Moving Dirt…again

Thursday night, three trucks full of road base dirt arrived for the driveway so we headed to town to rent the Bobcat for spreading it all out and to finish getting dirt and rock moved from our old parking areas to the new.   Three hours of working Thursday night (thanks to Daylight Savings Time!) and 8 hours on friday only to find that we could actually have used another load.   

Despite the upbeat nature of the video (making videos of the past 11 months have been therapeutic for me), the end of the day was actually a little bit of a downer.  After returning the Bobcat, we headed out to the back patio before dinner; I don't think either of us was prepared for the let down we would feel.  After our last "Bobcat Adventure", we were so exhilarated by the amount of work we'd accomplished I think we were partially blinded to the remaining chaos of our back yard.  I think both of us felt that that chaos would be less noticeable after the driveway had had it's base put down and we began to move the boats, RV and vehicles into their new parking areas.  

More than though; we've learned through the past 11 months to live without the old barn that was so much a part of our home; we no longer feel its loss so quite so badly each time we walk out the back door.  But, sitting down last night and looking in that direction once again brought it home how much the tornado changed our view and our landscaping.  Along with the beautiful old barn there were two ancient pecans; a fence lined with Confederate Jasmine, citrus trees and a large rose bush not to mention yards of green grass; all of these have been destroyed or moved in the rebuilding.  What we see is a path of brown strewn with the debris of constant construction.  

It is temporary.  We know that in our minds but every now and then, when exhaustion from looking at chaos and the hard work of getting it all done hits us hard, we are overwhelmed with sadness at what once was and will never be again.

After dinner, we headed back outside to walk around and discuss our next steps….let's just say for now that the old shed will be moving…again.  This time though just a shift of a couple of feet will do the trick….

Evidence of a fire~~

David spent about 3 hours yesterday hauling the insulation bundles up into the attic (before the temps outside caused him to have leave the heat of the attic).....as he did this prepping part of the job, he made a few discoveries....evidence of the old knob and tube wiring (all disconnected thank goodness) and .................evidence of a previous fire in this old house.

During last years upstairs bathroom renovation, we saw hints of a previous fire but since the P.O.'s had shared a story of a candle accident in that bathroom during a party they once held, we put it down to that. Yet, it appears that it may have been a separate incident....or a larger incident then they let on~~

Some repair and replacement had taken place where the fire occurred, but more will need to be done ~ anyone who owns one of these old homes will not be surprised that we've opened a can of worms by venturing into that attic...this is part and parcel of renovation/restoration of these places...two steps forward, one step back..............

Years ago, David restored an old home in the Riverside section of JVille that had been victim of a large fire, so he's well equipped in knowledge to take the repairs to the standard they need to meet and perhaps we'll discover more about the fire in the process....one more mystery about history~~

Threads of history..............

First of all, I must apologize to those who came here the last two days only to find that I had neglected to post again. I know there were tears of frustration and moans of "where is she?" (I can dream can't I?)

Truth is, for a few days there, I had this daily posting down.....I was ahead of the game using the scheduled post option provided by blogger.com....but in the end, I still got behind!

If anyone actually did wonder where I've been, wonder no longer-I've been wearing my genealogist hat for the last few days. I've been busy untangling the threads of time to discover where my family history ends and a possible cousin's begins......

Because the blog has become such a part of my life lately, it is always in the back of my mind no matter what hat I'm wearing for the day....as I research and study an article in the Clan MacLeod Magazine regarding our ongoing DNA Surname Project and try to determine relatedness to other MacLeods, I'm also wondering "how can I tie this into my blog posts?".

Part of the dream of owning and restoring an old house was tied up with my love of history as it pertains to the individuals living it; when I researched my family and the lands they originally owned here in the US, I imagined what the homes they built on those lands looked like. I mourned the fact that I would never set foot in the doors of those houses because in most cases, those houses were no longer standing. The small personal treasures of my ancestors had either become lost or were scattered throughout the homes of hundreds of their descendants.

When David and I were on our old house search this love of history and family had us day dreaming about the wonders of doing our own unofficial but very interesting archaeological digs in land that once held old barns, summer kitchens, and other fascinating out buildings; I dreamed of finding treasures in the attic and crawlspaces and in walls and floors. If I couldn't search out the treasures of my own family's land, I could still search out those things in another family's and preserve it for history. I could weave together the threads of their history and mine from the point that they became knitted together.

Because this is a rural farmland area, most of the houses and the lands were still in the ownership of family members. Normally, we found that when a house had remained in the family, we'd see treasures in the overflowing attics and peeking out from dirt floors of the outbuildings. We knew the family would not take everything because usually a death of an elderly parent or grandparent was the reason the home was on the market; in those cases, the heirs simply sell the house pretty much furnished and stuffed with years of what they consider "junk".

As we talked to owners about the history of the houses, my genealogist hat was always on..... I mean every genealogist dreams of being able to sit down and hear someone discuss memories that lead to clues that help us find the records that prove the memories............and here I was, able to talk to these folks while I stood within the walls where the story unfolded....dreaming about the treasures I'd find in those walls and in the attic and in the lands...........

In the end, the house we purchased had been partially renovated by the heirs (which was unusual to say the least in our particular experience of old house searching). Those heirs had found all the treasures in the walls and in the lands.....a peak into the eaves and attic of this house revealed miles of empty space.....the only thing I saw was one antique traveling trunk which was where any treasure worth keeping but not displayed were stored. I was able to view some of the treasures they found in shadow boxes and on bureaus displayed throughout the house....but I knew those would be taken with the heirs when they turned over the house to us.

Our previous owners, Nephew and Niece In Law, of the Wilton's, did however leave with us a folder full of deeds and other records up to 1909 that had been abstracted by a relative years earlier. This folder gave me a complete history of the land from the late 1800's (when it was owned by Railroad and Canal folks who drained the swamplands making it suitable for farming) to the raising of the house.

There was some question as to the actual age of the farmhouse, those records gave me a trail to follow to answer that question; over the next few months, I found Mr. Wilton's name on 1904 Passengers List and learned that he first went to Connecticut before heading on down to Florida; I found his wife, daughter and son on another Passengers List (1909) when they finally immigrated. I was able to narrow down the year in which the house was built by this paper search. And I also learned just why the original front of the house was now the side of the house (an eminent domain lawsuit filed against the owners and their neighbors; the county wanted the land for a road)!

Finding the family on this land in the 1910 census confirmed what the Deeds and Passenger's list had indicated.....the house was most likely built in 1909 prior to the arrival of the wife and kids. Using public tax records, I was able to piece together more of the family history and now have a pretty good picture in my mind of the life they lived.

Knowing the history of the house and some of the details of the life the family lived gives us a sense of pride that is separate from just the fact that we were blessed enough to purchase this beautiful old home. We take pride in the fact that the walls that surrounded a small immigrant family for so many years are strong in structure due to our work; we take pride in the fact that should time fold back on itself and somehow allow Mr. Wilton or his daughter Eleanor to walk back in, they would see that the home that sheltered them was loved and cared for and sheltered another family today.

As a genealogist, I would have loved to be able to purchase one of my ancestor's homes and restore it; besides the fact that to do so, I'd have to move to another state, reality is that only two of the old homesteads still exist. The fact that I can't live in an ancestor's home is softened though by the fact those two homesteads are owned by my distant cousins and are cared for and loved for their history already.

Since I couldn't live in a home that held my own family history, I instead live in one that has its own story quite separate from mine....that is separate until now...where the threads of my family history and the threads of this house's family history have become woven together for future generations!

History

There are two huge cypress trees on either side of our house.....they were planted in 1909 by a little girl named Eleanor Wilton. Five year old Eleanor had harvested those two little trees from the beach shortly after she immigrated to the U.S. aboard the SS St. Louis in 1909 to join her father. Arriving at the property her father had purchased for them to live and work, she planted those little trees beside the original portion of the house I now call home.

Her father, George Wilton, a gardner who immigrated from Cornwall England aboard the SS St. Paul in 1904, planted pecan trees but soon realized that he'd wait three years for his first harvest; with a mule and 40 acres, he diversified into other crops to suppport and feed his family.

As Eleanor and her brother Frederick grew up, the house grew as well - each good harvest allowed the family to add on another room or another floor to the farmhouse...all first efforts had been put into the huge barn that houses the mules, the tools and the fruit of the labors.

Shortly after the 1920 Census, Eleanor married George Brough, a 26 year old first generation American from Chicago...George's family had migrated to Florida before 1920 and lived near Eleanor and her family. Young Mr. Brough had worked with Mr. Wilton, both were master gardners.

Soon after her marriage, Eleanor's mother passed away and her widowed father made the decision to return to England for the remainder of his life; he sold Eleanor's childhood home with the two cypress trees and its surrounding of pecan trees to her and her husband.

Eleanor Wilton Brough would spend all but the first five years of her life in this old farmhouse, passing it to her own son before she passed away. When that son became too old to farm the 40 acres, he sold it to a man who had worked with his father and uncle for many years - they cut out a little less than an acre to remain with the house and the fields first plowed by Mr. Wilton beginning in 1909 continue to be farmed today by the old farmer who lives just across the street. Eleanor's son eventually left the house to his cousin who spent eleven years repairing and updating the by then vulnerable old house....

The old front stoop to the original room of this old house remains just outside my office window...documents from the Abstract of Title reveal that in 1925, the county filed a lawsuit against the Wilton's, the Brough's, and several of their neighbors to take a portion of their lands to build a public road. This emminent domain of property for public use would make the front of the house then appear to be the side of the house....a few years later, the Bough's would put in a new front door and add a front porch to the side of the house that faced the new road. The old road is today the driveway onto the property.

It is obvious even today that Mr. Brough was a master gardner by occupation - 95% of the landscaping of this old place is winter blooming - forced to sow crops to support his family, Mr. Brough spent the winter months tending the gardens around his house. The camelia trees and amarylis and snow bells which remain from his days of gardening are slowly coming back as David and I work the gardens. The locals remember the days when amarylis bulbs filled the three irrigation ditches that surround what remains today a part of the house's property...we're slowly transplanting the survivors to those ditches and hopefully one day, the ditches will overflow with them once again...............