We live on Larriwood Avenue in Kettering, Ohio. I really didn't need to add the city or state to that since there is only one Larriwood Avenue in the entire United States. I figured the name had something to do with someone back in the mid-1950s when the house was built. I reviewed the original plat books, available at the link below, for an entry for Larriwood Avenue, which turned up these four names: George R. and Miriam E. Steller, Swango & Sons Construction, and C.W. Zimmerman.
George was a Registered Land Surveyor, and he surveyed, engineered, and certified dozens of residential and commercial plat maps across Montgomery and Butler counties from the 1920s through the 1950s. He and Miriam were prominent local figures and philanthropists in the Dayton–Kettering area of Montgomery County, Ohio, and owned the land our plat is built on. In 1962, George and Miriam donated 4.4 acres of land at the corner of David Road and Marshall Road to the Dayton YMCA (now called South YMCA). Our plat is called Miriam Acres, and there is a Miriam Drive a few houses away. I presume they were named after her. But no connection was found to Larriwood Avenue.
Swango & Sons Construction, our home's builder, was owned by Stanley Sterling Swango Jr. Again, no connection could be found for Larriwood Avenue; however, it turns out that Stanley Jr. is Gourmet Chef Elaine's 14th cousin twice removed. How weird is that?
C.W. (Carl) Zimmerman also signed our plat book entry, and his company was the general contractor that built Miriam Acres. Searching his family tree in familysearch.org, I found he had a son, Lawrence Lee Zimmerman, who died in 1944 at the age of five months. I believe our street is named after him.
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