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Show Pittsburgh Council to Abandon Stephen Foster Memorial Home Once again Pittsburgh is embroiled em-broiled in a controversy over Stephen A. Foster, one of its most famous sons, as the result of a decisi .ii by the city council to abandon the Stephen Foster Memorial Mem-orial home. . Rather than spend $10,000 to rehabilitate re-habilitate the memorial home, the city is giving up the 14-room mansion man-sion which some biographers term the "authentic site" of Foster's birth. The once stately place has become dilapidated, with plaster falling, porches collapsing and romping school children peppering its windows with stones. Three direct descendants of the noted composer may be left homeless home-less as a result of the abandonment The three, a grandson, granddaughter granddaugh-ter and great-granddaughter, have lived in the building for more than 30 years. The granddaughter, Mrs. Jessie Ross, 72, has been acting as caretaker for the city. In its decision not to repair the building, the city council declared that the rambling brick homestead has "ceased to have any value as a memorial." The council therefore is deeding the property back to heirs of James H. Park, wealthy steelmaster who bought it in 1914 and gave it to the city with the stipulation that it be maintained as a museum containing a collection of Stephen Foster mementoes. Music-lovers of the city later raised $500,000 to build an elaborate Gothic memorial to Foster on University Uni-versity of Pittsburgh campus. This memorial contains the largest collection col-lection of Foster's manuscripts and other belongings. It now is the mecca for thousands of visitors who formerly called at the Stephen Foster Memorial home. Another controversy over Foster raged in 1934 when Henry Ford bought what was claimed to be Foster's "real birthplace" and moved it to his outdoor museum in Dearborn, Dear-born, Mich. William McNair, Pittsburgh's Pitts-burgh's mayor at the time, claimed the millionaire car manufacturer bought "the wrong house." Mrs, Evelyn Foster Rorncweck of Detroit, a niece and biographer of Foster, said the composer was born in a white frame cottage which was torn down and replaced in 18G5 with the brick mansion which became the Stephen Foster Memorial home, Foster died in 1863. |