Christopher Reeve’s Connection to Sandusky

Most of us remember Christopher Reeve as the not-quite-original movie Superman. But what's more interesting from our perspective is his "relationship" to Sandusky: Christopher Reeve’s maternal grandfather was a native-born Sanduskian. Horace R. Lamb, was born in Sandusky in 1892, the son of Burt I. Lamb and Harriet “Hattie” Davis Lamb. Before he married, Horace Lamb lived in Huron County for several years, eventually settling in Connecticut.

In the late 1890’s Burt I. Lamb advertised his tailoring business in the Sandusky Register.

Mr. and Mrs. Burt I. Lamb are buried in the North Ridge of Sandusky’s Oakland Cemetery.

Hattie Davis Lamb was the daughter of Ira T. Davis and Eunice Woolsey Davis Lamb.

Ira T. Davis came to Sandusky in 1852. He had a grocery store on Columbus Avenue and later was involved in the real estate and limestone business. He married Eunice Woolsey in 1856, and the couple had five children born and raised in Sandusky. Mr. & Mrs. Davis are also buried in Oakland Cemetery. You can read more about the family in Article 30 of Helen Hansen’s At Home in Early Sandusky and in Hewson Peeke’s Standard History of Erie County.

Christopher Reeve mentioned Sandusky in his biography Still Me: A Life. He wrote about his grandfather Horace Lamb’s roots from a working class family in Sandusky.

Visit the Sandusky Library’s Archives Research Center to learn more about Christopher Reeve’s Sandusky ancestors, and perhaps your own ancestors as well.