by Vera Guthrie
I was built in the early 1920's by Joel Vanhoy who for the time
had built a mighty fine home. My logs were new, my chinking
fresh and windows all shiny and new, I had a red brick chimney,
and my tin roof gleamed in the sunlight. I had no inside
plumbing and only 3 fuses were needed to run what little
electric I could provide. If you needed to use the bathroom there
was an outhouse out back down the path along the garden and if
you wanted fresh water help yourself to the well out front and
wind you up a bucket of cool fresh water.
My downstairs had a living room, one bedroom, and the
kitchen which also had a stack for your wood cook stove and a
screened in back porch. I had an upstairs, but it was just one big
room with plenty of room for beds and a place for the kids to
sleep.
Over the years I had many residents live within my walls and I
was happy. As time emerged, fewer people were not interested
in renting me, I was just an old house. But in the spring of 1965 a
very wonderful family moved in and I called them “the girls”. It
was a lady named Addie Mae and her two daughters Phyllis age
13 and Vera age 4. Addie Mae was a widow who actually had 3
boys as well, but they were all in the military.
Before they ever moved in, Addie and the girls gave me a good
cleaning and Addie's brother Buddy and wife Frances came to
help. They painted all my walls and hung curtains, which made
me feel quite beautiful.
Addie was a hard worker, she worked in tobacco. She would
wind buckets of water at the well and bring them to the kitchen.
She washed clothes, cleaned house, raised a garden and canned.
In the winter the tobacco work stopped, but the wood chopping
began. She would also make quilts. Now Phyllis was in school,
so during the day it was just Addie and Vera. Addie and Vera
played while Addie cleaned; she had a knack for working that
in. It was so much fun listening to Vera learn how to read and
count.
I so enjoyed the girls living within my walls. I was a warm
house again with a fire crackling in the stove and Addie's
wonderful cooking wafting through the house from the wood
cook stove. When the boys came in on leave there was always
lots of laughter and good times.
Then the day came that Addie was offered a house for rent on
a Tobacco Farm and yes it was nicer and she felt it would be a
good move, so they packed and left me. I was so sad, I was
empty, and I was cold oh so cold with no chatter and laughter. It
was a lonely time and still is. There are hundreds of cars that
zoom by daily, but on occasion there is one car that comes by a
little slower than others. That now grown up little girl driving,
looks at me and smiles and I smile back because it's little Vera. If
she is not in a rush she will stop and sit on my porch and she and
I will walk down memory lane. Vera loved living here and I
think she feels I am home to her. Sometimes, actually very often
I slip into her dreams. She dreams of buying me and my yard,
fixing me up, updating me and making me a craft shop or
educational building. Oh that would be so nice. Sometimes she
dreams of buying me and having me moved to the property she
lives on now.
www.foothillstimes.com
“They printed all my
walls and hung curtains,
which made me feel
quite beautiful.”
She visited me some years ago and with tears in her eyes she told me
“Mama passed away I wanted you to know”, I was broken, I could see
Vera was missing her Mama Addie and in that same look at me through
her tears she was missing her times here.
Because Vera is still d Ʌݸ