Carol Smith with her parents Mixon and Bobbie Smith at their home on Arcadia Avenue on Cameron Hill. Notice the rich woodwork.
Carol Smith with her grandmother and two cousins on Cameron Hill in September 1953
Carol Smith with her grandfather at the Smith home on Cameron Hill
Carol Smith on the front porch with a neighbor child. Her dog, Beanie, is lying in the front yard. Some details of the house across the street can be seen.
An Ooltewah woman said a recent Chattanoogan.com article about 519 Arcadia Ave. on Cameron Hill made her perk up.
Carol Smith Clapp said of the story on Frances Street Smith, "I, too, lived at that address - from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s. As far as I know, I am not related to the original occupants of the home, although we share a last name.
"Mrs.
Smith's description of the house is very similar to how I remember it, although I was just a young child when I lived there. My grandmother and uncle lived on the first floor, while my parents and I lived on the second floor. I used to play on the large front porch after my father added a safety gate so I wouldn’t fall down the outside steps.
"Arcadia Avenue was a dead end, and I remember playing in the street with the other neighborhood children. My large dog Beanie enjoyed playing out there with us as well. We also played at the large park on top of Cameron Hill.
"I attended first and second grade at H. Clay Evans Elementary School at the foot of Cameron Hill. I rode a city bus back and forth to the school daily. My mother would walk me to the bus stop at the end of Arcadia.
"I find it an interesting coincidence that I lived in the Gordon Street house and then later, as a teenager, I volunteered at Mr. Street’s summer camp for diabetic children (the Double G Ranch, ongoing to this day), on Chickamauga Lake in Soddy."
Carol Smith Clapp told of the circumstances around her family's moving away from there. She said, "I believe my grandmother and my father jointly owned the house. On the day after Christmas, 1953, my grandmother unexpectedly passed away. I think by then that my uncle, who had lived with her on the first floor, had moved to Florida. I suspect that the property had to be sold after my grandmother's death in order to settle her estate.
"My father, mother, and I moved from the home in the spring of 1955. A carpenter and subsequently a general contractor, my father Mixon Smith built us a new house in East Brainerd. I suppose by then they all knew that Cameron Hill was scheduled to be taken down for Urban Renewal."