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| At 92-years-old Dad still enjoys visiting the Old Homestead (January, 2013). |
Grandpa Evans built this two story, box-style in the early 1930's with the help of Uncle Cliff, Uncle Dave, Uncle Walter, Uncle Gordy, and probably a few others. They hand dug the basement and the well. The rock ledge hampered the work as surely as the economy of the Depression, but this group of brothers-in-law from North Scranton made it a family effort.
The band of brothers (in-law) built the house with three rooms down, three rooms up, and a 60 degree angle on the roof. The only bathroom, located on the first floor near the kitchen, had the family bathing and running upstairs to the bedrooms . . . for about the next thirty years. Closets were non-existent downstairs, a problem that took that same thirty years to correct. Lathe and plaster walls, yellow pine floors throughout, arched doorways, five inch moldings, and hundreds of pounds of hot water radiators still grace the house.
Dad took over home maintenance when Grandpa Evans passed. Like Grandpa, he proved to be a master craftsman. Dad built a house for his family right next door to Grandpa's, and he and mom raised their three daughters there. My years were spent back and forth, everyday, between the two houses on Layton.
The generations rolled on: Grandpa and Nana Evans died, then Mom, Dad retired to South Carolina, my sisters moved out of town and out of state, and I . . . stayed on Layton in Grandpa's house. My sons grew up romping through the same rooms as me and my mother before. And now my grandsons use the same hiding places and ride their bikes in the same route around the yard.
The front door of Grandpa Evans' house has welcomed five generations of family and friends. Originally accessed by a few wooden steps, the front door eventually gave way to a small concrete "stoop" which later expanded to a roofed porch that ballooned to a deck in its seventieth year. And it's here I sit, these sixty-something years later, enjoying the view . . . on Layton.
Such heritage and sentimentality, Jo Ann . . . Could be the bones of a great novel!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sherry.
DeleteYour memories make me smile. If the walls could talk . . . So glad you are telling their story. What a wonderful heritage.
ReplyDeleteGreat work....keep on writing!
ReplyDeleteMay have been only one closet downstairs but it was the perfect hiding place to scare daddy when he came home form work! And the dining room turned bedroom, turned dining room, turned bedroom, turned dining room, as each generation aged and went from upstairs to downstairs. And a cousin was born in the dining room/bedroom and then put in the oven to keep her warm (circa 1930's). And a cellar with "the ole coal bin", mysterious well cave, non-stop sump pump, and ping pong. And a frozen, dead pet duck's resuscitation was attempted on the furnace in that cellar, later laid to rest in the back yard amid the numerous dogs, cats, rabbits, turtles and crayfish--each pet with its appropriate funeral. And Grandpa Evans funeral was held in the front parlor during a lightening storm. And Mom's peonies return each summer. And, and, and...memories.
ReplyDeletePlenty of material for my blogs . . . On Layton!
DeleteMany good memories.
ReplyDelete