Saturday, July 25, 2009

The Death of a Childhood Home

Friday, July 24, the house at Ephrata where we lived as children was torn down. I went about 7 AM and stayed most of the day. It was sad, but it was also a reminder that material things don't last forever.



The gutted house before they started on Friday.






The garage wasn't there when we lived there. It was the first part to go.


The garage is gone.



Everything, including the cement in the basement, had to be loaded into dumpsters and hauled away.




The first bite out of the main house.





The laundry was the next to go.


The last chunk of laundry is pulled down.


Then it was the original bathroom upstair that I remember only as a storage room.
It had been turned into a walk-in closet in later years.


and the spare room that was used by whoever lived with us at the moment: Eugene, the twins, etc. It was also a play room for our dolls.
There was a lot of dust.




Upstairs on the left was my brothers' bedroom.

The stairway and the kitchen on the first floor going, going . . .


gone.



Another view from across the road.



one section deeper into the house.

more dust...

Barely visible behind the dust is my parents' bedroom on the left and mine on the right.

Again another view from the road.

my bedroom wall -- I think that may be the wall paper that was on when we lived there. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar. A later picture has a clearer view.








This is a better view of my bedroom wall.


The basement under the kitchen. They found an old well (center of photo) that the last owner had no idea existed.



attic steps

A few little trees were in his way so he grabbed them and pulled them out and set them aside--simple matter to remove a few trees.



Clear view of the attic steps. My sister was scared of these steps and my mother used them for her punishment. I was scared to sleep in my room because of all the scary things that could come down those steps right into my bedroom and get me during the night.


The other end of the house just after the chimney was pushed down.

The bathroom where we read books instead of getting the bath we were supposed to be getting was in the back of the house. My sister's bedroom was in the front. The other bedroom had been torn away years ago.
The living room was on the first floor.

The last corner of the house to remain standing.


Same corner from the opposite side.

The last view from across the road. I had to leave at that point and didn't see it completely flattened. One of the other observers plans to send me a photo later.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Adirondacks


We left on our mini-vacation Thursday evening. We spent the first night in East Stroudsburg, PA. Friday morning we stopped at Bushkill Falls and hiked to the main falls. We spent about 2 hours there before heading on toward our destination.


Our destination was Coyote Ridge Ranch at Port Henry, New York. Two single ladies who built the log home they live in in 1992, had invited us for an all-expenses paid vacation in the Adirondacks. We arrived Friday afternoon and stayed with them until Sunday afternoon.


One of our points of interest was Ausable Chasm. We spent several hours there walking along the chasm and marveling at the sights. We also stopped at two book sales and the hospital in Plattsburg where both the ladies work. We then rode the ferry from Port Kent, New York to Vermont on the other side of Lake Champlain and stopped at Goodies for soft ice cream.


It was an interesting weekend and a good place for a mini-vacation. We are grateful to the ladies for paying our way to visit them and hosting us through the weekend.