738 Rutherford St.

Looking east at the front of 738 Rutherford St, 6.22.2022 (N. Levy)   T-shaped house, dated in County records to 1909.  At the corner with Hillsborough Road, this home had been occupied by the family of Theodore and Hosia Lewis Carden for a few years before the big selloff of Erwin Mills company housing in 1945.  Unique among the surrounding mill houses and for reasons not readily discernible, however, the Cardens would remain at 738 Rutherford without purchasing the property from their employer for more than two decades.  Both Theodore and Hosia were still employed by the company at the time of the 1950 Census, with two of their three daughters still in school.  They were joined by a son-in-law and then grandson in the early 1960s, as their youngest daughter Velma married and had a child.  

As recounted in the Durham Morning Herald, Theodore Carden “had been in declining health for several years, but had worked at his job” the Tuesday in January 1967 on which he suffered a fatal heart attack.  It would be two more years before his widow purchased this house from the company where he worked for four decades.

Hosia Carden herself put in 25 years with Erwin Mills (later called Burlington Industries), remaining in this house and active at nearby Grey Stone Baptist in retirement until she passed in 1989.  For many years thereafter, this was again home to their daughter, Velma Carden Barbee, until it was sold to the present developers in 2022.