1012 West Markham Avenue - Bess Pickard Boone House

(Below in italics is from the National Register listing; not verified for accuracy by this author.)

One-story frame hip-roofed bungalow, with bracketed gable above entrance bay of full-facade recessed porch. Porch supports of clustered box posts with molding on brick plinths.

Edit by LA Tilley:

John W Markham originally owned the farm land that was subdivided for housing.  The Markham Place development was drawn and recorded in 1903.  1012 W Markham Avenue was Lot 17, Block D.

Dallas and Bess Sears Pickard purchased the lot in the summer of 1922.  The address is first listed in the Durham City Directory in 1923.  The only other house listed on the block in 1923 was 1019 W Markham which was listed as being vacant.  The following year 1010 was listed and in 1925 two more showed up: 1011, 1013.

Dallas Pickard, age 35, was a foreman at the Liggett & Myers Co. tobacco factory.  His wife, Bess, age 26, was listed as a teacher at Watts and North Durham Schools.  Their son, Dallas, Jr., was born in 1930.  The elder Dallas died in 1947.  

Bess remarried October 31, 1953, at age 56.  Her husband, Dr. William Henry Boone, was 83 years old and died three and a half months later.  The will that he wrote on their marriage date gave her a third of his estate, including real estate and investments.  (he owned the Morgan Motors building at 310 Foster Street, the apartment building at 306-308 Cleveland Street, the Cleaners building at 1003 W Chapel Hill Street and his home at 405 Cleveland Street.)  They married at 925 Demerius Street which was the home of Cabel B Jones, Bess’s brother-in-law, and one of the devisees of her will.

Side note: Dr. Boone’s daughter, Alberta, was married to Stanley C. Herrell and lived next door at 1010 W Markham at the time of her father’s marriage to Bess.

I am guessing that the home was extensively renovated in the 1950’s.  A third bedroom and a utility room were added to the back of the house.  Through the wall air conditioning units were installed in the bedrooms and dining room, and the house was completely clad in aluminum siding.  The kitchen cabinets appear to date from that period as do the fireplace and the front door.  A block-wall, flat-roofed carport was built in the back.

The 1956 city directory lists both Bess and Dallas, Jr., here.  She continued to teach school and he was in the US Navy.  Bess died in 1979.  Her death certificate documents that she died at Hillcrest Convalescent Center at age 82.  The informant, Dallas, Jr, is noted as being of 1012 W Markham Avenue.  Bess’s considerable estate was valued at approximately $500,000 and went primarily to her son and to the CCB and Trust.  She dictated that $50,000 be set up for her granddaughter, Diane E Pickard, to attend Salem College.

Alberto and Linda Spears Grignolo (estate trustee Marshall Spears’ daughter and son-in-law) lived here for several years.  The house at 1012 was sold in 1982, by trustee Spears, to Gerald and Eleanor “Ann” Stegall.  The Stegall’s lived here for seventeen years.  Brenda and Chris Yordy lived here for two years, Sara and Sasha Berghausen lived here for three years.  Jed Purdy lived here for four years.  Melissa and Landon Cox lived here for six years.

The current owners purchased the house in the spring of 2014 and removed the aluminum to restore the original siding.