Full House

This beautiful “semi” bungalow at 5415 Cathedral was built with Number One Pine in 1922, perhaps by its first owner John A. Rhine who was a carpenter by trade. John Augustus Rhine was born in Mechanicsville, Maryland in 1876. His father Augustus Rhine, was a blacksmith. John and his wife Florence married in 1897 in DC, but lived in the nearby Arlington and Mt Rainier before buying the property on Cathedral Ave.

 In 1930, the Rhine’s adult daughters Beulah and Edith, plus their daughters' families lived there as well. John Rhine, now 54, was working as a carpenter. Beulah’s husband John Padgett was an electrician, and they had two little girls- Virginia and Dorothy. Edith’s husband Elmer Smallwood was working as a milkman while she stayed home with Elmer Jr age 2. Their daughter Gladys came along in 1932. Perhaps it was the Depression that drove them all under one roof.  The Rhines tried to sell the house for several years. Here’s an ad from 1929.

In 1935 the house finally sold to Nellie Hogan, a single working woman. Nellie was born on a farm in Natural Bridge, Virginia in 1883. Both of her parents were born in Virginia and were descendants of Irish immigrants. The Hogans were a large, close knit family, and Nellie was the third of eight children. 

By 1910, Nellie had moved to DC and was living with her uncle Michael.  In 1922 there’s a mention in the newspaper of a Miss Nellie Hogan being a registered nurse at Georgetown Hospital, and I believe this is how she made her living. I can’t find Nellie in the 1930 census, but in 1940 she was listed as a nurse working in a public hospital. She also rented rooms to supplement her income. In 1940, two other families lived at 5415 including a young couple from the midwest, Jack Winkler, a butcher, and his young wife Irma, plus Frederick Bolton, a “medical instructor,”his wife Jessie, and their teenage daughter Constance. Here’s an ad from 1937.

In 1945 Nellie’s sister Mary also moved in while studying at Catholic University to be a nurse. Nellie died in 1958 “suddenly” at home. She was 75 years old, and she left the home to her siblings.