Growing up in the North Lawn Avenue neighborhood in the 1950s-60s
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Alice DeVier played a significant role with the kids in our North Lawn Avenue-Jackson Street neighborhood in the 1950s and 1960s.
These included families with last names of DeVier, Steiner, Wilch, Augsburger, Westrick and Amstutz.
She was a psychiatrist, banker, warden, maker of popcorn and funeral director. We neighborhood kids buried more birds, rabbits, squirrels, dogs and cats in the DeVier and Steiner yards under her direction than I can begin to count.
Let me tell you about the DeVier backyard. It was a perfect croquet, baseball and football field. The boundary on one side was Alice’s clothes line.
The other boundary was the reason the kids in our neighborhood were never constipated. It was Alice and Francis’ green grape arbor. We could never tell when the grapes weren’t ripe. They were always green. So, we ate them all the time.
This is a sample of the content of "Bluffton Anthology - A creek runs through it." Copies are now available for $24.95 plus tax in Bluffton at:
• Roots by Strattons
• The Food Store
• The Black Lab
• Bluffton Senior Citizens Center
• The Dough Hook
• Polished
Stories Posted This Week
Sunday, November 8, 2026
Saturday, November 7, 2026
- Pirates Essinger and Gatchel finish cross country season at OHSAA Championships
- Nov. 7 Bluffton Schools athletics lineup, streaming
- Pirate football hits Archbold roadblock in playoff loss
- Forum: Vaughn explores biblical and multicultural accounts of spirits and exorcism
- Bluffton University relaunches Leadership Development Program with NetVUE grant support
- Weekend Doctor: When distraction becomes the default
Friday, November 6, 2026
Thursday, November 5, 2026
Wednesday, November 4, 2026
- Klausing graduates from Ohio Bankers League Bank Management School
- Joellen Kay Lehman, 46, owned and operated Folly Faces
- Dec. 4-5 Messiah performances continue holiday tradition at Bluffton and Findlay
- Future Beaver Saturdays invite students to experience Bluffton University
- Ellie Bogart named BHS Student of the Month for October 2026
- Walter "Steve" Suter, 73, worked at Kirtland’s Auto Repair
- Grab an afterschool snack at the Bluffton Public Library