134 Lakeview Terrace
The city of Burlington has its share of special neighborhoods, areas that its residents value as good places to live and raise a family; Lakeside, the Five Sisters, and, yes, Lakeview Terrace come to mind. These neighborhoods came into being as the city needed more housing for its workers and small business people, especially from the last quarter of the 19th century through the first quarter of the 20th century. Gentrification may be a concern in these locations; their populations have become more diverse, but mainly they remain well-kept family neighborhoods where children are heard at play, and some homes have long histories of family ownership.
The land was part of the Central Vermont Railroad’s property in the 1860’s. In the late 1880’s, after the Burlington Horse Railroad Company extended out North Avenue, developers Carlos and Morillo Noyes bought the land, presenting a plan to the city which showed building lots and new streets, Canfield and Haswell, named after fellow members of the Episcopal Church, and Bissell (now Lakeview Terrace), named after Bishop Bissell. They started building houses on the southernmost west side of Bissell Street. In 1903 developer James B. Henderson bought the north end of the property, from north of #61, and presented his own plan. Before the developers, the land had been used for market gardens.
In 1905 John A. Gibson, who is listed in the city directory as a chef at the Van Ness House, who must also have been a developer, bought Henderson’s lots on the east side of Bissell Street. In May, 1908, he sold the house and land on lot 36 to James M. Thurber, a tinsmith who worked for T. A. Wheelock, Plumbing and Heating. The house was listed as 122 Bissell Street. At the time, it was the only house on the east side of the street.( John Sullivan, insurance agent, is listed at 9 North Champlain Street.) It is a 2 ½ story gable front vernacular style house, with a front porch.
In early May of 1916 the Thurbers sold the house to John Sullivan, MetLife agent, and his wife Mary Ann Parnell Sullivan. The Sullivans had six daughters and four sons. The family had moved to Burlington in 1905 from Bristol, VT. John was born in Weybridge, son of Thomas and Mary Carney Sullivan. His wife Mary was the daughter of Irish immigrants, John Parnell from Kenetty, Kings County, and Honora Conway from County Limerick. Mary was born in Orwell, according to her death certificate.
According to Dan Ryan, great-grandson of John and present owner of the family home with his wife Lisa, the house had four bedrooms. The girls’ dormitory was the attic. The parents had one bedroom, the boys shared two bedrooms, and the fourth bedroom was kept for guests.
The children grew up and gradually moved out. Daughter Frances Mary married Isidore Myers in 1927. When her sister Mary Agnes married Harold Ryan, she was matron of honor, and her brother Patrick, who became a librarian at Holy Cross College, was best man. Another sister married John Barry. The Ryans also lived on Lakeview Terrace.
Two of the girls became nuns. Anastasia Elizabeth became Sister Paula, a Maryknoll nun and a nurse, stationed in Manchuria from 1933, loving the people and the country. She was interned by the Japanese in World War II, after which she served in Bolivia , Hawaii, and the United States, dying in 1986 at age 85.
Her younger sister Margaret entered the novitiate of the Sisters of Mercy in Burlington at age 18, in 1927. She was professed as Sister Albertus in 1930, and started teaching 2nd and 3rd grade at Cathedral Grammar School. She was a talented artist, gifting her students their portraits drawn in pencil and chalk. She went on to teach the upper grades in Middlebury, Barre, Montpelier, and back in Burlington, keeping up her art work, and loved by her students. Sadly, she died in 1953 0f breast cancer.
The year Margaret became Sister Albertus, Mary Ann Parnell Sullivan died of complications of chronic pulmonary tuberculosis. She was buried in St. Joseph’s Cemetery, This left John, who worked for MetLife until about 1932, sons Charles P., a plumber, Gerald S., a clerk at McAuliffe Paper Co., and daughters Genevieve, a stenographer, and Geraldine, a nurse. John was retired by 1932
Gerald and Geraldine later moved out of state, Charles died in 1945. This left Genevieve, the last unattached daughter, and her retired father in the house. Genevieve was a secretary for Leary’s Insurance Agency according to the city directory of 1949. So they continued for many years.
The 1967 city directory lists Genevieve still working for the insurance agency. Her father was at Birchwood Nursing Home. John died in 1950. Genevieve was last listed at #134 in1981. The family learned that she had been taken advantage of by a cruel con man who separated her from her life’s savings, then sabotaged the furnace so that a fire started in the house. The fire department saved her and put out the fire, but she spent the rest of her life in a nursing home. She died in 1986, and is buried with her parents and her brother Charles in the section of St. Joseph’s cemetery that borders Riverside Avenue.
Fortunately, the family has been able to retain and restore the home. Genevieve’s great-nephew, Dan Ryan, and wife Lisa Rosen Ryan have given the first floor a more open, welcoming plan. It is a rare home in Burlington that has remained in the same family for over a century!
REFERENCES
Historic Guide to Burlington Neighborhoods: Vol.III, Chapter V: David J. Blow, with Lilian Baker Carlisle and Sarah L. Dopp: Chittenden County Historical Society
Land Records, Burlington VT
City Directories, Burlington VT
Burlington Free Press Obituaries: 19 December 1950, page 2; 16 September 1953, page 2
Maryknoll Mission Archives
Sisters of Mercy Archives
Find a Grave for John Sullivan, Burlington VT
Vermont State Historic Sites and Structures Survey, Lakeview Terrace
Vital Statistics Records, Burlington, VT