Although I had promised to write this week about the continuing life & scandals of Florence Kubel, I will push that off for one week to write a story that is related to next weekend’s house tour, and so deserves to be published before you have a chance to see the house itself.
Philo Lincoln Bush was born in 1861 in Iowa, the son of Lois Bush nee Burr (a distant relative of the former vice president) and Charles H Bush. His parents had married the previous year, and they all lived in Washington, which was where his father was from. Some time in the next few years Charles Bush passed away, leaving Lois Bush and her son to move in with her family, Philo Burr. Life was not easy for the family, as the only wage earner was Philo Burr, and he had three dependents: His wife, daughter, and grandson. They lived on 2nd Street Northeast.
Fortunately, young Philo was able to find steady work shortly after graduating from high school as an assistant manager in the comptroller of the currency. Nonetheless, life was still hard for them: his grandfather died shortly thereafter, and Lois continued to live with her son, even after he married in 1890 and had four children over the next 10 years. Although they had lived at this address for 20 years, they were still renters.
This was all to change suddenly in 1905. On Monday, July 24 of that year, the Los Angeles Herald printed a small blurb under the title “Died”: “Bush-in this city, Charles H. Bush, age 70. Funeral Tuesday, at 10:30 a.m., from the funeral chapel of W. H. Sutch, 842 Figuroa street. Interment Evergreen cemetery.”
It was indeed Philo’s father who had resurfaced. Even more importantly, he had died rich. His work over the past 35 years as a jeweler in Los Angeles had left him with a substantial fortune, listed in once case as totaling $250,000 — a vast sum in those days, especially someone who was living on a clerk’s salary.
How Philo Bush determined that he was likely to be in line to inherit a large chunk of change is unclear, but by August 5, the Herald wrote that Charles Bush’s son was claiming his part of the inheritance out from under the noses of Bush’s siblings who had announced that they were sole heirs.
The house at 100 12th Street SE. See the inside next weekend.
Philo Bush was successful in his attempt to angle the money for himself, the fact that his mother had listed herself as a widow for at least 25 years was deemed irrelevant. He then went on a real estate spree, buying not only 128 Tennessee Avenue NE for himself, but a number of vacant lots on which he then had houses built. One of these was on lot 11 of square 1014, a lot which he bought in 1907, but not build on until 1910, when he had William Palmer (who was also responsible for the Naval Lodge on Pennsylvania Avenue) design a house that was built Robert C Hess. It was given the street number 100 12th Street SE.
Philo Bush eventually becoming an office supply merchant, and lived on Park Rd in northwest DC. He died in 1945. His houses on 12th Street remains and it will be open for visiting on Mother’s Day as part of the CHRS’s annual House and Garden Tour.