Our homes shape our lives and become part of who we are.
Look at these two views of the same house.
I walk by this house regularly. Taking these two photos got me thinking about our homes, and the way they influence our lives. My mind went on a bit of a riff, and the result is a Thanksgiving reflection piece on the role of our physical homes in our lives.
Time marches on and no physical objects are permanent (although some last a lot longer than others). This farmhouse is within walking distance of my house. I talked with the owners one time and they told me that it had been built in 1910. These people had grown up in the house as kids, in the 1950s. But the house had already been there for more than 40 years by then.
The second photo shows what it looked like when I walked by the other day. Earlier that morning, workers had torn it down completely. All that remains is a pile of boards and splinters. Soon there will be a new housing development in its place, and the cycle will begin all over again. Possibly 110 years from now these new houses or condos will be removed to make way for yet something else.
I’ve walked by this house many times. I’ve wondered, What was Christmas like for a family there in 1915? What were their lives like during the Great Depression? What was the family doing when they heard the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor, or of JFKs assassination?
Things change, yes. But I thought it proper to pay respects to this old house. Soon few will remember that it was ever even there. But it made a difference for at least some people while it lasted, and became a part of some lives.
What was your house (or houses) like growing up?
Some of you may have lived in the same place for all of your childhood and youth. Others have moved many times. Each place we live has a way of leaving its mark on us. What are the ways our homes and spaces shape our lives?
My family lived in several different houses from the time I was two years old until I left for college. We had moved a couple of times when I was very young, and I don’t remember those places. But the first house I do remember was the old, two-story farmhouse where we lived when I was a kid, outside of the small town of Dallas, Oregon.
The house was old when we lived there in the early 1960s.
In fact it was built with square nails (several of which I still have as souvenirs, from that very house. Yes, I collect unusual mementos. A google search reveals that manufactured round wire nails replaced square nails by about 1880. So this house was probably built sometime in the 1860s or 1870s. This made it a very old structure in a far western state at that time. It was several decades older than the farmhouse in the photo above, and around 90 years old at the time we lived there.
We have a few family pictures from our years in that house, until we moved out when I was about 8 years old. Mostly, I have mental images of the inside and outside, surprisingly clear to this day. The 1910 farmhouse in the photo above reminds me in some ways of our own farmhouse of my childhood. Not the same, but some things in common. It may be in better shape (prior to being torn down) than my childhood farmhouse, if you can believe that.
The thing is, like the 1910 farmhouse, my old childhood house also no longer exists. It hasn’t for more than 55 years. Our family moved out of it into another old house that was on the place, when I was in grade school.
And then my dad and grandfather burned it down.
That’s right–it suffered a similar fate as the house in the photo. They decided that it was just too old and decrepit to keep up, and with another place on the farm to move into, the old two-story farmhouse met its fate. First, they tore out some of the usable wood, and removed the fixtures and such. And then just set it afire.
On the day they burned it, I still remember my dad rushing down to our house at the bottom of the hill where we had moved, about a half mile away. My brother and I were watching Saturday morning cartoons. My dad said we needed to see this fire. So we piled into the old pickup and headed up the hill, where the house was already ablaze.
To a young boy, such a fire was indeed an impressive sight. I think my grandfather overlooked notifying the fire department in town that they were doing this. He had a habit of lighting random fires around the place as it was (and using dynamite–which in those days could be purchased at the farm supply store–for blowing stumps. Also impressive to my young self). The burning farmhouse was on a hill and visible from town, and the fire department sent a truck out to deal with it. Then they found that it was burning on purpose. That wasn’t the only time the fire department paid a visit to our place, but those are stories for another time.
In any case, I think often of that house, and how several generations of earlier occupants had lived life there.
It was something of a pioneer house, one that dated to an early period of Oregon’s settlement. Perhaps the original builders had come over on the Oregon Trail. When the house was new, in the 1870s, there would have been no electricity, plumbing, indoor toilet. There was no heat besides a wood stove. Other than the addition of rudimentary plumbing and wiring, it had probably not changed much even by the time our family lived there.
There are now very few such houses left in Oregon from that era. Even as a boy, I think I was aware that I was living in something historical, and it left an impression on me. Hence, I even kept several of the square nails from it. I have them to this day–early evidence somehow of my propensity to connect objects with time and place.
I’m a student of history, and I’ve wondered if having lived in something historical is part of what has shaped that. As a child in that house, I could sense history and the passage of time around me. I was aware the house was old, although time is difficult for a child to grasp. The places and spaces in which we live form and shape who we are.
Fast forward several decades from then to my early 30s, when my wife and I bought our first house.
Thirty years later, it still is our first house (although not our first home).
That’s right, we’ve now lived in the same house since 1991. My career has kept me in the same town throughout that time. We somehow never needed or got around to moving from this place. Our house is now almost 60 years old, built in 1962. So it wasn’t new when we bought it. It had only a couple of other owners in the first 30 years. I know nothing about them, but I’ve often wondered what their lives were like, these people who once called my home their home.
We raised our children here. Our son was two when we moved in, and our daughter was born a couple of years later. Now both grown and on their own, this is the only home they had known, so I know that it has shaped their lives.
I’ve become attached to the place, I’ll admit, and the house has shaped me.
I’ve painted the outside myself, several times over the years. And the entire interior several times as well. I learned something about roofing when my dad and a friend helped me replace the roof, now many years ago. Good thing it was 40 year roofing! I learned how to hang wallpaper, when that was still in style. And how to remove it, when it wasn’t (and to know that I will never use wallpaper again–what were we thinking?!). And I learned how to install flooring, and do a bit of masonry, basic plumbing, and so on.
This house has taught me many skills. I’ve shaped it and it has shaped me. The attic holds boxes and boxes of memories. These are things that someday may no longer be worth keeping, but until we move, there they are. The small garden yielded food for our family when our kids were young, and does to this day. We have a shelf of photo albums, and now files of digital photos over the years, of life in this house. Thirty years of Christmases, Thanksgivings, birthdays, first days of school, graduations. Thirty years of upkeep, cleaning, maintenance, and remodeling. The house has taken me from young adult to a man in my 60s.
More than just a place of shelter, our homes shape our lives.
We decorate them, furnish them, clean them, and repair them. They reflect our personality, and are an extension of ourselves. We dream dreams and make memories in these places of wood, stone, and brick. These structures are witness to lives that unfold within.
I credit the inspiration for the title of this post to country singer Miranda Lambert and her song, The House That Built Me. This song is her musing on the way her own childhood home shaped her life journey, much as I’ve reflected on mine.
Many of my readers will gather for the US Thanksgiving holiday this week, in homes where you’ve perhaps lived for a long time or short. As you gather, with family and friends around, be mindful of the place and space you occupy. Be thankful for it, and take it not for granted. Even if it is just a transitional dwelling, and not a home of 30 years, you still live a bit of your life in this space, and make some memories of this day in time. Hold it close, and respect whatever space it is that becomes part of who you are. For someday, like the two houses I’ve described above, it likely won’t be there anymore. But you’ll carry a bit of it with you for years.
(By the way, you can be sure that I will paste this post into my Memoirs that I’m writing. It will make a great addition to part of my childhood section)
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