Lil's House

The strangest thing happened to me as I was browsing through Country Living's Living Room Gallery last night. Up popped this picture, which tossed me back to the late 50s and early 60s when my great-grandmother's cousin was still living in the shabby home of her childhood directly across the street from my great-grandmother's home. (I've written about my great-grandmother's home ages ago *here.*  ) This is enough of a likeness to remind me of Lil's Federally styled home and those quaint rooms all filled with treasures from the Victorian era. Even the walls and ceilings looked much this way as the house fell into disrepair.

Lil was bedridden at the time and probably well into her 90s. My great-grandmother, in her 80s herself, was Lil's caregiver taking her three square meals a day and probably doing light cleaning and perhaps personal care as well.

We visited Lil whenever we were in town. She had treats on a table beside her bed for such occasions...shortbread cookies with marshmallow toppings covered in coconut. It was like having tea using someone's bed as the dining table.

Lil had married, but never had any children. Now I find myself wondering if having all my great-grandmother's grands and great-grands about ever tried her patience. I don't think so. She had many stories to tell and I remember her telling one about her father who traded rifles with the Indians. In the winter when it was cold, he allowed them to sleep in the house. Lil found it delightful to tiptoe around sleeping Indians to get through the parlor to the dining room for breakfast. Now I find myself wondering what Lil's father was getting in return for the rifles.

The front door to Lil's house was a Palladian style window with either one or two side windows along the door. The front hall was small with a curving staircase to the left. On either side of the front hall were parlors. The one on the right was used for Lil's bedroom in the years that I knew her. Directly behind the parlors were the dining room on the left connecting with the parlor on that side and the old-fashioned kitchen on the right. Behind the kitchen was the shed, which connected to the barn beyond and behind and all around the back of the house were apple orchards.

Those apple orchards were wonderful places to play Hide n' Seek with all of us cousins running wild through the evening shrieking and having great fun. I wonder what Lil thought of all that. I hope that we weren't too loud.

The house was literally falling down around Lil. It was sad even for a young child to see for I certainly did understand that it wasn't good. Eventually Lil passed away and the house sat there looking forlorn for years. What my parents didn't know was that I was a regular visitor there. I used to slip in through the back shed door and wander about through those rooms even going upstairs where I had been strictly forbidden to go. I remember that there was a bedroom with a hole in the floor where I could look right down to the room below. In that bedroom were old books strewn about. I vaguely remember some hymnbooks that my mother gathered up once. There was also an old trunk filled with ancient clothes.

Oh yes, I've had an interesting wander down Memory Lane...

Edited to Add 8/26/2010: Answers to some questions have been given in comments...look for Vee. :D