The family who built the brick house that we renovated first lived in a little wood house that was built in 1942. It was dilapidated and the terms of our renovation loan were that we had to remove it. But, in the meantime…. When Bethany (younger daughter) came home from working in Chattanooga for the summer, she wasn’t keen on the idea of living in the camper with her parents. She, being an outdoor kind of gal who is not afraid of roughing it, set up her tent inside the house and lived there for several months.
One of my special memories was of Mrs. Brenda (daughter of Mrs. Thelma who was the mom of the family who lived in both houses) stopped by one day and walked down memory lane with me. As we poked around in the yellow house, she told me that the front room (currently housing an old organ and an old piano that were literally falling through the floor!) was the room that if a young man came to court, that is where they were entertained. She also told me that when her sister, Alice, died at just under 5 years old, her mother would not let them take her to the funeral home. She was laid out there in that front room for visitors to come and mourn with them. When we moved to the next room, (also housing an old piano) she took me over to a tiny closet. Opening the door, she said, “If we couldn’t find Mama, we would look in this closet and she would be on her knees praying.” We walked around the outside and she pointed under the house and said her daddy had secretly tried making some moonshine down there, but got busted by Mama. We have found quite a few old jars with something very dark and mysterious in them. Could it be Roy’s moonshine?
After the family moved to the new brick house in 1962, the yellow house gave a start to life for many of the family’s newlyweds. I don’t know when it was last occupied, but I would guess in the early 2000’s. We wanted to preserve some of the history from this house, so in later pictures of our Master Bath, you will see boards on the walls that came from this house.
Journey of 1000 steps 