Let's Consider : Older homes have stories to discover
Posted on Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Don't you just love stories about historic old houses ?
Our son's family lives in one of those old houses, in Galveston, with lots of stories in its rich history. Built in 1926 by a medical doctor, the house has known just five owners - with our son being the only non-doctor in the bunch.
We got word that one of the former owners / occupants of our son's home were "coming back"to see the house again. They occupied the home from 1962 to 2002, a glorious 40 years, I'm sure.
The four children grew up in the big house and were now bringing their spouses and children (teens and older ) to see their former home. Their parents still live in Galveston and have visited with our son's family on occasion. But the mother is now very ill and was not up to the return visit to the house on this day.
Still, the "children"enjoyed their return to the house with their own offspring. The family had lived in the house long enough to accomplish many updating projects in their four decades there. The kitchen was completely remodeled and still has the sixties-look they gave it - combining four small rooms and giving the new kitchen a curved peninsula and the very popular wall oven. They also built on an additional wing which houses a utility room, two bathrooms and an upstairs bedroom.
Our grandson Smythe, age 11, would come to visit us for a week, just after the family-from-the-past came to tour his house, so we anticipated some great stories from him as he recounted their visit.
He has become somewhat of an expert on his home's history because he's been working on a project required by the school he will attend this year. It is a newly-established magnet middle school (in a former junior high building ), with an emphasis on math and science.
His mother had been helping him with the project because of her great love for old houses, and particularly for theirs. And he'd been working hard on it during the summer, his dad told us.
As the visiting family toured, Smythe was reminded that their parents were the builders of the home's backyard swimming pool and the tennis court on the other side of the house, two features of the home that he very much appreciates. In fact, one of the stories of their house tells that, when concrete was being poured for the local Dairy Queen in the 1960 's, Dr. Wallace inquired of the cement pourers and contracted with them to come pour the tennis court for his family ! (One end is four inches above the other, allowing water to drain off, should a storm or - horrors - a hurricane hit. ) Then, almost everyone in the neighborhood took tennis lessons there !
The "girls"told of sunbathing on the flattish roof of the additional wing. The visitors all expressed their fondness for the little under-the-stairs half-bath off the entry hall - a unique feature of the home. It is entered by opening the door and walking down several steps to find the "hidden"features.
When the former residents visited on that day, they all spilled out of the third floor window in returning to the flat sunbathing roof. But then our son took them up the sloped roof (via a nice, safe "valley" ) to the top of the roof where a flat platform area offers a spectacular, 360 degree view of the island. The "kids "said they never knew the "lookout"was there, while it was their home. (I had to wonder if the parents knew and kept it a tight secret for the safety of their offspring !)
Further, our son and wife have discovered a hatch on the rooftop platform, where steps can one day be installed to climb from within the third floor to reach the viewing platform (skipping the need to do the roof-crawl !). They hope to accomplish this, building a safety railing around the platform, and be able to take guests to the high point to enjoy the breezes from the gulf along with fantastic views of Galveston and the gulf waters.
When we drove our grandson back to his home following his visit to Arkansas, we stayed for a few days and were privileged to be in the living room "audience "when he rehearsed his school project presentation, telling about a story-board (with photos and charts ) of his home's history, fitting in tidbits like the tennis court's slope, and distributed the newsletter he had created with his dad's help, to further tell about his Galveston home.
His eyes sparkled as he told of the home he loves. We gave him an A +. We now wait to hear about his actual presentation to his class.
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