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The Birthplace Research in
Brief
Website Staff Report - June 10, 2002
The birthplace of Maj. Gen. Maurice Rose, U.S. Army, has at
last been correctly identified. After World War II, the location
where he was born in 1899 in Middletown, Connecticut, was assumed
to be the 3-story Victorian brick building known today as "418-426
Main St.". Rose's birth certificate records "424 Main
Street" as his place of birth, and the 1899 Middletown City
Directory lists the Rose family as living at that address. It
seemed obvious then that the 418-426 building was where Gen.
Rose was born. Yet that assumption turned out to be wrong.
In the spring of 2002, plans were being made for a dedication
and ceremonial marking of Rose's birthplace with a bronze plaque.
It was a dedication long overdue. Rose was one of the great field
commanders of World War II, if not the greatest Connecticut-born
soldier in history. While preparing for this event, a member
of the 3rd Armored Division reunion group that was organizing
the ceremony decided to make a deeper investigation of the address's
claim to authenticity. The result was totally unexpected. This
new research eventually uncovered the fact that in 1918 Middletown
-- most unusually for an Old New England city -- had re-numbered
all the buildings on its Main Street. The 424 Main St. of 1899,
as was eventually discovered, is actually the 508 Main St. of
today.
The birthplace of General Rose is in fact the northernmost
half of a 3-story Victorian brick tenement row, with separate
entrances, collectively designated "502-508 Main St.".
Not only is the building still standing and in fine condition
in 2002, but, as luck would have it, the two shops presently
occupying its ground floor are both owned by military veterans
-- Elmer Chiarappa of Chiarappa Jewelers, who served in the Navy
in the Pacific during World War II, and Jeff Fine of Meeting
House Opticians, who served two and a half tours of duty in Vietnam
as an Air Force combat medic.
General Rose was killed in action near Paderborn, Germany,
on March 30, 1945, only five weeks before the Third Reich's formal
surrender to the Allies. He had led the 3rd Armored Division
through northern France, Belgium, across the Siegfried Line,
in the Battle of the Bulge, and deep into central Germany. On
the day before the last day of his life, his men accomplished
the longest one-day advance by an Allied Division in World War
II. One of the highest ranking Americans ever to die in war,
Rose was buried in the American military cemetery at Margraten,
the Netherlands. The citizens of Middletown and veterans in Connecticut
and throughout the nation can be proud that a great American
fighting man has at last received an appropriate memorial at
his birthplace.
The Birthplace Research in
Detail
Following extensive archival and field research, the PIO concluded
on May 29, 2002, that Gen. Rose was born in 1899 at what is today
508 Main St., Middletown, CT. (The "PIO" is a 3rd Armored
Division reunion group that served with the Division Public Information
Office [PIO] during 1965-68.).
The 508 Main address is the extreme north entrance of a still-standing,
3-story, Victorian-style, commercial building, known historically
as the Ward & Cody Building. The 508 doorway leads to the
2nd and 3rd floor rental units on the northern half of the building,
which was apparently constructed in 1889-90. Another entrance
(504) at the middle of the building leads to the rental units
on the southern half. It was in an apartment in the northern
half that tailor Samuel Rose and his wife Katherine, both Polish-Russian
immigrants, had their third child, Maurice.
The results of this research are being shared with the two
national 3rd Armored Division veterans groups (World War II and
all-era associations) and with Gen. Rose's two sons. It is also
being shared with the Connecticut Historical Society, the Middlesex
County Historical Society, and the Middletown Public Library
(Russell Library).
To backtrack in this discovery process, in March, 2002, PIO
staffer Paul Leopold (at his office in Sweden) ran across the
obscure fact on the Internet that Rose had been born in Middletown,
CT, in 1899. That was four years before his family re-settled
permanently in Denver, Colorado. Relaying that news to the PIO
website desk in New Haven, CT, staffer Vic Damon was immediately
dispatched to examine the General's original birth certificate
at the Middletown City Hall.
From the address on the certificate, it was then assumed that
the birth location ("424 Main St.") today was a still-standing,
3-story, brick building known as 420-426 Main. Built in 1868,
the building has always had rental apartments or offices on the
top two floors, and "424" was the current store-front
address on the ground level. And now painted an elegant white,
somehow its 19th century, Victorian Italianate styling simply
looked the part.
According to Damon, who spoke at length with the current long-time
property owner and examined various City records back to 1930,
"It's a virtual certainty that we have the correct building,
but, to make it 110% certain, there's still some additional archival
research that can be done. Sometimes street addresses had a way
of shifting over the decades, but it's very unlikely in this
case. There are currently at least 25 veterans in Connecticut
who served under Gen. Rose in WW II. This should be interesting
news for them and for many other local folks."
On May 17 & 18, 2002, Damon belatedly performed that additional
research, and the results proved shocking and disappointing.
It was found that in 1918 the City had done something unheard
of in the 20th century for a long-established Connecticut community
of its size -- it renumbered the buildings on its primary downtown
business street. Unquestionably, the 424 Main of 2002 had a very
different street address in the year that Rose was born. As would
be later learned, that different address was 352-356 Main.
But where then was the Rose birthplace today? First indications
were that it would now be one of three adjacent buildings on
the next block to the north of the current 424 -- with the most
likely candidate being the middle property, where a 19th century,
3-story, wood-frame building had burned down in 1966. Had the
birthplace been destroyed?
Research finally continued on May 29, 2002, at City Hall.
Frustration continued in examining property deeds from the 1890-1920
period, which did not contain street numbers. Additionally, tax
assessor "field cards" from that era had long since
been disposed of. The critical break finally came in the archives
of the Public Works Dept. where Asst. Chief Engineer Bob Dobmeier
proved patient and relentless in locating a 1906 "house
numbering" map (#53-6) and supportive listing sheet (#52-57).
These detailed the renumbering changes for Main St. which were
subsequently adopted by the City Council in 1909 (as indicated
on map #53-6). For reasons that could not be learned, the actual
implementation of those changes did not take place until 1918
and after.
With this new information, a comparison was then made by Damon
between the mapping details and various Main St. tenant names
and addresses in the Price & Lee City Directories from 1899
to 1921 (including Samuel Rose in 1899). Additionally, as part
of the field investigation, a still surviving, pre-1918, hand-painted,
ornate "408" was found above a rear entrance to what
is today 484 Main, further confirming the scheme of the renumbering
plan. (Until now, the current owner of that building had not
understood the meaning of the mysterious "408".)
The results proved conclusively that, in 1918, 424 Main was
renumbered to 508 Main, which still remains today as the extreme
north entrance to the Ward & Cody building, known as 502-508
Main. It was the adjacent building to the south (500 Main) that
had burned down in 1966.
Also on May 29, 2002, in-person contact was made with the
owners of the two store-front businesses in the building today
-- Elmer Chiarappa of Chiarappa Jewelers, who has also owned
the property since 1980, and Jeff Fine of Meeting House Opticians,
who is an avid history buff. Neither was aware that Rose had
been born in Middletown, let alone in their building. Both men
are military veterans.
Chiarappa was a W.W. II Navy coxwain who served in the Pacific
on a troop transport that was involved a series of major invasions
in 1944-45, including the Okinawa landing. Jeff Fine, during
his four years of active duty in 1964-68, served two and a half
tours as an Air Force combat medic in Vietnam. As his primary
assignment in the war, he was attached to the Army's 82nd Airborne
Division. The Rose birthplace could not have two finer or more
appropriate "guardians."
[END]
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