A historic boarding house in Harrisonburg recently won a grant to aid in its preservation. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
The "Green Book" was a travel guide published from 1936 to 1967 that helped Black tourists find hotels, taverns, restaurants, and other amenities on the road during segregation. One of its listed lodgings was the Ida M. Francis House in Harrisonburg, a boarding house built around the turn of the century in the city's Northeast neighborhood.
DEANNA REED: It has a beautiful mantle inside. … The foundation is good. It's still well preserved. Beautiful French doors. … There's a piano in there. I'm sure they had lots of music playing, you know, people playing music there.
Harrisonburg Mayor Deanna Reed is part of a team working to preserve the home. The proprietor of the boarding house, Ida Mae Francis, hosted travelers from 1912 to 1962. The house later passed to her grandchildren, Henry and Lois Rouser. When Lois Rouser died in 2022 at age 98, she gave the house to her friend and caretaker – Deanna Reed's father, William.
REED: When famous people would come to Harrisonburg, like George Washington Carver came to Harrisonburg to speak at, then it was Madison College, he stayed … at their house. And so she had all these really cool stories. … We have found items from back to the 1800s. They threw away nothing! All the history about this house and the people who have stayed there is still inside that house.
The project recently won a grant from Virginia Humanities for Mountain Valley Archaeology to conduct research and nominate the property to the National Register of Historic Places.
