Last week, this feature brought you the story of Mrs. Frances Zahn, an Avondale Estates widow who, with the help of friends, refashioned an abandoned streetcar into a tiny home during the Great Depression.
Since that article was posted, we’ve learned a little more about Zahn and her streetcar home.
Zahn had an address in downtown Decatur before she moved into the streetcar in July 1936. That earlier home at 416 East Howard Avenue still exists, only one block over from the old train station that’s today’s Kimball House restaurant.
Credit: Google Street View
Credit: Google Street View
The city directory for 1936 lists an “h” by her address which could indicate that she was a homeowner rather than a renter. (Renters had an “r” by their addresses.) It’s unclear why she lost her home, but the 1937 Constitution article mentions that her troubles began when she lost her position “at a northern concern.”
» DEJA NEWS | Widow lives in a tiny-house streetcar (1937)
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The big mystery remains as to who her benefactors were and why an abandoned streetcar was selected to house her. Streetcar companies and technologies changed several times in the early 20th century, and according to RailGA.com, cars were often being retired and destroyed for newer models.
The center-entrance model that became Zahn's home was one of the first electric ones used in Atlanta. An image on RailGA.com shows one of those cars in use, with the number "430" on its side. The abandoned car used by Zahn was number "436" (as seen in the 1937 Constitution article) so it could have been from the same fleet.
Zahn’s streetcar home was parked on Olive Street, one block north of today’s East College Avenue, up the street from today’s working Waffle House (not to be confused with the world-famous Waffle House museum four blocks away).
Frank Busbee, who grew up in Avondale Estates, remembers a home on the northwest corner of Olive and Franklin (also variously called Elm or Potter) streets. And behind that home sat the streetcar. Busbee remembers the streetcar remaining there through the 1950s and possibly into the ‘60s. Today, the lot is used as extra parking for a mechanical contractor.
Although she had electricity – photos from 1937 and later show a utility pole and electric meter – Zahn may have lived “off the grid” in other ways. The Constitution article refers to her home as a squatters ground and her name doesn’t appear in the city directories for several years after 1936. Nevertheless she reappeared in the directory by 1944 and was listed at her Olive Street address until her death in 1948.
A clipping of her obituary can be found at FindAGrave.com. The listing did not come from The Atlanta Constitution pages but may be from the Wisconsin State Journal, the paper of record for Madison, where she hailed from. She's buried in the Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison along with her husband Theodore, who died 42 years earlier.
Credit: Pete Corson
Credit: Pete Corson
What happened to Zahn’s streetcar is mystery. Former Avondale Estates mayor Allan Kirwan has kept an old streetcar in the back of a house on South Avondale Plaza for years, but his artifact is a later model and couldn’t have been Zahn’s.
But that’s a story for another day.
If you have any information on Frances Zahn and her time in Avondale Estates, please contact Pete Corson at pcorson@ajc.com. Thanks to everyone on the Avondale Estates Facebook page who contributed their memories and their theories.
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