On September 18, 1900, The Charlotte Daily Observer reported that Mr. C. M. Scott (1858-1930) would build a "two-story, nine room dwelling house on Cleveland Ave., Dilworth," the streetcar suburb which Edward Dilworth Latta and his five associates in the Charlotte Consolidated Construction Company, or Four C's had opened almost a decade earlier, on May 20, 1891. "The roof will be of slate and the appointments up-to-date," the newspaper proclaimed."
A native of Ceres in Bland County, VA., Mr. Scott had recently located in Charlotte to continue his occupation as a salesman of heavy machinery. No doubt attracted by the vigorous expansion and robust economy of this region, he established his business in a building on W. Fourth Street, where he managed the southern branch of the Good Roads Machinery Co. and was local agent for the Ingersoll-Sergeant Drill Co. His home in Dilworth was completed in May 1901. Accompanying Mr. Scott to Charlotte were his wife, Idris Belle Repass Scott (1863-1934), and their four children, three sons, and a daughter. Mr. Scott and his family made substantial contributions to the social, religious and commercial life of their new home town. They were members of Westminster Presbyterian Church on South Boulevard, where Mr. Scott was a deacon and Mrs. Scott a leader of the women of the congregation. The most noteworthy of the children was Byron Carlisle Scott (1896-1937). He became an important figure in the automobile business, first as an associate of Mr. C. C. Coddington and later as founder and president of Scott Buick Co. Another son, Kenneth McCoy Scott (1899-1918), was labeled by the local press "one of the most popular young men of the Dilworth section." One can imagine the anguish which his parents must have experienced when Kenneth died in the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918. They rushed to Chapel Hill to be at his bedside when he expired. Their third son, Wallace Wayne Scott, died in Charlotte on August 24, 1956. He had been employed by the Westinghouse Corporation for forty-four years.1
Jessie Repass Scott (1888-1946), the daughter of C.M. and Idris Scott, married Kemp Plummer Battle, manager of the Charlotte Country Club. He died in Red Springs, NC, on December 26, 1922. Following the death of her husband, Jessie returned to the house on Cleveland Ave. in Dilworth, residing there until her death on February 8, 1946. During the final years of her occupancy, she rented rooms in her deceased parent's home to a series of boarders. On May 4. 1946, Dr. Roy E. Hoke, a native of York, PA, purchased the house which Mr. and Mrs. C.M. Scott had erected in 1900-01. Dr. Hoke, an ordained Presbyterian minister, received a Ph.D. in psychology from Johns Hopkins University, taught at several academic institutions, including Birmingham Southern College, Emory and Henry College, and Davidson College, and after moving to Charlotte in 1946, founded the Psychological Service Center, a private counseling enterprise. He maintained an office in his home at 1717 Cleveland Ave. His activities included a column which appeared in the Charlotte Observer each Sunday from 1946 through 1959 and a weekly program on Radio Station WBT during the 1950's. In addition, he served as a minister-at-large for the local Presbyterian churches, substituting for ministers who were on vacation or otherwise unavailable. He is remembered as a kind and compassionate human being who never lost his sense of humor. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, he once remarked that "most Phi Beta Kapps die of pneumonia caused by holding the coat apart to show the key." Dr. Hoke died on November 3, 1975. His widow, Erma R. Hoke, continues to live in the house.