When my great grandpa William Howard Furnier passed away in 1940, he left behind his wife Edith Myrtle (nee Graham) and their two kids. Sometime around then she moved to the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority project Winton Terrace. In my Grandpa’s (Edith’s son’s) papers there are newsletters from Winton Terrace in the latter half of the 20th century. This one particularly caught my eye for its colorful cover and anniversary theme.
Unfortunately there isn’t much history inside the newsletter, aside from this page making a special tribute to the families that moved in when Winton Terrace first opened (including my great grandma):
The auto-fill that pops up when I type Winton Terrace into a Google search bar looks something like:
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The history of Winton Terrace
My Cincinnati and public housing history knowledge isn’t very sharp, so I don’t feel qualified to really dig into the social-cultural issues that make up Winton Terrace’s history and present. (Best thing found in a quick online search is this report.)
I asked relatives about their memories of Winton Terrace. The small details of kid memory get me the most, like my aunt remembering “Grandma’s bricks on her aluminum garbage cans.” Memories from multiple family members about their Grandma (my great grandma) threatening (but never hitting) them with a flyswatter when they misbehaved.
I want to know more, but I started grad school this year and stuff got pretty real in February, so I have to set aside in-depth personal research for research of the school and work variety for now. But Winton Terrace will be hanging around in the back of my mind for awhile. That tension between the hope of public housing and the reality of decades of aging and change, and how personal memories and contemporary stereotypes about housing projects shape the conversation. Lots of questions; lots and lots of questions.
(P.S. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth is a really good documentary on a public housing project in St. Louis.)
Illuminated Past 
I just came across this post. I grew up in Winton Hills in the late 70’s – late 80’s. Interesting history.
My mother was Carolyn (Furnier) Foster and my grandmother was Edith Furnier. My Mom and Uncle James lived in the “terrance” for many years, both going to Hughes High School. They described it as a wonderful place to grow up but it slowly went down hill beginning in the 60’s. I used to stay with grandma from time to time and we would walk down to Spring Grove avenue and eat at Frisch’s before walking to her sisters in St. Bernard.
Feel free to reach out with questions.
David Foster
dhfoster@zoomtown.com
Fairfield, Ohio
lived on winnesta in the late 60s as the only white family in the neighborhood. There was an elderly white lady across the street..ms. debolt. We were forced out during a riot june 1970. We helped get ms debolt out a couple weeks later. They burned her rose bushes. I was 6 years old.
Accidentally finding my way to this site prompted an unexpected and nostalgic trip back to the past. Thanks to all who have left comments before me. I loved reading them and catching glimpses of your experiences at Winton Terrace. My family — my mother in her 40s and we three children (1 girl, 2 boys) — moved to Winton Terrace around 1951 and lived at 5053 Winneste about 9 years. I remember it as a desolate island of divorced mothers and children, plus a few retired people and disabled veterans, cut off from the rest of the world. Most everyone was on welfare because, as with us, the fathers had gone off and deserted their families. Our link to the outside world was an occasional letter from a relative, the telephone booth across the street, and a cracked Emerson radio with vacuum tubes that we replaced when they burnt out with new ones from Alexander’s Pharmacy at the foot of “the Terrace” on King’s Run Drive. We weren’t allowed to have a television set or telephone and caseworkers would conduct humiliating house-checks to make sure you didn’t have such luxuries and that you weren’t harboring some man living off the dole too. My mother, with an 8th grade education, managed to briefly hold jobs at P&G’s nearby Ivorydale Plant stuffing coupons in boxes of detergent and as a clerk at Alexander’s Pharmacy, but she had to quit each time because there was no child care and we always managed to get into trouble while she worked. I still feel terrible about the shrinkingly dismal future to which our heedless juvenile misdeeds consigned her, worsening her prospects and mental health. The putrid smell from Ivorydale hung over the Terrace many days. On the first of the month, everyone stood watch by their mailboxes for the much-awaited welfare checks with Frederick Breyer’s (Welfare Dept. head honcho) signature on them. Johnny’s Parkview Market at the foot of WT charged exorbitant prices that led our frugal mother — a child of the Depression — to round us up and walk the miles over to Elmwood Place with every wheeled conveyance we possessed to buy groceries at a cheaper supermarket there. Even though Winton Terrace wasn’t yet the more dangerous haven for drugs, crime and guns that it would become, my mother kept me and my brothers inside all the time. We even roller-skated on the smooth gray concrete floors that stretched across our first floor. I went back 30-some years later and knocked on the door of 5053 Winneste to see who lived there now. The woman who answered was about the same age as my mother when we lived in Winton Terrace. I spent the afternoon with her, talking, comparing notes and touring the apartment that had hardly changed in the decades since my family had lived there. Later, I played a small supporting role in helping her get out of the Terrace and into a subsidized apartment in a better neighborhood as well as go to the University of Cincinnati for two years, where I graduated. Today, the two of us have gone from being perfect strangers who shared an address in Winton Terrace to becoming best friends since my knock on her door at 5053 Winneste 25-plus years ago.
very interesting Elizabeth . almost a duplicate of my life. I would really like to talk to you if could friend me on Facebook my name is Vince Frost looking forward to hearing from you
Hi, Vince:
It’s 2 years later. Somehow I found myself wandering back to this site in a random search for “Winton Terrace.” I saw your note and here I am. If you’re still out there in the chat-o-sphere and see this, e-mail me at elizabethfranklin@earthlink.net. Sorry, I’m not on Facebook. — Elizabeth
I was raised there 73-1989. My grandma was there 22 years I remember story’s about how it use to be….