Remember this post?

Someone on Zillow used my research to write up this house sales pitch.

In April 2017, a gentleman from a real estate office in Pensacola contacted me about this property, telling me it was going on the market in about a year, thought the information I’d gathered on the property useful, and kindly offered to give me a tour of the property. Although I was interested in seeing the house where Emmett lived, I had no plans to travel to Pensacola, and so had to decline.

The gentleman mentioned he had found the information I’d written about 211 West Cervantes Street on my blog and thought it useful. The initial report was not correct (Minnie Kehoe did not live there), and I shared that with the realtor. (UPDATE 1/9: The gentleman has since corrected the information on the page.)

J. Walter Kehoe (like Emmett, a U.S. Congressman), lived at the house along with his wife Jennie and their children). Walter had a daughter, Minnie Evelyn Kehoe, but she was about six or seven at the time — the female lawyer mentioned in the real estate listing is Minnie Eloise Kehoe, who was in her late 30s-early 40s. Big difference. But it is easy to get the names mixed up. Minnie Eloise often went by “Minnie E.”

I sent a comment via their contact page. It will be interesting to see if their office responds.

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UPDATE: 

Wow. That was fast.

Only five minutes after I posted this and sent the contact info to the realtor’s office, someone sent me a polite reply. The gist of the message was that the person who was responding was not responsible for the listing, but asked if I wanted information re the original listing’s contact agent. The reply was really nice. Professional. I appreciated the quick response.

Oh — and I mentioned the Minnie Kehoe error.  I mentioned that Walter — another U.S. Congressman — was the resident, not Minnie, and that Minnie actually lived down the street from Walter in another house also on West Cervantes, owned by the Kehoe family.

Frankly, I only wanted to see a proper credit for the information, and that the information is correct. That’s all.

UPDATE #2:

Wow. Photos of the inside of Emmett’s former home are at this link, courtesy of the Zillow page. The inside doesn’t have much of the original house to it — it looks like the staircases are the same — but you can see the lovely bones of the place.

I can imagine Emmett looking out of the windows onto West Cervantes Street from the second story porch.

Categories: The Writing Life

Tagged as: Plagiarism

jsmith532

Professor,
Communication, Arts, and the Humanities
The University of Maryland Global Campus