Old Homeplace History
and Construction Process
June 2002 |
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An Account of Discovery
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A warm breeze hit my face as we climbed from the car. The muggy humidity engulfed my skin and the desire to hop back into the air-conditioned car flashed through my thoughts, momentarily and then disappeared.
My mother and I walked up a slight incline brushing the low pine trees away from our path. Thorns stuck out from every direction halting our advances as if warning us not to come any closer. Armed with sticks we proceeded, chopping at the attacking thorns. A deep orange rusty roof rose above the thicket of wiry thorns and dense pine trees. White washed wooden panels glinted in my eyes, but not from the sun. A magical glow enveloped my thoughts and emotions. Here before me a 'house'! A house that was once a home to my Mother, my Grandmother and her parents, a depleting, degrading mass of wooden timbers and tin, that had housed my descendants for generations on generations.
This was my second time of visiting the 'Old Home Place'. It had collapsed considerably and had weathered over the years. The rusty porches reached down into the red dirt as if returning to their beginnings! My mother and I continued to move around the back spurred on to discover more of the past, anything that was left or remained from a former life. It was strange. Once a house full of noise and laughter and 'family' was now a dead, exposed shell that had been left to rot in the American South. And yet to me, a born and bred Englishman it held so many amazing ideas, thoughts and emotions. I had never had the privilege of being brought up here but it was apart of me. Its very existence contributed in many ways to my existence or rather, the people who had once lived here. It was in this house that my great-grandparents and grandmother lived and grew up becoming the people they were to be with their morals, religion, standards and lifestyles that I too have been brought up to hold very close to me, through my own Mother.
The back was as overgrown as the front. Poison oak and ivy grew around fallen trees and brush, cautiously manoeuvring around the sleeping plants; we made our way to the back entrance. The porch roof had fallen and crashed into the doorway splintering the aged wood, mangled and twisted tin wrapped around supporting beams. It felt as if the house itself was struggling to deter unwanted strangers; A need to keep the history and memory of its occupants safe and intact, to stop them from escaping into the unknown. Double jointedly we crawled up onto the enclosed back porch, keeping to the sides distributing our weight carefully, the wooden floor groaning beneath us.
We stood in the doorway to what was once a bedroom, my mother informed me. Looking in, I found myself concentrating on my mother's actions and expressions. She seemed to suddenly disappear into the past, an excited childlike aura came over her as she began to reminisce. We walked into the dark and musty smelling room, windows broken, roof collapsed letting streams of light filter in highlighting the worn wooden floorboards. Crunching underfoot were old clothes patterns of 1950s style dresses.
My mother remembered the finished clothes worn by various members of her family. My Fascination and imagination running wild, question after question met with an intimately detailed answer. Rummaging amongst the wooden boxes and old newspapers looking for more clues or portholes to the past, I came across something. At first I thought was just another pattern; A flat piece of material emerged, stuffing long since gone. But there was no mistaking; it was one of my Mother's favourite dolls.
A childlike smile came across her face, as if she were remembering the very last time she had played with it. We bagged up the evidence that we had collected, like forensic scientists finding valuable clues to the lives of the occupants in this outback shell of a house. This was not just evidence of someone's existence. It was a piece of my heritage. We walked on, sand crunching under foot floorboards creaking and groaning, as if talking to us in some strange misunderstood language. My Mother recalled the use of each room. As my thoughts drifted off into the past, I imagined various family members going about their lives. I somehow placed them into mental pictures and became apart of their time in history. I too got the chance to meet my Grandfather who had died when my Mother was four. Reluctantly, we clambered down the rotten wooden steps back into the foliage of the woods and suddenly, we were brought back to the present, the green pines in the breeze slapped against my face, as if waking me from a dream. A dream I didn't want to wake from.
The walk back to the car didn't seem right somehow. It felt as if I was leaving something behind. With my head down looking towards the ground, mind swirling with thoughts and dreams, I noticed tiny little fragments reflecting in the sun. I bent down to have a closer look. As I brushed the sand away it revealed tiny pieces of pottery. Immediately, I began searching for more bits amongst the young tobacco plants next to the 'Old Home Place'.
The collection grew. A few of the pieces had red glazed patterns printed on them turning out to be remnants of my Great Grandmother's best china set. Years of ploughing the field had unearthed secret objects that related only to my family. After forty years of degradation and decay, the house and its' grounds still contained personal traces of my families' existence.
This day my own thoughts and memories had been brought and added to the many that had clung onto this shell over the years waiting to be discovered. I knew as I left that I might never see this house again. However, this day had passed on all that mattered. Now it could rest. The baton passed on!
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