Lost Restaurants of Louisville (American Palate) by Hacker Stephen & Turner Michelle

Author:Hacker, Stephen & Turner, Michelle [Hacker, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2015-11-02T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

THE OLD HOUSE

Intriguing History Meets Irascible, Independent Woman

Erma Biesel Dick operated the Old House from 1946 until 1979. Mrs. Dick was raised in Indiana and, according to her autobiography, “barely managed to graduate from Jeffersonville High School in 1927.” After less than a year at Spencerian Business College, she went to work for Lewis Kaye, manager of a branch of Citizens Fidelity National Bank. Kaye left the bank and became a partner at the W.L. Lyons brokerage firm, taking Mrs. Dick (then married to her first husband, Edward Biesel) with him as his secretary.

When World War II broke out, Kaye enlisted as a naval aviator, granting Mrs. Dick “general power of attorney” to take care of his business while he served aboard an aircraft carrier. As a manager, and “being on an expense account,” Mrs. Dick traveled to New York and New Orleans on behalf of her boss, often going “to the most famous and finest of the restaurants” in those cities, spending hours talking to owners and managers and always leaving with menus, which would appear later as decorations in her own restaurant. While Mrs. Dick had assisted her German grandmother in a farmhouse kitchen, her real education in cuisine came from her business trips. She said, “The more I learned, the more I yearned to have a restaurant like those I visited.”

While Kaye was at war, on his behalf, Mrs. Dick purchased six adjoining old buildings in the 400 block of Fifth Street, which she claimed was at the time “filled with bookies and joints.” The block had once been residential, but over time, storefronts had been added and the buildings became businesses, with one exception: the townhouse at 432 South Fifth. Built around 1829 in the late Federal style, the three-story brick house is one of the only examples of an antebellum townhome remaining in Louisville’s downtown. Because of a fireplace mantel nearly identical to the one in Federal Hill near Bardstown (the former plantation now known as “My Old Kentucky Home” because it inspired Stephen Foster to write the state’s official song), it was long rumored the house once belonged to John Rowan. This theory has largely been discredited, but all agree that it became the home of generations of medical professionals, including William McDowell, known for his study of tuberculosis, and three generations of dentists named Canine. The dental offices were a place of invention. The Canines were granted a patent for using celluloid in the making of dental plates. Dr. J.F. Canine, who made dental instruments on the premises, was one of the first in the South to use a steam-powered drill. The Canines also were the first in Louisville to heat their home with steam and wrapped their own dynamos to create the city’s first electrically lit home. (The bright lights so startled the neighbors that they called the fire department, believing the building was ablaze.)

Mrs. Dick created a steady income stream from the rental of the former Canine home at 432, as she had with the other 400 block properties and with Kaye’s other interests.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.