Sunday, August 19, 2007

A Little More History

This afternoon we were invited to the home of some friends who live on the west side of Rochester. Having just posted photos of my great grandfather's garden and seeing as his house is just around the corner from these friends, I decided to find Grandpa's old house and see what, if anything, is left of his garden. This is the house in 1948.
I found the house without too much difficulty, but no one was home. Two guys next door told me an older lady lives there. I decided to be brave and check the back yard. Aside from scattered piles of rock and concrete, I saw two decent remnants of my great grandfather's artwork.
Behind the garage stands a miniature stone lighthouse. The light is broken and missing most of its glass panels but the base is in decent shape. It looks like Grandpa collected cobblestones to build his backyard creations. He did a great job, nothing about it looks haphazard.
A concret table remains at the head of the driveway. It doesn't seem possible that this table is nearly seventy years old but I have the proof in pictures from when my mom was just a little girl.
It's too bad the woman who lives there wasn't at home, maybe then I wouldn't have felt so odd taking a few photos in the backyard of a total stranger.

8 comments:

  1. When my brother and I looked up our grandmother's house in May, I wanted to look around. Mike is more conservetive than I and frowned on prowling when no one was home. How wonderful that you arn't! It's good to keep a visual record of time passing. It adds validity to our memories.It will be fun to share the photos with your mom.

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  2. Interesting!
    It must be nice to know that the house and garden are still in good shape.

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  3. Hi Beautiful photograpy,

    Rochester?
    Is that nearby your house? I am just curious because I learn a lot by visiting yours ( and others)blog, about the area.

    Today I posted some more photo's of Spain where we wer last summer.

    Bye thanks for your comment an I hope to visit you again...

    :) JoAnn

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  4. Rochester is the closest major city but we live about 25 miles east of there in a more rural setting.

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  5. I think the house looked much cuter when great grandpa lived there. I see the neighbors house was taken down to build a large building of some sort, and the cute little cobblestone light post is missing from the front yard. It's neat seeing the concrete table and the lighthouse still there, but the lighthouse looks weedy and out of place to me. I know it looked nice in his rock garden. Very interesting post!

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  6. Interesting. Would have liked to see it 75 years ago. Too bad the lamp post is gone. I still remember the notation on an old photograph-"Chas made lamp post."

    When I used to go to YL leaders' meeting out that way, I looked for the house and found it. Didn't sto though. That was about 16-17 years ago.

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  7. I think it's neat you went back to your Grandfather's house. I'm glad there are remenants of his garden. I bet the owner would have enjoyed seeing the photos of what it looked like under your Grandfather's loving care!

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  8. I stayed in the car... I'm too chicken to go prowling around a strangers backyard :)

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