20 East Windsor Avenue

William Emerson had been born in Alexandria in 1837 and married Harriet Ella (she preferred her middle name) Mathews in 1875. Between 1878 and 1888 Ella gave birth to a son and five daughters. While she was busy doing that William worked as a florist with his own shop on Wilkes Street. In 1906 he secured an appointment as the superintendent of Bethel Cemetery, which enabled him to buy the house at 20. There he lived with Ella and two daughters, Mildred and Rose and a boarder, Dora Varney, a friend of Mildred's. William apparently did not slow down with age for his death certificate of October 1915 at age 78 listed the cause of death as “exhaustion – arterio sclerosis”.

Ella and the girls stayed on in the house for a few more years, but all had left by 1919, Ella moving to DC and Mildred to LaVerne Avenue. This allowed her to regularly visit Mildred and Dora, even staying for several days in Ms. Varney's house.

Jenkins & Sheffield

The house was rented out for several years, then sold to Inez Jenkins in 1922, and a year later resold to Ruby Lee Sheffield. Since she was only 20 years old at the time it appears as though the actual buyer was her father Albert, a carpenter and contractor who owned a house on Howell. Indeed, she continued to live with her parents on Howell until her marriage to Joseph Parsons in 1935.

The Gaines Era

The Sheffields sold the house a year later, in August 1924, to Robert and Eva Gaines, who would make the house truly their home. Robert had been born in 1873 and Eva in 1871, both in Virginia, and they married in November 1896. They had five children: Helen in 1897, Reginald in 1899, Tracy in 1904, Doris in 1905 and Evelyn in 1908.

Robert started out working in a general store but about the time they bought the house he got a job with the railroad as a telegraph operator, being promoted to station agent in the 1930s. He and Eva would make 20 E Windsor their home for the next thirty years.

The kids, however, moved in and out. Helen appears to have been the first to go, as she moved out shortly after the house was purchased. She seems to have moved to Atlanta, where she met and married Causey White, an engineer with the Larking Refrigerating Co. During WW 2 he took a job with the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, moving to Telegraph road, which probably pleased her parents. When the war ended, however, they moved back to Atlanta where they remained together until his death in 1969. Helen herself died there in 1985.

Tracy married Richard Roseberry, from the Rosecrest neighborhood, in December 1924 and apparently moved in there. This apparently did not work out and she moved to Atlanta briefly to be with her sister. In February 1930 she traveled north and was granted a divorce in Arlington, and moved back into the family home on Windsor Avenue. In June 1926 Reggie married Ruth Sangster and they moved to DC, where he worked selling railroad equipment.

Thus, by 1930 Doris, Evelyn and Tracy, all in their 20's and working as stenographers, were still living in the house with their parents. In September of that year, however, Doris married Ledru Strobel, a machinist at the Navy Yard who lived in the Park Addition area just a few blocks away. They had a daughter Jean in 1935 and the three lived with her parents in the Windsor house for several years before moving to Rosecrest Avenue around 1937. With the outbreak of war he was transferred to the Naval Ordnance facility in Louisville, KY. After the war they moved to south Florida and Indianapolis, before retiring to Pinellas County, Florida. Also in 1930 Evelyn married Abram Frey Jr, an auto mechanic, and they also set up house at 20 E Windsor. They continued to live there until February 1941 when Abram passed away at Alexandria Hospital of cirrhosis of the liver at the young age of 32.

Right: Doris Gaines in 1923

Reggie divorced Ruth in June 1934 and moved back in with his parents very briefly. A month after his divorce he married Evelyn Newman and shortly thereafter moved to Richmond. They remained married there until his passing in 1979. Tracy, on the other hand, struck out on her own and moved to DC. There she eventually met DC policeman Robert Joiner and they married in 1948 until his death in 1962, she living on until 1980, both being buried in Arlington as a result of Robert's Army service with the 1st Division in WW I.

Thus, by 1938 the Robert and Eva had got rid of all the kids except Evelyn and Abram, although they did take in two lodgers, Nathaniel Watson, an asbestos installer and Elwell Cash, a carpenter, both 24. After Abram's passing Evelyn moved out, although nothing more is known of her except that she passed away in 1979 near her sister Doris in Pinellas with the name Evelyn Frey Ford.

The kids were finally gone by the start of the war and, aside from a few boarders to supplement the income, Robert and Eva finally had the house to themselves. That those were needed was evidenced by a foreclosure action against the Gaines' in October 1940, although the managed to keep the house.

Things went well until about 1951 when Robert showed symptoms of senility brought on by Cerebral arteriosclerosis. He was moved to University Nursing Home in Charlottesville in early 1952 and passed away there in July at age 79. Eva died of a coronary thrombosis in January 1954 at age 82. She had taken a number of steps ahead of time, including filling out a slightly-delayed birth certificate for daughter Helen, born 57 years earlier.

She also set out of a list of her heirs, to wit: Helen Gaines White, 56 of Atlanta; RR Gaines, 54 of Washington, DC, Tracy Gaines Joyner of Vienna, Va; Doris Gaines Strobel, 49 of Indianapolis, and Evelyn Gains Ford of Baltimore. They agreed to sell and in July 1954 Martin and Grace Rustig took ownership, beginning a chain of ten owners between 1954 and 1977.

20 East Windsor (on left) shown in 2015 as built by Lamson.  Compare to Number 22 on the right

20 East Windsor today, rebuilt as an external copy of number 22 next door.

In 2021-22 the house was completely rebuilt as a copy of number 20 next door, losing some of the quirkiness of the pair.  At the same time an extension was added to the rear to increase interior space.