Our New Old House

Here’s the back gate in my back yard.  It’s in the middle of an incomplete fence which is not going to keep anyone out of anything.  But it is heavily fortified against anyone who’d try to wrestle it open through the trees that have grown up through it.  I guess the previous owners thought a heavy chain and padlock were necessary for the protection of the weeds in the back yard.

We’re going to tear this gate and fence out at some point anyway, so I wasn’t worried that I couldn’t find the key to that lock. But one day I was going down the basement stairs and the light was just right and something caught my eye:

It’s a Master brand key. I haven’t taken it down to see if it fits the lock yet, but it’s nice to know it’s there.

[tags]yardwork, previous owners, photos[/tags]

This is Mr. Louis Halden and his wife, Delta in the early 1940s. They lived in our house from 1941 to 1946. Their daughter, Judy, has been corresponding with me about the house and was very kind to send pictures. This picture was taken in our back yard. You can see my neighbor’s house in the background. Aren’t they a nice looking couple?

Here’s Judy as a little girl playing near our front steps.

Judy and her dad, Louis in our backyard. That’s our house behind them.

Here’s Judy a little older in our backyard again. I believe the garage in the background belongs to our house.

Check back for some more pictures from the neighborhood soon.

[tags]photos, old photos, 1940s [/tags]

1941

[tags] old photos, 1940s [/tags]

The lady who lived in my house as a little girl sent me a letter with a floorplan she drew from memory. She moved out of our house when she was six years old or so and it’s amazing how much detail she remembers. Her drawing is practically to scale and nearly all the locations of doors, windows, and other details are accurate. If you click on the image below it will take you to my Flickr account, where I’ve added some notes to the image listing the little inaccuracies. But for our purposes here, you can pretty much think of this as the current floorplan of our house. I’ve never gotten around to drawing one myself, so this one’s as good as any. I’m so grateful for her generosity in sharing all this with me!

[tags] previous owner, floorplan [/tags]

I received a lovely letter this week from the lady who lived in my house as a little girl.  She included pictures, which are awesome, and also a sketch of how the house was laid out when she lived here.  I was amazed at how accurate her memory of the house is 60 years after she moved out at age six.  She got every detail right except the closets around the bathroom and the phone stand in the hallway.  She also has lots of really sweet memories about living there as a child.  When I get my scanner hooked up I’ll scan the photos and her drawing of the interior layout to share. 

[tags] previous owners[/tags]