Moving Into History

My mind has swum with stories and names since, I feel, before I was born. Somehow, the storytelling urge passed to me, and I cloaked it in various academic guises first as an English major and then during my graduate school days.  I never thought to enter those stories myself, but quite by chance (if anything is by chance), I find myself back where I began, undertaking the restoration of a 1901 farmhouse, and the re-claiming of a small farm.

A room with a view (and without its historic sash window, which has gone off to be restored).

As I type this, I tying to ignore the burning up my arms wrought by a particularly nasty case of poison ivy. I am very, very sensitive to the villainous vine, and of course – it is everywhere. Additionally, it is hard to focus when the list of what needs to be done, painted, removed, seen to or otherwise dealt with grows by the minute – and then there is the lack of Internet.

This adorable little girl, Evelyn Clifton Prewitt Carran, grew up in our new old house.

Yes, moving into history isn’t just a poetic way to describe this latest adventure – it is also an apt phrase for this unconnected period of our life. Rural America and Internet access? The options are few and expensive. As of yet, we watch KET with an antenna (which likely won’t change) and when we need to do large amounts of work online – well, it will wait until we are back at work.

Daniel Jones Prewitt and his wife, Margaret A. Burton.

In 1901, my great-grandmother’s first cousin began work on his new house. Disaster struck upon its completion, as it burned to the ground – but Daniel J. Prewitt (as I imagine) set his hat more firmly on his head and commenced rebuilding on the same foundation.

Five years later, my great-grandparents (who were cousins – a convenient way to the keep the land in the family) began construction of their house, just a mile or so down the same road. The two dwellings demonstrate the wide range of influences in domestic Kentucky architecture at the time.

The house built by my great-grandparents in 1906.

The house my grandmother grew up in echoes the lingering influence of the Queen Anne, that pervasive architectural style full of movement, asymmetry, twists, turns, gables, and ornamentation. That house has a meandering footprint, but the solid, straight lines of the classically-derived styles just beginning to make their way across rural Kentucky.

Undated historic photo, perhaps from the 1940s.

My new old house? Just the opposite. It is a boxy, plain, straightforward expression of American building that drew inspiration from the Prairie style. According to that sage of architectural historians, McAlester, the Prairie style is “one of the few indigenous American styles.” Chief among the Chicago group of architects who helped develop the style – Frank Lloyd Wright.

A portion of the central hallway was papered during World War II – in April 1944.

We’ve discovered many things on this journey – and we’re only about two months into what I am calling “Green Acres meets the Money Pit.” Layers of crumbling wallpaper in the first story central hallway revealed the names of not only the wallpaper hangers, but generations of residents.

Another wallpaper signature, from another generation.

In other rooms, layers of wallpaper, subsequently covered with paint (ugh), covered up the graffiti left by enterprising trespassers during the years that this house sat empty. I only ever remember the house as a rental property during my childhood.

My great-grandfather on the left, and the builder of my house on the right.

I’ve not yet conducted much research into the house’s first 50 years – but I hope to add to the little bit that I know, especially as we make progress with painting, repairing, insulating, and oh yes – actually doing some unpacking.

But in the meantime, if these blog posts are a little less frequent, then you can picture me stripping wallpaper, or battling multiflora rose, or maybe, just maybe, having a quiet moment on the front porch, feeling the warm summer air around me like the hug of my grandmother. She would be so delighted at my return to our ancestral farmland, and I can hear her talking about her scores of cousins, as history spins and dances in the breeze. I love you Tishmama. It’s good to be home.