34 South Alves Street: A Home Behind Henderson’s Stories

For nearly half a century, the house at 34 South Alves Street was home to Ron and Judy Jenkins, whose work at The Gleaner helped tell Henderson’s stories. Their family’s connection gave the house a place in the community’s newspaper history, but records of life at the address reach back to at least 1918.

Photographs show a two-story frame house with intersecting gables, tall windows, and a covered front porch overlooking a raised yard. Mature trees shaded the property, with an alley running beside it. A 2021 real estate listing described the house as dating from the early 1900s, although an exact construction date has not been established. Inside were large rooms, surviving original wood floors, and an upstairs kitchen remaining from an earlier apartment arrangement. A family room with a brick fireplace opened onto a screened porch overlooking the backyard.

Early Residents

One of the earliest documented residents was Edward Lee Andrews, a minister who listed 34 South Alves Street as his permanent address on his World War I draft registration.

The card, completed September 12, 1918, identifies Andrews as 44 years old, born July 2, 1874. He worked for Immanuel Baptist Church at Second and Adams streets in Henderson. His nearest relative, Ada Belle Andrews, was also listed at the Alves Street address.

By 1930, the house was associated with the Konsler family. An article published in the Henderson Morning Gleaner on January 22, 1930, reported the death of Mrs. Andrew Konsler, the wife of a Henderson County farmer. Following preparation at the Rudy-Rowland undertaking establishment, her body was to be taken to the home of Mrs. William Konsler at 34 South Alves Street. Funeral services were scheduled at First Methodist Church, with burial in Fernwood Cemetery.

The 1940 census provides a more detailed glimpse of the address. Lizzie Konsler, a 56-year-old Kentucky native, was listed as the homeowner, with the property valued at $5,000. Her household included two women identified as lodgers: Mary E. Nelson, a 70-year-old widow, and a woman employed as a high school English teacher.

The census also recorded a separate household at the same street number, paying $10 in monthly rent. Decades before the Jenkins family arrived, the property was already providing a home for several Henderson residents.

The Jenkins Years

The house began its best-remembered chapter in 1973, when Ron and Judy Jenkins made it their family home. Henderson County PVA records list a sale on February 16, 1973, for $25,000.

The couple raised their four children, Jodie, Shane, Jennifer, and Josh there. Over the following decades, the address became closely tied to the family and, through Judy’s columns, to readers throughout Henderson.

Ron’s newspaper career began while he was still in school. Hired as sports editor at age 18 in 1956, he eventually spent more than 30 years as editor of The Gleaner. He was inducted into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame in 2007 and also served two terms as a Henderson city commissioner.⁠

Judy began her journalism career at The Gleaner in 1963. Her reporting and columns earned numerous awards, including eight first-place honors for column writing from the Kentucky Press Association. She retired as a full-time reporter and columnist in 2007 but continued contributing columns afterward. She died in August 2013.⁠

Their daughter Jennifer later recalled that the Alves Street home was the setting for many of her mother’s columns. The house therefore held memories for the family while also forming part of the world Judy shared with her readers.

The property sold on March 10, 2021, for $80,000, bringing nearly 48 years of Jenkins family ownership to a close.

The 2024 Fire

In the early morning hours of May 1, 2024, fire severely damaged the house.

Henderson Dispatch received the emergency call at approximately 2:48 a.m. Firefighters arrived about two minutes later and, initially told that people might be trapped, entered the house and searched for occupants. All six members of the family living there escaped safely through a side door. Crews brought the fire under control in approximately 30 minutes, and no injuries were reported. (the-hendersonian.com⁠)

For the Jenkins children, the fire brought both relief that the occupants had survived and sorrow over the damage to their childhood home. Speaking to The Hendersonian, Josh Jenkins described the house as inseparable from his memories of his parents.

Jennifer expressed similar feelings in a public comment, remembering the home where she and her siblings had grown up and thanking the firefighters who responded. She ended her tribute with a simple sentence: “She was a good house.”

A PVA photograph dated June 25, 2025, shows the building still standing, with boarded windows and extensive damage around the porch and upper story. A later photograph shows an open lot where the house once stood.

The house at 34 South Alves Street is gone, but its history survives in public records, photographs, family memories, and the newspaper columns that carried stories of home into the wider Henderson community.