39 Somerset Road

This house, along with its neighbors at 27 and 33 Somerset, was in the first group built on this street. In fact, the building permits for these three were issued under the earlier street name of Blake Road East.

The Logan family lived at 23 Elm Street in Brookline before moving into this house. Robert James Logan (born 1881) was a manufacturer of knit goods. He and his wife Alice (born c1886) had three daughters, the oldest of whom, Dorothy T., was a secretary in 1933 when she was first listed in the Street List.

The 1930 U.S. Census listed the residents as: Robert J. Logan, 47; Alice R. Logan, 44; Dorothy Logan, 19; Barbara Logan, 12; and Ruth Logan, 10. The house was valued at $19,000.

The next family to live in the house was that of Abraham and Lena Hibel. Abraham (1895-1959) was a furrier. Both were born in Russia and came to the U.S. in 1910. They were listed at this address in the street list from 1934 to 1937. Their daughter is the artist Edna Hibel (1917- ), who was a teenager when the family moved to Brookline. (See the Edna Hibel Society Web site for more about her.)

Arthur W. and Frances H. Brannen were next, listed in the Street List from 1938 until the early 1950s. Arthur Brannen (1890-1971) was the owner and operator of a Brookline laundry, at one time president of the Massachusetts Laundryman's Association, and a member of the Brookline School Committee in the 1940s. The Brannens had a daughter, Anna.

Arthur Brannen died in Maine in 1971. Frances Hastings Brannen died at the age of 98 in Kittery, Maine in July 2004. After leaving Brookline, she had worked in the disbursing department at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard until retiring in 1969.