A treasured piece of Cooke family history has come home to the Sylvania Heritage Center Museum in the historic Cooke-Kuhlman House.
An all-original Ithaca grandfather clock from the early 20th century returned to the same position it held for more than 80 years inside the house, just to the left of the dining room entryway across from the mahogany staircase. It arrived Tuesday.
“We knew about the clock and that the family still had it,” Andi Erbskorn, executive director of Heritage Sylvania, said. “It appears in all the pictures we have that show this part of the house.”
The house at 5717 Main St. in downtown Sylvania was purchased in 1897 by Dr. Uriah Cooke and his bride, Ethel Kimbell. The doctor operated his medical practice in the home, which the couple renovated and expanded from 1902 to 1904.
Dr. Cooke’s great-granddaughter, Carolyn Enz Kyritz, said the couple bought the clock in 1904 as a gift for their daughter, Elizabeth (Betty), for her third birthday. It remained there until about 1990 when the family sold the house following Betty Cooke Kuhlman’s death in 1989.
“My grandmother just really meticulously took care of it. It was very important to her to keep it wound,” Mrs. Kyritz said, noting her grandmother would even have a neighbor wind the seven-day clock when she was away. “Really the only time the clock ever stopped was when she went into the hospital just before she passed away.”
The house changed ownership a couple of times before the city of Sylvania bought it in 1992 and turned it over to the Sylvania Area Historical Society the following year. The society merged with two other local historical nonprofits in January to form Heritage Sylvania.
Meanwhile, the Ithaca clock was in storage until Mrs. Kyritz and her husband bought their Connecticut home in 1998 and put it in their living room. She recently decided to donate it to Heritage Sylvania.
“We all felt like it was part of the original home,” Mrs. Kyritz said. “It really just belonged there, and it was important to our family to have it back in its original spot.”
Dr. Cooke’s descendants say the clock always occupied the same prominent place in the house. It now greets museum visitors as they walk in the main entry.
“It was a fixture. It was like the mahogany staircase, just part of the house,” Mrs. Kyritz said. “It was always there and always in that same spot.”
The earliest photo Heritage Sylvania has of the clock is a small, black-and-white shot from the late 1930s of a young Marilyn Kuhlman Enz, Dr. Cooke’s granddaughter and Mrs. Kyritz’s mother, standing in front of the clock while flaring the skirt of her dress. A second photo taken some 40 years later in the 1970s shows Mrs. Kyritz and her elder sister, Lauren Enz Wilson, with their grandparents Alfred and Betty Kuhlman posing in front of the clock.
Ms. Erbskorn said she was thrilled to receive the springtime call from Mrs. Kyritz offering to donate the clock. She and others had always hoped it could be restored to its place in the house at some point.
“She said, ‘I have this clock.’ And I said, ‘Yes, you do, and I know right where it goes!’ and we laughed,” Ms. Erbskorn said.
Heritage Sylvania worked with a company that often ships museum pieces to get the clock back from Connecticut. It was carefully packed into a crate in June, then held for several months while the company collected enough items needing to travel in the same direction to make the trip to northwest Ohio.
Ms. Erbskorn said Heritage Sylvania and its volunteers have been on pins and needles waiting for the clock to come home. It’s long-awaited arrival was everything they hoped for.
“It was fairly emotional, I would say,” she said.
Ms. Erbskorn had originally theorized that it might have been purchased as a wedding gift for Dr. and Mrs. Cooke. But no matter how it came to be in the house, the clock is more than just a piece of furniture now.
“Dr. Cooke’s story was one that was shared throughout the United States. For us to be able to highlight this particular family and share their story, but put it in a national context, is wonderful,” Ms. Erbskorn said. “When we get these items that have that much connection to the family, it tells a story.”
Mrs. Kyritz said the clock had not run in about a decade, and Ms. Erbskorn said the movement seemed to be seized. She was able to get it running Friday by gently helping the pendulum start swinging and it chimed the hour not long after, but it stopped after about 20 minutes.
She said Heritage Sylvania plans to have an expert appraise the clock and determine what can be done to get it running properly again.
First Published October 6, 2019, 6:10 p.m.