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Its the brown one. Its quite rundown now, and appears to be vacant. My M-grandmother was born there, her sister (whom I am named after), died there from measles at age 7, my grandparents wedding dinner was held there, and both my g-grandparents, and my g-g-grandmother died there. Their funerals were all held in the house.......
How I wish I could just go visit it, walk through, pick up "vibes"....its in PA, I'm in Texas.....Well, perhaps I might just take such a trip down memory lane. Has anyone done such? Traced their ancestors routes in a driving tour?
I had a crazy notion to buy it......one source said $8000, but I think it was wrong, another said $53000, that sounds more likely, then, all the work restoring it, taxes......
Well, so there it is. It was considered a "nice" area when g'ma was growing up, a fairly nice home, too bad it fell into disrepair.....
I know exactly what you are feeling. If I had the money (I would need $1,000,000.00.) I would buy my childhood home. Yes it would be 'different' from what I remember, but at the same time it would be the SAME. The bones of a house do not change. The air and light around it would not change. That's just the way it is. If I ever do get the $$ I will buy it. I have settled for keeping a photograph of it in a prominent place in my home. Oddly, the last time I visited my family we found my Grandmother's house, too. I had no idea. It is the tiniest little cottage. My sister photographed it. Only my older sister remembered it and directed us to it as we were driving down memory lane one day. My old elementary school has been converted to a swanky condo complex. The façade remains the same.
I'm actually in the process of creating a photo gallery of all the places I've lived. Fun.
I find this concept very interesting. Growing up my parents never owned a home, we always rented a house or an apartment (growing up my family bounced between upper poor class and lower middle class). Part of that has always left me interested with what people associate as a "home", what houses they find comforting, often associated with what they grew up in (or grandma or grandpas house as an adopted home) since I don' really have an association myself.
Partially because of this I often look up addresses when I can find them for ancestors, also I find myself looking at big plots of land in the areas that my ancestors lived, like the hills of northern Georgia and in the Missouri Ozarks.
My grandmother and great grandmother's house is still around. I have pictures and have been to the homes of many of my ancestors since I moved back to my hometown. On my mom's side they moved to Ohio in the mid 1850s and early 1860s from Pennsylvania, the Harrisburg area. They were free people of color and many free blacks fled Harrisburg after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 caused many free blacks in the area to be kidnapped or attempted kidnapped and sold into slavery prior to the Civil War. After the war started more kidnappings happened. My 5th great grandmother was almost kidnapped in slavery in 1851. I have an article from a local newspaper during that era about it. Her neighbors saved her from 2 white men who had grabbed her off the street. I looked up to see where those ancestors lived in Harrisburg but the area was demolished during a beautification of Harrisburg in the early 1900s.
My grandparents' homes are no longer. My maternal grandparents' house was demoed in the 1970s after my grandfather died. No one was living there, the place was disintegrating (nearly 100 years old then) and the land had more value as farmland without it. The house of my paternal grandparents sold in 1968 was demoed 7-8 years ago and the lot is now part of the urban prairie that some areas of Detroit have become.
I find this thread fascinating and would like to see more posts, especially the ones with photos of the old house. I revisited my original childhood home about ten years ago only to find it had been demolished to make way for a shopping center. Here's a really bad picture taken years ago, but lots of memories reside in it.
I found it interesting that during a recent visit from relatives that a niece and a nephew (both in their early 50's) told me that they really enjoy visiting my house because it's the only thing unchanged from their childhood. The same aunt lives in the same house, when many relatives have moved a number of times. I certainly had never thought about that perspective before!
In the spirit of old house photos, I found some pictures of my 5th great grandfather's house, Caleb Johnston in Alabama, the house was built around 1835:
That looked like a well-lived in house, Alandros, sorry it's gone.
The house I pictured in my post was also circa 1835. They rarely mean as much to others as they do to us. I forgot to mention that both sets of grandparents' homes were torn down over the years. One was more valuable as downtown real estate and the other property became a subdivision. But at least they named one of the streets after my grandfather.
I do have a photo of my grandfather's house, taken c1895 (he's the babe in arms). The house started as two rooms in the 1880s, this photo has three, a fourth was added a few years after this and a fifth and bathroom in the 1950s (when water was brought into the house from a cistern).
Last edited by jiminnm; 08-04-2018 at 02:22 PM..
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