By Regina Villiers. Originally published July 26, 1995 in The Suburban Life, added October 14, 2014
A house on the Hosbrook farm, lived in by Daniel and later by his son Homer. The house was located on what is now the northeast corner of Miami Hills Drive and Hosbrook Road.
Of the 10 children and five sons of Daniel S. and Eunice Hosbrook, two of the sons, John L. and Mahlon, lived on in Madeira, carrying on the family name and farming the family farms.
Both are on record as having filed claims for damage from Morgan’s Raiders who went through Madeira during the Civil War and did damage to the Hosbrook farms.
Mahlon, 10 years younger than John L. led a quiet life. Not too much is known about him. He acquired his father’s 50-acre farm and turned it into a fruit farm, growing pears.
Two of his four children died young and the others did not stay in Madeira.
John L., on the other hand, became quite important in Madeira history. He and John D. Moore together bought all the land bounded by Euclid Road, Railroad Avenue and Miami Avenue. In 1871, they subdivided it into house lots, creating the first development in Madeira. This is the downtown area of Madeira today.
John L. Hosbrook married twice. After his first wife, Deborah Ferris, died, he married Mary A. Smith.
John and Deborah had four children. Two of their sons, Daniel and John Asaph, were the father and grandfather of the last of the Madeira Hosbrooks.
John Asaph was the father of Miss Nelle Hosbrook, still remembered by many.
Daniel, named for his grandfather, Madeira’s first teacher, was the grandfather of Miss Cleo Hosbrook.
Much of my knowledge of the Hosbrook family came from Cleo. For many years we were friends. She passed on to me her family stories, as well as may family pictures. Her stories have been implemented by my research and have been corroborated by Warren Joy, who has done research on the Hosbrook family.
I have written about both Nelle and Cleo extensively in Suburban Life. I also wrote and article about Nelle, which was published in Ohio Magazine several years ago.
Cleo’s father, Charles, and her favorite uncle, Homer, were sons of Daniel and Viola Hosbrook. Charles was and engineer and Homer was an attorney. Both are still remembered by a few older Madeira residents.
The Hosbrooks are sometimes described as being eccentric. But the term eccentric is often applied to persons a cut away from the ordinary, or a shade different, because they are not understood.
Certainly all the Hosbrooks were intelligent and all the later ones were college educated.
I have an original receipt for the tuition of Homer Hosbrook at the Cincinnati College Law School dated May 15, 1895. The yearly tuition was $75. Compare that to the cost of attending law school today.
Homer lived on Hosbrook Road just around the northeast corner off Miami Hills Drive in the house where his father, Daniel, had lived. The land in back of his house sloped down to Hosbrook Pond, where people ice-skated in the winter. A well in his back yard still exists in the back yard of a house there.
Homer had only one arm. He lost an arm through a shooting accident. When he propped a gun on the porch the gun fell and discharged, hitting him in the arm. He had to be taken on horseback to a doctor in Madisonville.
Many people often confused the relationship of Nelle and Cleo, thinking they were sisters. I’ve even seen this erroneously reported in one newspaper.
They were cousins. Actually, Cleo’s father, Charles, and Miss Nelle were first cousins.
From some indications I gathered, the relationship between the two women was not a close one. Even in death they are separated. Nelle is buried at Laurel Cemetery and Cleo lies in Hopewell Cemetery with her parents and Uncle Homer.
But both followed the example of the first teacher in Madeira and became teachers.
Nelle taught music and was also Madeira’s first librarian. The library was established in 1930 and was located in a room at the elementary school. Then it moved to the rear of Bauer’s Store on the corner of Miami and Euclid where the Shell Station is now located.
Cleo also taught school all her life until mandatory retirement age. She was a quiet, genteel woman with an elfin sense of humor that she usually displayed only to friends. She loved poetry, plants and animals.
All the Hosbrooks were farmers at heart. It was in their blood all the way back to the earliest Hosbrook.
All of them were animal lovers too. There are animal stories galore involving both Nelle and Cleo.
Cleo told a story about her Uncle Homer’s favorite dog, Motsie, who lost a leg when he was shot by a hunter poaching on the Hosbrook farm. Dr. P.B. Johnston fitted Motsie with a brace to walk on. Though the dog was never healthy again, he was able to walk with the help of his peg leg.
When Motsie died, Cleo, who was quite close to her uncle and thought to spare him, offered to bury the dog for him.
“No,” Homer told her. “It’s something I want to do for myself.” And he buried him on the farm.
Nelle Hosbrook died March 12, 1975, almost 97 years old. Cleo lived another 20 years. She died Jan. 6, 1995, the last of the Hosbrooks.
After 201 years, the Hosbrooks are gone from Madeira and little remains of them.
The road that led through their farms and became a street bears their name, Hosbrook Road. The Hosbrook name also remains at the bird sanctuary, a gift to the city from Miss Nelle, and at the two houses given by Miss Cleo.
Other that that only their stories remain. May their stories never be forgotten.
Cleo Hosbrook around 1920 when she was in high school.
Homer Hosbrook(left) and Charles Hosbrook, sons of Daniel and Viola, and the uncle and father of Cleo Hosbrook.
Motsie, Homer Hosbrook’s dog who was shot and continued to walk due to the efforts of Dr. P.B. Johnston.