One of Houston’s notable former residents is venerable George Foreman, who grew up in the Bloody Fifth Ward in the 1950s. Since he’s having a birthday on Monday, we decided to do a little research on the actual house or houses where he lived.
Any simple Google search will reveal the names of George’s parents, (J.D. and Nancy) so we searched through city directories, real estate records, voter registrations and other public records to find any addresses in the Fifth Ward.
In 1955, when George was six years old, Mrs. Nancy R. Foreman was listed as an employee of Jean’s Café, living in a rented house on Erastus Street. This house has apparently been torn down to make room for expansion of the Southern Pacific railroad yard off Liberty Road. There was another listing in this same year for J.D. and Nancy a few blocks away on Rawley Street. This address is now a vacant lot.
Photo courtesy of George Foreman
By the time George was twelve, Nancy was working at the OST Café and living on King Street a couple of blocks south of Lyons Avenue. That location is now part of the feeder road for Interstate 10 between Lockwood and Waco.
We wish we could have found a house to photograph, but unfortunately all three addresses are now defunct. Suffice it to say that George Foreman grew up in a neighborhood that has gone through many changes in the decades since he left. Nancy passed away in 1998, and there are few traces of this Foreman family left in the Houston area.
Happy Birthday George. We hope you have 60-odd more!
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