During the last two years of his life there was considerable strife in Albert’s family.  After his wife died in 1903, he sometimes expressed an interest in remarrying.  However, he became very ill and while in St. Vincent Hospital, fearing he might die, he deeded over the farm to his daughter Emma on January 13, 1910.  She quickly returned to Fairview to take possession of the property and try to sell it.  The agreement was that should she find a buyer she and her brother John would share equally in the proceeds.

     The Doblers had family friends in Albany named Welsh.  Their daughter Mary Emeline was a trained nurse and she took on the job of caring for Alabert.  A month after he had deeded over the property to Emma, Albert took a trip south for his health accompanied by Mary in her professional capacity.

     “Immediately afterwards Dobler sought to recall a trust agreement made previously concerning the farm,” stated the Cosmopolite Herald in an article that reviewed the story and was published on February 15, 1912.  The article added that on September 27, 1910, Albert made further attempts to get it back, but “Emma would not surrender the property.”  She and her brother expressed a concern that someone was influencing their father.

     On Thanksgiving Day Albert married Mary Emeline, stunning his children. They had no idea the two were considering marriage.  Within two days of the wedding Albert wrote a new will leaving everything to his 39-year-old bride, including the Fairview farm valued at about $130,000.

     The matter was taken to court for a legal ruling and the battle continued for months.  One Sunday in February while Emma was visiting in Cleveland she a stricken suddenly with a paralysis and taken to a hospital but died before the day was over.  Her only child, a boy named Frederick, came from Denver to be present at her funeral.

     The matter continued in litigation.  Albert’s health deteriorated and he died in a sanitarium on December 9, 1911.  It took nearly a year more for the matter to be settled.  In September 1912, Erie’s Judge Walling handed down his decision that Albert had not legally rescinded the original gift to his daughter and the widow had no claim on the Fairview property.  He had left a large estate, however, including property in several other cities, and the widow shared in those, as did two other distant relativs.  Also listed to receive bequests were Erie’s St. Vincent and Hamot Hospitals, other assorted charities, plus small monetary gifts to John’s two children and Emma’s son.

     John then returned to Fairview and moved into the mansion.  “He is putting in fine condition the home that he formerly occupied for a number of years,” was the comment in the September 5, 1912, Cosmopolite Herald.  John married a second time, in 1916, to Rhea M Burgess of Erie and in 1917 he sold the mansion, outbuildings and the more than 300 acres to the Erie County Poor Board.  Fred Baldinger, Emma’s son, came into his mother’s share at that time.

     John died in Florida in 1942.  As a result of the Cosmopolite Herald account of the November 1979 fire in the Dobler mansion, Rhea was prompted to write and comment on the house and children. She had married again after John’s death and now signed herself as Mrs. Fred Clark.  She wrote that John’s two children with his first wife (named John Jr. and Catherine), had both been born in the Dobler mansion.  They were now living in California.  Rhea and John also had a son whom they called Jack.  He was born in Erie in 1929 and became an antique dealer in Virginia.  He came to Fairview in 1980 to tour the fire-damaged building and could appreciate its former glory and wonder at its future.

     The Doble mansion was put to many uses after being purchased by the County* but had stood idle and empty for several years.  Now members of the West County Preservation have covered its gaping roof and broken windows in the hopes of stopping further deterioration. Projects for this summer are to shingle the roof and paint the outside trim.  Their president, Duane Bennett, states that they hope to have a small portion of the building ready for use in about two years.

     The group has conferred with the County and a lease is being finalized between them. Eventually the building will be used as a museum, a center for presentation workshops and seminars, and a meeting space for community groups. To raise money for the restoration work the group rents flea market space on the grounds each Saturday in the summer, has plans for a gigantic membership drive in late July and early August, will be selling John Kunzog’s book about Dan Rice called “The One-Horse Show,” and will have another ice cream social this summer, along with tours of the building.

     A quick check into the Erie County phone book reveals that there are no Dobler surnames left in the area.  The Doblers lived just 23 years in the mansion, which is now 90 years old, yet as long as the building stands, the name will exist in Fairview.

                                                                                                                                                                                       Published July 18, 1984.

     *After the County purchased the property the house was used variously as a residence for the superintendent of the hospital (Pleasant Ridge Manor), a nurses’ residence and for tuberculosis patients.  Several years after it was closed for habitation the Northwest Jaycees rented it for their Halloween Haunted House fundraiser.  It was after the house was no longer used and standing idle that the fire occurred, damaging the rear area third floor and roof.

 

NOTE (3/14/2025):

     West County Preservation dissolved and no other organization seemed interested in the building with one exception: about 1977 the board members of the Fairview Area Historical Society were looking for a place of historical interest to buy or lease that could be use as their headquarters and museum. The Dobler Mansion would have been wonderful, but it was deemed too large a project.  According to an article published in the Erie Times News on February 21, 2020, the house contained 5,697 square feet and sat on 2.5 acres.  The entire property had been about 300 acres originally.

    One of the last of the barns, a huge structure on the south side of Route 20, was razed and there was talk of a similar fate for the mansion.  In 1990 an out-of-town architectural firm expressed an interest in restoring it for its headquarters but that did not come to fruition either.  By the fall of 1990 the house received another reprieve through the interest of a local builder who planned to restore it for private use.  Once again the future looked hopeful for this impressive and historic structure.  That too ended with his death, sadly, in 2001.  The current owners bought it in 2002 with plans for restoration…

     And now, years beyond a century of age, the carriage house has collapsed.  ##