Grant family home in Central Falls, Rhode Island

Around 15 years ago, I asked my father, Warren W. Grant, to drive us past what had been his family's home in Central Falls, Providence County, Rhode Island. My father had never lived in the home since his father, Ralph W. Grant and his mother, Florence Hazel (Hazel) Skinner, moved from Central Falls to New Jersey around 1920.


54 Jenks Avenue, Central Falls, Rhode Island



The lot this house was built on was purchased for $100 by Lydia B. [Leach] Grant (Ralph's grandmother and my g-g grandmother) from Jas. H and Jonathon Chase on 4 April 1891. Lydia 's husband, Joseph Goff Grant had died around 18 months earlier.


Deed for sale of lot from Jas. H and Jonathon Chase to Lydia B. Grant, 4th April 1891.
Recorded in Book 67, page 61 of the Record of Deeds in the Town of Lincoln, RI

Presumably, the house was built soon after the lot was purchased and Lydia moved into the new house with her son William Sprague, and daughter Mary Elizabeth by 1892 when William appears at that address in a Pawtucket and Central Falls City Directory. Lydia died there on 9 June 1900, on the day that the census enumerator visited the property. Living there at that time were her son William Sprague Grant with his family, as well as William's un-married sister, Mary Elizabeth Grant.

My great-aunt, Marion Grant Wood (Ralph's sister) was the last Grant to live in the house. The house was sold around 1940 when Aunt Marion moved with her husband, George Henry Wood, Jr, to East Greenwich, Rhode Island. I remember Aunt Marion telling me it took a long time to clean out the house and the "burn barrel in the back yard was going for days." Luckily, she saved family heirlooms and family records - it was the family stories I heard on our visits to her when I was a child that piqued my interest in family history when I became an adult. What I would give to just have 10 minutes with her now to confirm some family lore!