Hosea and Johnnie Stevens House
This site is part of the Black Springs tour, a partnership with Our Story, Inc. Visit the Tours page for the tour introduction and complete list of sites.
Hosea Stevens bought a lot from J.E. and Dorothy Sweatt in August of 1958. Stevens and his wife, Johnnie, were both natives of Texas, where three of their children were born.
Born in 1910, Hosea served in World War II, and in 1946, the family moved to Reno, where he worked as a self-employed electrician. They lived in a pair of small shacks on this parcel, now known as 270 Westbrook Lane, before moving the front section of the current house to this lot, and then adding to it. The original part of the house dates back to the 1930s or 1940s.
The couple ultimately had four children: Hosea, Willie, Lilli, and Jacquelyn. Willie and his family lived a few blocks north on Medgar Avenue. Hosea, Sr. was known as the electrician for the entire Black Springs community. He died in 1976 at the age of 66 and Johnnie died in 1989.
In 2006, Lilli’s son, Hosea, who was one of the neighborhood's skilled repair people, helped Helen Townsell-Parker safely relocate the 30 boxes that contained all the paperwork kept by her grandparents, Ollie and Helen Westbrook, which told the story of Black Springs.
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