On the street where you live, it could be named Oak, Elm, Main, South or First; all very common American street names. However, what if you found out there was a street in a nearby town named for you and had been for decades?
An Early Florida Residential Area
Those very events happened to 85-year-old Ila Alford Kesler of Florida. She had been totally unaware during her life that when she lived as an infant in a new subdivision of Stuart, Florida during the boom years of the mid-1920s, the developer of the residential area named one of the main streets after her. Since 1925, in the suburban area of Casa Terrace, there has been a road named “Ila Street”.
Ila Alford and her family only lived at Casa Terrace a few years before moving permanently to Fort Pierce, just 25 miles north of Stuart. Over the decades, she knew from her parents she was born in Stuart and had lived there a few years in her youth but her parents never happened to mention about the street name.
This new gained information was only achieved in 2009 when a local historian was researching the town of Stuart’s boom years in the 1920s and came across a newspaper article about a house being constructed for the Alford family in the new Casa Terrace subdivision. The researcher was very familiar with that house and the neighborhood since her husband grew up in Casa Terrace and in fact on Ila Street.
Naming a Street
While the researcher was gathering information on the Alford family, she found a daughter born to the family in September 1924 in Stuart and her name was “Ila”. This was just too much of a congruence. Digging further, she found that Ila’s father had been in a business relationship with the developer of Casa Terrace, Lawrence Dorsey, who was the owner of a local lumber company. Also Mr. Dorsey had named another street in the development for his only daughter, Lonita.
Stuart's Ila Street
Mrs. Kesler and her family were contacted about this discovery by the researcher. The family made a special trip to the old neighborhood to see this visual permanent marker named for a baby girl so many decades earlier. Also several of the former and present residents along Ila Street learned of these events and welcomed finding out the origin of this street.
Meaning of a Given Name
The happiest one was truly Ila for her name is unusual, meaning “island - Earth” and not a common given name. To know it has graced a residential street and city maps for over 80 years was a thrill and joy for her.
Yes, there happens to be other streets in America name “Ila”, however the one in Stuart, will carry special meaning to its residents and the Alford family for years to come.
Many times when you have seen a person’s name for a street you assume the person was a famous town pioneer, hero or great philanthropist. Well, instead there can be many other cases, just like Ila Alford Kesler’s situation where the person in charge of naming the streets just happened to like a person‘s name and wanted it to be a small eternal monument that such a person once did exist.
Sources:
Personal Interview with Ila Alford Kesler in 2009
Street Names
Alice Luckhardt - As a social science teacher in Florida for 18 years, office manager for the family business, historical and genealogical researcher and ...
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