601 North Hyde Park Avenue

 

(Below in italics is from the 2004 East Durham National Register listing; not verified for accuracy by this author.)

Dr. Norman Spikes House. 2-story double-pile side-gable house of Colonial Revival style. Original features are an entrance with a wooden fanlight and sidelights, a vaulted 1-bay entrance porch, and 6-over-6 sash windows. The porch has replacement metal posts. Vinyl siding. 1930-1940 CDs: Dr. Norman Spikes owner/occupant (physician, W. Main St.). 1937 SM.

Dr. Norman Owen Spikes (son of Norman Atlas Spikes) lived here with his wife Vera and his mother Etta Proctor Watts throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Dr. Spikes had an office in the Snow Building, which was brand new at the time his office moved there. I found records of his wife being a nurse, and assume at one point she may have worked with him?   He went to school at Trinity College. Here is his photo in The Chanticleer yearbook in 1920.

  His father died when he was very young. Norman was raised by his mother Etta (her family tree is chock full of Durham names like Barbee, Watts, Kinchen, Proctor and Pickett). Dr. Spikes grew up at 919 Angier Avenue, which is within spitting distance of Durham Hosiery Mill No. 1.   I bet the people watching from that front window was fantastic at shift change!