Christmas card features former Donahey home

Christmas cards and signed prints featuring the Donahey Home in New Philadelphia by artist Christy Bloom are now available at Blooms Printing in Dennison, Dayspring Christian Bookstore and Alley Cats in New Philadelphia. They are also available online at www.artistchristybloom.etsy.com.

Cards are $20 for a pack of 20, with proceeds supporting Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes and the Jehovah Jireh Project in Malawi. Corporate imprinting and larger quantities may be ordered by calling Blooms Printing at 740-922-1765.

The John Donahey home once stood at the corner of Third Street SW and NW and West High Avenue in New Philadelphia, at the site of the current Speedway gas station. This corner is across from the First Christian Church. John Donahey lived in Westchester until 1887, when he was elected Tuscarawas County Clerk of Courts and moved his family to New Philadelphia. He served as clerk from 1888 to 1894, after which he built the house.

His son, A. Victor Donahey, trained in the printing trade and was elected county auditor in 1906. He later became the only Ohio governor from Tuscarawas County. Another son, Harry Donahey, was a cartoonist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. A third son, William Donahey, worked as an illustrator for the Plain Dealer and wrote the Teenie Weenies books.

The house was torn down in April 1971 to make room for the gas station. The photograph used for the cards and prints was likely taken around 1908, as the home appears in the 1908 Centennial Atlas of Tuscarawas County.

Thank you to Kim Jurkovic, curator of the Tuscarawas County Historical Society, for providing the historical information and photograph.