1905 Washington Avenue

Built 1956 – 57 for Julius F. Stroud, Jr., a worker for the U.S. Postal Service and his wife Sarah, a teacher at the Rockwell School in the Derita community just northeast of Charlotte.

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Julius Franklin Stroud, Jr., (5.25.1913 – 11.2.1988) came to Charlotte as a child with his family from his native Spartanburg, South Carolina. His father Julius, Sr., had grown up in Chapel Hill and began his worklife at the University-affiliated Carolina Inn, rising from pot washer to cook to waiter. He next worked at resorts in the North Carolina mountains where he met his South Carolina-born wife — and also likely made the connections with influential businessmen that brought him to Charlotte. Julius, Sr., moved to the Queen City to be a waiter at the elite downtown Manufacturers Club and went on to serve as headwaiter at the Hotel Charlotte, Myers Park Country Club and Charlotte Country Club — three of the most prestigious service positions in the city.

Young Julius, Jr., graduated from Second Ward High School then found work with the U.S. Post Office, considered one of the best employers of African Americans in the era before the Civil Rights movement. He served 39 years, retiring as one of the first black supervisors in the Charlotte office.

He married Sarah Elizabeth Irby, a teacher who drove each day out to the Rockwell School off Sugar Creek Road, then a rural area beyond Charlotte’s city limits. Sarah Irby Stroud (   – 10.29.2007) had been the valedictorian of Second Ward High’s class of 1932. At Johnson C. Smith University where she graduated cum laude in just three years. She and Julius raised two sons and two daughters. The family was active at Memorial Presbyterian Church and Mrs. Stroud was a member for more than 50 years of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.

When Julius Stroud, Jr., died in 1988, the obituary in his funeral program remembered him as a “humanitarian who enjoyed life fully through his family and his many friends. He was known for his joy of hunting, fishing and gardening. His homespun gardening tips were much sought after by friends far and near.”

Julius’s family was well-regarded in Charlotte, especially his youngest brother Gerson Stroud. At a time when the position of school principal was the highest government job open to African Americans, Gerson Stroud served not only as the inaugural principal of York Road Junior/Senior High, but then went on to head West Charlotte High School in its first year of desegregation.