his wife Martha and daughter Georgianna, he came to Allentown from New York City between 1912 and 1915. The 1922 Allentown City Directory lists his home as the only one on Ott St. at the time. In 1923, for some unknown reason, the Juruick family moved out of the home to downtown Allentown.
S
s er xt m o to ne ! t s d r t cu a u n e this F yo tme im F in t t tion O po s r Fi en 10% d ap m e e l v ei edu c re sch
3
SLEEK STYLES S
A
L
O
N
HAIRCUTS & STYLING y FACIALS NAILS & PEDICURES y UP DOS EYELASH LIFT & EXTENSIONS y WAXING y MAKEUP We look forward to seeing you soon!
610.774.9532
1741 Liberty Street, Allentown, PA 18104 www.s3salon.com 6 WEST END LIVING
FALL 2021
REALTOR.COM
North Ott St. Mansion Steeped in Century of History
that is to let children’s natural interests take the lead.” Her motto was “the child is the hope and promise of mankind.” Montessori visited America in 1912 and spoke to a standingroom-only crowd in New York’s Carnegie Hall. She drew the attention of such notables as Thomas Edison and Woodrow Wilson. In 1915 she set up a fully functional classroom at the Pan-Pacific World’s Fair in San Francisco. By 1925 there were 1,000 Montessori schools in America. Maria died in 1952. When Wright decided in 1915 to open her own Montessori school, she did so at her father’s Victorian home at 1449 Turner St. In her first year she had 15 students, including her two daughters. In 1922, the school moved to a much larger home at 1536 Walnut St. It remained at that location until it moved into the Ott St. home in 1940. That same year, its name was changed from the Montessori School to the Wright School, with Ada as headmistress. Also, that year, the large letter W was inscribed on the side of the building above the third- floor balcony.
Over time, the school’s Board of Directors included such notables’ as members of the Leh’s department store family; Donald P. Miller, owner and publisher of the Call-Chronicle Newspapers (who later married Ada’s daughter Marjorie); and Max Hess of Hess Brothers who helped to pay for the auditorium stage. The auditorium is now a garage. Over the next 17 years, the school grew and prospered until after Wright’s retirement in 1957, when the school began to take on fewer students. The Wright School closed in 1961. Ada passed away in 1966. A classmate of mine at Muhlenberg Elementary School in 1961 told me that he attended the Wright School during its last year of operation, 1960-61, and had it not closed he would have remained there, calling it the best school he ever attended. Another classmate of mine at Muhlenberg was Jane Chromiak, now Jane Larsen. Her father, Peter Chromiak, was a local photographer known professionally as Peter Jay. He had been employed many times since 1949 to take pictures of the
