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The Oaklands

Thanks to Joseph Garvey for this tip.  The Oaklands was the name of the house owned by the Overington Family that sat in Overington Park.  In his own words:

Several years ago we blogged about the Overington Mansion. As a young child I would listen to my older neighbors on Pilling Street gossip about the Overington’s and how beautiful the house was. So I wanted to know who the Overington’s were. Recently you received an email from Sandi Gammon about Overington Park and that she was pleased that the park was being cared for by the Frankford Garden Club. Her great grandmother lived there “Poppy Overington” So I had to get in with touch with her. We emailed each other and she has a website about her family tree and tons of pictures of the Overington’s and the mansion. I thought you and your readers would enjoy her new site. Please feel free and leave a comment on site.

The link to the site is here and it has quite a few pictures that I have not seen before.  This one below is a picture of part of the celebration marking the opening of the Frankford El in November of 1922.  The Overingtons are in the group of people on the carriage.

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Overington Park Update

Diane Kunze reports on the bulb planting  on Saturday November 13th:

We had some volunteers come and work like crazy, because they had seen our plea for help on your sight. We planted 1000 bulbs in the park! It should be wonderful come spring. Thanks to all our volunteers who came out, very last minute, and got the job done. Overington Park will look like a mini Longwood Gardens from Feb thru April. We planted bulbs in large groups around flower beds and a 50 foot run, between two beds, down Orthodox Street. The bulbs came to us from Longwood Garden, via PHS (Pennsylvania Horticultural Society). They were the biggest bulbs I’ve ever seen. The display should be spectacular! Keep an eye out this spring for the best daffodil show in Philadelphia right here in Frankford!

This is an email I got this week about the park from Sandi Gammon:

Hello, I was wondering if you could get me in touch with the “Friends of Overington Park” that are often mentioned on your website. My great-grandmother was Poppy Overington and she grew up on that property – they even had her wedding reception at the house there in 1924! My parents and grandparents took me out to the park about ten years ago and I remember being sad to see the shape it was in. I wanted to thank the people who help to keep it looking nice these days. Not only are they improving their community but they are unknowingly doing a great service to my family’s memory. I am so happy that people are enjoying the park and that it is cared for.

It’s nice to know others have seen the showplace this park is becoming.