The Antique Clock House - The Stegalls

The Signal Addition, where the property at hand is located, was established in 1923 by Miss Pearl May Alexander.  Miss Alexander was the daughter of Mr. C. P. Alexander, one of the largest property owners in Tulsa in the 20’s and 30’s.  He probably arranged for his daughter to have the property in her name since, according to the 1920 Census, she was 31 years of age and unmarried.  

Mr. Jack Edmond Stegall bought a number of lots in the Signal Addition, possibly for development, but also, it turned out, for himself.  He purchased nearly the entire east side of Evanston Avenue between Twelfth and Thirteenth Streets.

Jack Edmond Stegall

Jack Stegall was one of those men who lived in the early 20^th century and blazed his own path.  According to his granddaughter:“My grandad was a real self-made man. He was a cowboy, surveyed for the railroad, carpenter, house builder, cabinet maker and, most impressive, an antique clock hunter and repairer thereof.”  Born and raised in Texas, Jack moved to California, Arkansas and eventually settled in Tulsa in the early 20’s. Jack and his wife, Elizabeth, were blessed with three children - twins, Beryl and Bertha, born in 1909 and Jack Owen born in 1911.  

Elizabeth and Jack Stegall with twins, Beryl and Bertha and little Jack Owen

Jack got into the building business in Tulsa at time when the population more than tripled.  (1910 Population =18,000; 1920 Population=72,000)  He was a known and established builder in the 1920’s, officing out of the Tulsa Loan Building downtown.  In 1923, he applied for a patent on a particular building technique seen in his application below. 

In a move that was out of the ordinary, if not rare, Jack divorced his wife, Elizabeth, in 1930. Elizabeth struggled through the lean years of the depression on her own. By 1931, Jack was living at 1222 S. Evanston Avenue with Addie Bromley, a woman ten years younger than his first wife. We know this from his draft card, completed when he was 48 years old. Despite Addie being listed as his spouse, they would not marry until 1934. He and Addie lived out of a tiny house that sits on the northwest corner of 1222 S. Evanston Avenue. The three-room dwelling had a bathroom and its own electric meter. It is still there today. Now an outbuilding to the main home, it has been used as a pottery/hobby studio.

Jack built the brick homes with peaked eaves at 1222 and 1228 South Evanston Avenues in 1940. The floor plans are virtually identical. Blueprints of 1228 survive and are simply labeled:  A Six Room Residence.  I suspect that Jack Stegall may have built the other brick homes on the east side of Evanston Avenue between 12th and 13th but I can't quite prove that.  (With the exception of 1204 & 1248 which are different styles)

Jack Edmond Stegall

The plans depict cozy two bedroom homes with one bathroom and two living spaces - a formal living room and a den with a double fireplace spanning the common wall.  The small kitchen is flanked by a formal dining room and a small breakfast nook.  The homes had a few cutting edge features - an attached garage and a shower with multiple jets separate from the tub.

1228 S. Evanston Avenue

1222 S. Evanston Avenue

The architect of the blue prints, Mr. William H. Wolaver, worked with Jack at the Tulsa Loan Building. Mr. Wolaver lived in the Renaissance Neighborhood and in the 1940's established an office next to his home.  The large white farmhouse on the Southwest corner of Twelfth and Birmingham Avenue was his home and the low white building just to the west was his office (per 1940 US Census).  He designed other businesses and residences in the Tulsa area, of note the B'nai Emunah Synagogue. Learn more about William H. Wolaver HERE.

1228 S. Evanston Avenue was built for Mr. William and Alice (Bromley) Jeremiah.  Alice was Abbie’s sister.  William worked as an oil and gas accountant.  A gate was installed between the sister's back yards.  Alice’s yard was completely devoted to roses of all types without almost any lawn at all. 

Jack and Addie traveled, including several trips to Havana for nightclubbing and gambling.  Addie collected cranberry glass and displayed it proudly throughout her living room and den.  She also acquired a jewelry collection that included a number of diamond rings.  For safe keeping, she kept them pinned to the lining of the draperies in her bedroom at 1222 S. Evanston Avenue.

The 1940 US Census shows the Stegalls had a lodger, Clara Smith.  She lived in the small three-room cottage first built on the property in the early 1930's.

Jack Stegall built the addition to First Baptist Church downtown at 5^th and Cincinnati in 1942. 

The Stegall Twins

Bertha, known as Betty, riveted B17’s -a real life rosie- in Tulsa during World War II.  Later, she worked at the Woolworth’s across from the Alamo and raised a family of her own.  (We are grateful to Betty's daughter for sharing family history with this writer.)  

Beryl became an architect and drafted houses for several residential areas in Dallas, including Highland Park. 

Jack Owen Stegall

Jack and his son, Owen, owned and operated the Stegall Antique Clock House on 15^th Street near Yale.  (About where Lowes is now) Together, they hunted down antique clocks, repaired and refurbished them.  According to Jack’s granddaughter who still has one of those clocks today... it was “magical” to be in the shop when all the clocks struck simultaneously. 

Owen worked for the city of Tulsa’s engineering department before he served in World War II.  In the US Army, he was part of a group of engineers who built the first bridge over the Rhine River.  

Words from Owen’s niece:  Grandad and Uncle Owen owned Stegall Antique Clocks on Fifteenth Street.  My grandad could repair almost anything. And I feel like Uncle Owen could too. Mom, and her twin, Uncle Beryl could also just look at something and solve or figure out how to repair something. They were all amazing like that. You don't realize that until you grow up and you learn other people aren't the same. Uncle Owen was in the group of Army engineers that built the first bridge over the Rhine River during WWII and he could repair any antique clock.

After the war, Owen returned to Tulsa, antique clocks and work as a builder.  In 1947-1948 he built the Hawk Dairy Building designed by Kansas City architect Gerard W. Wolfe.  The Hawk Dairy Building is been placed on the National Register of Historic Places and is being repurposed/restored.  

2415 E Eleventh Street- Pictured in September 2021

2415 E Eleventh Street

Jack died in 1964.  Addie passed away in 1967, at which time, Alice inherited the property.  The Stegalls are buried in Memorial Park Cemetery in Tulsa.  Alice held onto 1222 S. Evanston Avenue for a few years before she and her husband sold both homes and moved away. The Jeremiah's lived into the 1980's and are interred at Rose Hill Memorial Cemetery. 

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References

Ancestry.com

Personal Communication with Vickie Adams (August/September 2021)