House of Hardman, A great old house for sale

March 2015

Notes on 3180 Riverside Drive, Wellsville, NY 14895, Part III of III

Remembering the house as we look to sell it.

STORY JAR 

For a period of years, I wrote a column for the Cuba Patriot. These stories happened on Riverside Drive.

The Sewing Room

WELLSILLE:   We knew some of the history of our house from people who studied Wellsville’s past and from the evidence behind the plaster. We think that William Middaugh built the house and planted our towering pines and an apple orchard on the land that was his farm. The first kitchen was a separate building but the current one became a part of the house after machine made nails were about.   

            The fireplaces were replaced with a monstrous, coal furnace and radiators in 1912 about twenty years before Leonard Jones enclosed the porch and planted his hole-in-one tree. Most recently, we ripped the whole thing apart in 1989/90 after our time in Malaysia. 

            We didn’t know about specific rooms but liked combining facts with stories so guessed that one room was used as an examination room by the country doctor who once lived and worked here.

Placed between a large room with an entrance from the porch and a small bathroom that was clearly added later, this room and its closet seemed a likely examination room. For us, it would become a sewing room.

            We ripped out the exterior walls to remove one window and replace another while adding wiring, a heating system and insulation.The interior walls needed some finishing touches so, while the kids were in school, joint compound and I kept company.

            One day after school, Em and Jay found me on the “don’t stand above this step” top of the ladder trying to sand near the ceiling. After saying hello, they went to the kitchen where Emilie hoped my Donna Reed persona had left brownies and I stretched for just one more swipe at a rough spot. They heard the rattle of the ladder, the scream, the thud.

            Jay ran into the room and, as soon as he saw me, started shouting, “Mom, you need 911. Mrs. Ewell told us all about calling 911. Where’s the phone? Mom? Can I call 911? Can I call, Mom? Mom!”

            While I was groaning and trying to think which limb should try to move first, Emilie told Jay to hush and tried to see if I still functioned in some way. My voice refused to make coherent sounds to match the ideas forming in my head. Jay ran for the phone. 

Well, I didn’t need 911 that day but I did need a taller, more stable addition to our stepladder collection so that we could reach the twelve-foot ceiling without clattering to the floor. 

That room seemed suited to wallpaper so we went searching for a deal on discontinued paper. At Black’s store in Olean, a yellow paper with a delicate pattern of pink, blue and white flowers seemed to sing that it was made for a sewing room. At a closeout store, odd lots of paper can get jumbled together but after a thorough search we were able to tote twelve matching rolls of that perfect paper to our car.

Later, Rick and I employed our regular wallpaper hanging system in the sewing room. He measured, then I cut and pasted. He hung, matched and swore while I rinsed the sponge, trashed the scraps and turned up the radio.

            All was going well until I opened the third or fourth roll and realized that there were two different patterns of wallpaper. All had the same batch number, label and colors, but there were two different designs. Now what?

            It actually worked out. There were nine rolls of one design and three of another.  We were able to hang the first design on three walls and the second on the fourth wall. You’d never notice if I didn’t tell you.

            Now, surrounded by yellow wallpaper, there is not only a sewing machine but also a computer. Hanging on the walls are tidbits of family history including old photos, Grandma Rollin’s button top shoes and assorted curiosities from Borneo. Taped inside the closet is Jay’s pledge, signed ten years ago, stating that he will not be angry with me for letting him quit piano lessons.

            I wonder what will be in this room in another fifty years.

A Mouse-Scented Room

WELLSVILLE: In an old, country house with a stone foundation, an occasional mouse will find its way inside and decide that life there is better. Such a mouse will take up residence in a wall and inconveniently die there leaving its legacy, a permeating aroma.

            I knew from experience that burning a candle in such a room would take away the odor so, when my sewing room started to smell like a dead mouse, I tried it. It didn’t work. Several candles burned, sputtered and died with no success.

            I decided to clean and wash everything in that room until the only smells left were Lysol and shine. I started by clearing the table, an area that had become a dumping ground for papers, clothing to be repaired and some small boxes. One box, I discovered, was not empty. 

            It was during our pet mouse population explosion. One mouse had died and Jay, about seven at the time, had confused my sewing room with a mausoleum. He had a dead friend waiting for spring burial in a cardboard box.

            Opening the box reduced my curiosity as totally as relocating the mouse to the shed cured the odor problem.

           

Apples, Holes and Branches

September 12, 2001

WELLSVILLE: Peter Salvatore came over to ask if we had noticed that the old apple tree had fallen. We hadn’t but Rick got the chain saw and went to work. It was sad to see the tree leave us.  There are memories in its branches and roots.

            The apple tree was one of a pair that the children had climbed when they were young. Our first house had only huge trees with no footholds for easy access so there wasn’t any tree climbing in that yard. Our second house was in Malaysia and there were palm trees, also not easy to climb. But, this house had the old apple trees with lower branches just a hop off the ground and other branches like steps waiting for young explorers. 

            When the house was empty, there were often legs hanging among the branches of that tree. Em would climb up to read and Jay to annoy her.

            We were told that William Middaugh had planted trees and built the house in the mid 1800’s. His apple orchard is now represented by a few trees in our backyard and that belonging to Rob and Tammy Christman. William died in 1881and left the house and all of the trees and land to his children. The farm eventually became our neighborhood and most of the trees were gone by the time we moved in. 

            Several years ago, when our cat, Aloysius died, Jay was heartbroken. I suggested that he go out to the apple tree and dig a hole to bury Aloysius while Em and I prepared a coffin. Jay asked how big a hole was needed and I told him to dig until he felt better.

            When Em and I started our procession to the apple tree, Jay’s legs were as deep in the hole as they had once been high in the tree. We could have buried several animals in that hole. It was an impressive feat considering the many intersecting roots of the tree and the small size of the boy. We held our ceremony and said farewell to Aloysius under the apple tree.

            Another significant event involved a ground hog hole. Ground hogs could dig faster, if not deeper, than Jay and their favorite spot was under that tree. Rick said that the dropping apples provided the ground hog’s version of home delivery so they were endlessly attracted to that spot.

            Rick worked to reduce our ground hog population because of the holes they left everywhere, holes that would break a running child’s leg. He would take a dead ground hogs, stuff it into the hole and shovel in the dirt only to find the hole open and active again in a few days. We lost count over time but at least a dozen ground hogs were buried in the one hole.

            The ground around the tree is lumpy still because Jay’s hole was never smoothly filled in and the ground hog hotel was opened so many times that there is a permanent dip in the soil. Two major branches fell this week and the main trunk is split one would hope that Mr. Middaugh would have been satisfied to know how long the orchard lasted. 

The Tractor and the Pillows, 

published 2001

WELLSVILLE: When we returned to the house in the early afternoon one Saturday, we found all the garage doors open as well as the house doors and all the windows. 

            In the kitchen, the stereo was blaring with window-shaking intensity but no children could be found. Jay was in eighth grade and had spent the night at Max’s house but should have gotten home before us.

The day of the tractor and the pillows.
Max Oglesbee, Em Hardman, Jay Hardman 

            Emilie was a senior but had gone to work at the nursing home that morning. She should have gotten back but her car wasn’t there yet.

            Someone must have opened everything and turned on the music and our money was on Jay. With hands over ears for protection, Rick approached the shaking stereo and put it out of its misery. We walked out to the back yard – easy to do with the door open- and listened.

            There was no sign of anything but a faint howling came from the pinewoods.  Was that also the putting of a tractor motor? Our tractor was missing and so was the cart.

            Could they be working in the woods? Hauling trash? What did they do to make that much trash? Thankfully all the trees were still standing. The howling turned into singing and then the tractor emerged from the woods. Max was driving and Jay was sitting in the cart.

            Their voices were shouting – singing, screaming – and they were so intent in their meandering drive and antics that they never noticed us until they were a few feet away. Their faces changed from joy to pure guilt.

            Other than the leaving the house unattended for who knew how long and blaring the stereo, something else naughty had been done.

            There was a little bit of yelling. You could like guess what was said.

             “What were you doing?”

            “This tractor isn’t a toy.”

            “Are you crazy?”

            They put the tractor away but seemed full of some kind of wild, unreasonable, ready-to-destroy, spring fever energy. I had just bought some new sofa pillows so gave them the old pillows to destroy. It seems reasonable. Little did I know.

            It started with a sort of pillow fight that seemed cute and harmless. By then Em had arrived and I took photos of the three of them with the pillows. Thinking that the world was safe for Jay, Max and others, I put away the things that had been acquired that morning. When I next looked out in the backyard, there was pillow fluff everywhere.

            Max was standing on a stump and had an ax over his head. He jumped off while swinging at the pillow remains that were nearly buried in the soft grass. I could just see someone putting the mattock into a skull or removing chunks of leg so I went out screaming, “Stop!”  a year’s worth of fear in one word.

Far right is Max and goofiest is Jay. I am behind the group. This
is the Wellsville High School Debate Team
in our kitchen with the window rescued from the
high school behind them.

            No, they didn’t think they could hurt themselves or each other. No, it didn’t seem dangerous. Yes, the tools looked like a perfectly reasonable way of dealing with old pillows. No, they hadn’t noticed that there was pillow fluff as far as the eye could see.

            I asked them to pick up the remains of the mutilated pillows that were around the yard. It was difficult. Max had hit a pillow so hard that it was jammed more than a foot down into the ground into a small round hole.

            Astounded, I asked, “Max, that must have been a lot of work to hammer a pillow into the ground so far. Why did you keep pounding on it?  Wasn’t it exhausting?”

            “Yeah,” he said, “now that you mention it, I’m pretty tired.”

            The pillow pieces took a long time to pick up but I didn’t dare leave those boys. They had gone from carousing to pummeling and I was afraid of what was next.

            It was a Jay and Max experience to remember and was, after all, far less stressful than getting a roll of paper towels out of the downstairs toilet. 

           

The History of Our House

     The story of our house stretches into the foggy past with tentacles of fact and fiction lacing through the years. After talking with Joanne Allen and Jane Pinney at the Historical Society Library, I decided to record some facts and try to pin down a few bits of fiction.

           We always thought that our house was built by William Middaugh in the 1800s but a reading of the deed makes that sound unreasonable. William bought the property on April 26, 1879 but the first mention of the house is in a record of his son, William C Middaugh, selling the house in 1895. The style seem more of the type popular in the 1860s and evidence in the records seem to lean toward it's being constructed in the late 1860s but we just don’t know.

            The house, as of 1895, was on about 5 acres of land but the lot reached its current size (1.25 acres) when it was sold in 1907.

            What confused us was that our house came with a copy of a page from William Middaugh’s story for his children. Clearly he lived here.The story included an image of our house with a man, most reasonably William Middaugh, standing on the porch. 

           He can’t have been the builder. Timing just doesn’t work out so both the date of construction and the person behind the building of our house remains a mystery

            The photo shows some tiny pine trees. The one near the house now towers over our house with a trunk of 160 inches circumference at the base. The title of the picture is “The Last Home."

            In the picture, the house stands proudly with the front door under a 3 story tower. The tower's top floor has double, round-topped windows on each side. Two of those windows are in our basement but the third level of the tower is long gone. Chopped off, cast aside, and discarded for whatever reason we have often thought it would have been fun to have it reproduced but the cost and turmoil has made that not so.

     The paper we had was part of a story written by William Middaugh to give to his children. We only had one page of the story though Joanne Allen recently found the entire story on file in the Historical Society Library in Wellsville. We have no idea what book it is published in. This is the part given to us when we bought the house:

“I have to think I can leave my children with all the property necessary to help them through this world. They have a second time been deprived of a mother’s care and counsel, my second wife being buried just twenty-five years from my first wife’s burial. I hope as my children read this over and see the trials and afflictions I have passes (sic) through in my life to secure the property I now leave for them, they will appreciate it and keep and protect it from debt and mortgage and hold it as I have done as long as they live.

            I have tried to do my duty by my children as I saw it as near as I could –although you may not realize it – and I hope they can and will make good use of it. I again entreat of you to hold and not sell these old family farms that I have cherished so much. Now children while I do not wish you to labor as I have, I do entreat of you all to be honest, industrious and straight-forward. Be true to yourselves and then you will be true to others. I say again be saving and not squander what has come to you so easily, for my experience teaches me, that it is no easy matter to accumulate property and keep it without experience and economy. When I say be economical, I do not mean be little and penurious. I would have you be benevolent when it is a duty as many cases it is, and aid worthy objects. I have always meant to practice that in both prosperity and adversity, which is the duty of all good citizens.”

            William died in this home, referred to as "The Last House", on August 22, 1881 and was buried at Knights Creek Cemetery in Scio, NY. One of his children said, “Father was a man of kind and forgiving heart, was always ready to lend a helping hand to those in need.”
            On the land that roots this house, there are also the remains of a farm’s apple orchard. Most of the trees are in the neighboring yard. (That now belongs to Rob and Tammy Christman.)

           One year a balloon’s ropes became tangled in one of those apple trees. It happened to be while Dr. Jim Edmonston had a “cherry picker” truck at his house so he drove it over and used the cherry picker to undo the ropes and set the balloon free.

            Another possible farm feature is the towering pear tree near the road. It is an ancient variety of pear that would have been harvested by Native Americans. These pears, dense golf-ball sized fruits that we stumble over in the fall, must be cooked to be edible and even then the taste does not match the expectation of a pear.

            Ethyl Richardson was our neighbor when we moved into this house in 1989 and it is her house that now shelters the Christman family. Ethyl told us that our house once was used by a doctor. This may not be true because the house that was on that property prior to the existing house was said to be owned by 2 doctors and how many doctors would there have been on this street? (However, a few years ago, Dr. James Edmonston lived across the street from Dr. Andrew Colletta while Dr. Aziz lived down the road on just this side of the Scio town line so, well, maybe then too.)

            When we moved into our house, it was a structure of doors. The front porch had 4 doors facing the road. Two French doors could be opened from the living room, likely to air the house in the summer and certainly to admit drafts in the winter. They were replaced with windows looking toward the road.

            Another was the front door to the house that opened into the front hall and the fourth was the door on the side of the wrap-around porch that entered into the office. One entered that office (I can picture a huge oak desk and a swivel chair but that is totally my imagination at work.) and then advanced to the examination room which led to a choice of doors – household kitchen or lavatory (now laundry room).

            There were 4 doorways from the dining room. Why cannot be imagined. One was an open archway to the living room. Another was a swinging door to the kitchen. Sensible, reasonable points of passage, these remain.

            There were 2 doors from the dining room to the doctor’s office. That office also had a door to the front hall, the living room and what was the examination room. Someone must have loved doors or disdained walls. Whatever the original intent of the floor plan, there are now fewer doors.

            Leonard B. and Edna M. Jones bought the house on June 6, 1955 and lived at 3180 Riverside until they sold it to Robert H. and Louise H.  Walpole on July 27, 1965. They left the pine tree behind our wood shed. It was planted to celebrate Leonard’s hole-in-one at the golf course down the road. Ethyl said that Leonard was the one who enclosed our back porch to enlarge the kitchen where he installed a wood burning fireplace. 

            The Jones family sold the house to Walpole family. Robert Walpole cheerfully commented that he never had to do a bit of maintenance on the building for the entire 25 years he lived there. When Rick and I bought it, it was time for change so we gutted, redesigned and reconfigured the space.

            Gutting a house opens up pages of history. We didn't find anything valuable in the walls but we did find details.

            The following things we know from personal experience - The rear bathroom was an odd shape. There was a space unaccounted for, a space about the size of a shower. Rick thought that maybe someone's Aunt Matilda was buried in the wall but when he opened it, he found a shower. It seems that there was an issue with the drain so the water was cut off and the shower was encased in drywall turning a full bath into a half bath and eliminating further plumbing work.  

            We also found that the house had undergone a major renovation in 1912. The drywall used in the house was labeled with those dates. We think that’s when central heating was installed. Clearly there were chimneys in most rooms at some point and we removed one more. 

            In 1989 the furnace was a huge metal box designed to burn coal and later natural gas. The pilot light was a 2-foot pipe with holes the length of it so that it burned significant amounts of fuel just to keep a flame at the ready. We replaced the furnace and the radiators with a hot water baseboard system, cutting fuel consumption considerably and then replaced it all again 2013. Our new system constantly measures temperatures inside and out and keeps the house cozy for 1/3 less fuel.

            More interesting was the laundry room. Ethyl told us that Leonard Jones put that little room on the side of the kitchen. She didn’t tell us that he did it by recycling some other house. When were taking those walls down, something under the plaster didn’t look right.

            We were teaching all day and working on the house nights and weekends. This, of
course, left us so exhausted that we didn’t think well but finally it dawned on us that under a layer of plaster was plaster and lath and that plaster had dripped upward not down.

            Those walls were interior walls taken from another house, brought to this house and flipped upside down and then used to construct the exterior walls of a full bathroom which now is remade into a nicely insulated laundry room. Waste not, want not.

            The front of our house holds the living room, dining room and 2 offices on the first floor as well as 3 bedrooms (originally 4) and 2 baths upstairs. The rooms on the first floor are 11 feet tall but, thankfully, shorter on second floor. This part is held together with hand forged, cut nails.

            The back of our house holds the kitchen and laundry on the first floor and a large bedroom on the second floor. It is held together with machine made nails and the ceilings are only 8 feet from the floors.

            We reworked the upstairs floor plan to use the floor space of the small central bedroom. What was the bedroom door became a linen closet door and the rest of the room was divided to give the bedrooms on either side of it large closets and to make the master bedroom much larger.

          The closets hold some of Wellsville's history. When the Rockwell Department Store closed, they sold shelves and drawers. We bought several of them. Some are freestanding storage in the basement but the rest are built into the closets.

            We also reconstructed the front hall way. The space under the stairs was wasted. It is now a front hall closet. The closet is wonderful but I reserve 3 cheers for the stair aprons. We admired some in a building in Christchurch, New Zealand and when we returned home, Rick outfitted the front stairs.

           For most of the time that we lived here the front hall opened into the living room but after the children left that was just a drafty area so Rick built French doors between the hall and the living room.

           He made a leaded glass window to fill in the round arch above the doorway. This carries through the house. There is a rounded window over the front door, the one Rick made between the hall and living room, a stained glass window he made between the living and dining rooms and a fourth rounded window in the kitchen.

          The window in the kitchen is a half round window and we bought it from the Wellsville Central School System for $1.50. It allows an open passage of light through the kitchen.

          Schools change and toss out the old. Thankfully I was at hand to save this and that. There are two cupboards that were part of the Andover Central School. These are now our pantry. One side of each has a long door that had a coat rack and was used for the teacher’s coat and boots. There are holes drilled at the top and bottom so the coat could dry if it had rained. 
          The other side has a medium and short door and was designed for book storage. The books cupboards already has shelves so that was great but the coat cupboard side needed shelves and that was where the Rockwell Department Store helped solve the need. We have 2 of these cupboards, back to back, as our pantry.

            There is one story that begs addition. When Emilie and Jay were in elementary school, I was a Girl Scout leader and Rick and I were both adult Boy Scouts. There were times when we would have the entire scout troops for an overnight at our house.

            On one such occasion, the kids were running and screaming in the back yard when a NY State Trooper rang the bell. Rather politely, he asked what was going on.

            “Going on how?” I asked.

            Someone in the neighborhood, we never knew who, had called to report that they heard someone screaming that they were being killed.

            We went out to the yard and called everyone together. They were playing a rousing game of He’s Going to Kill Me. There didn’t seem to be any agreement on the rules other than running and screaming about being killed.

            The trooper left. The game continued. Home sweet home.

Below are some of the changes we made in the house -

This was also an open doorway on the side of the living room into the dining room and in 2014 Rick dressed it up with a new window. Most of the glass is reclaimed. 
       Look through the window to see the tin ceiling we installed in the dining room – with many curses per square foot.  It was a much more demanding project than one might imagine.    

     When we moved in, this was a large open, drafty doorway.Rick made the rounded window on the top, created the doorway and installed the French doors found at an antique shop. The side glass panels are etched in a vine pattern. The installations incorporates hundreds of pieces of wood, glass and molding.
     The banister of legends is visible through the French doors. Many young folks in the time of the Walpole's residence in the house recall having timed races sliding down the banister with the Walpole children. With the 12 foot ceilings downstairs, the length and height of the banister attracted the young and foolish and daunted those with more sense. Our children do not admit which group they belong to. 

     Rick recalls a "near-death time-dilation" experience while removing the ceiling plaster. He slipped and fell backwards while stretching out to pull a nail at the top of the stairs, leaving the crowbar hanging on the nail-head and wildly swinging over his chest and head while he slowly slid on his back down the stairs under it. He watched the crowbar in full expectation of experiencing the point end on, or worse, into him.
     Also through the widows is a view of the stair aprons.

Stair aprons added by Rick.

     Rick built new oak kitchen cabinets and added a mahogany top and molding to the fireplace.  Elaine came up with the idea of having the sink in an island to meet her remodeling requirement that it provided an outside view.  This resulted in a compact galley style kitchen, but made much better use of the floor space, allowing for an in-kitchen dining area.

     This led to another near disaster story. The very large (heavy) picture window unit with attached side windows where the counter used to be  needed to be lowered to table height.
     It was decided to knock out the wall under the window and reconstruct it a foot or so shorter. No problem so far. Next step was to cut all the nails holding the window unit in place and let it slide it down onto its new, lower wall.  

     There were lots of nails, including one that we just could not find that was holding it in place.  After much searching it was found and cut. Immediately the window started to slide – and was it heavy! Rick and his friend were merely to slow its inexorable downward progress but not to stop it. 

     As it slid, Rick noticed that a power saw was still sitting on the new lower wall. He yelled for a very young Jay to “MOVE THE SAW!” which resulted in a confused 6-year old wildly looking for a saw somewhere in the kitchen. 

      Since it didn't seem that Jay would figure out that the machine on the window was a saw and since their muscles were giving out, Rick did a last ditch karate kick, knocking the saw off the wall just in time. The window is happy – and intact – it its new position providing lovely views for those seated at the table

    Also in our kitchen is a half round window from the Wellsville High School, purchased for the grand amount of $1.50.

    Not suitable as an exterior window, it is great in our house because it allows the light to flow and is one of 4 round top windows.

   The vintage Toledo scale was salvaged from Alfred University, repaired and converted into a lamp by Rick.

     Elaine’s pottery is in evidence everywhere in the house.

     This is the new master bedroom. The window shown was once in what was a small bedroom but one dividing wall came out and we enlarged the master bedroom and closets, reworking the bedrooms to have walk-in closets and a linen closet in the hallway where the entry to the small v center bedroom was located.

       The original windows in the house were much taller, going to the floor and all were replaced with shorter, double-pane insulated windows in a more modern size. rick jokes that it made the house look newer (that would make it be early 1900s.)

     More 19th century lithos - these are John Gould Birds of Great Britain -and some of the Federal and first of State Duck Stamp framed prints cover the walks in this room. 

Drawers from Rockwell Department Store

This was the fireplace when we moved in.
After taking out the plaster over lath, this mantle
no longer fit so we cut it out and replaced it.

 

We stripped the white paint from the bricks leaving just a few traces of it. I made tiles with Jay, and Rick built the mantle of quarter-sawn oak and installed the tiles on it as well as on the hearth.

At Christmas, Emilie’s collection of nutcrackers tops the mantle.  Some of Rick’s 19^th century naturalist lithographs are on the walls – these are Audubon Quadrupeds.

On the floor at the right is a cricket forged by the late Charlie Orlando. It was meant to go on top of the big rock (named “Jon” in honor of Jon Ebling who installed it for us as a housewarming gift.) in the front of the house.  Fear of theft and not wanting the cricket to suffer the weather, the cricket has always stayed by the fire – well – gas logs, but it’s warm nonetheless.

     This likely won’t make any sense without a floor plan but let’s give it a try.

     The stove is set into an alcove. That alcove was where entry to the kitchen was granted. The stove sits on what was the top of the stair landing for the back door. One entered the house in the garage and walked to the back of the garage and came into the kitchen after climbing 3 stairs. 

     Wanting a more direct route, Rick cut a hole in the wall next to the basement door to grant entry to the house from the driveway and built a wall to divide the new entry area from the garage thus making a new back hall and mudroom/pantry/entry.

     As a side note, when we bought this stove we needed to make this space nearly 2 inches wider. We ripped out the walls from the other side, from inside the garage. We built a little ramp to slide the old stove out and the new stove in. Much easier that moving it through the kitchen.

     The chimney for the kitchen fireplace didn’t draw well so I made a terracotta chimney pot to extend it and Rick installed it as part of a chimney relining project.  Now it works fine providing added warmth to the house in winter. As a bonus, the addition of a screen eliminated the occasional unwelcome bird or bat coming into the house and wood ash helps the tomato plants.

     A recent rehab of the well-crafted Lopi wood stove insert replaced its interior firebrick and converted it to use outside air for combustion via the ash clean-out port of the original fireplace for even greater efficiency.

December 26, 2008

Josh and Jay help to keep the wood stove going when they are around. It's fun for a couple of days but over the winter it gets a bit dull. Jay had to leave on Friday right after Christmas so the day was empty without him.
















Demetra Messoloras (Emilie's best friend in middle and high school) visited and cooked a delicious Greek dinner on Friday night. Here she and Josh are cooking and then we have Demetra dressing the salad. (I know the text does not line up with the photos but I can't figure how to make it work out right. Very frustrating.)



























Emilie tried to escape the camera but I got her (and her new scarf).






















Josh cooked the eggplant and it tasted super but the skillet was a total mess.

















We found this crazy dragon candle holder at a road side rummage sale in West Virginia in October and brought it home for Josh for a Christmas gift. It reminded us of the dragon they have hanging in their dining room/living room door way. It's a little over the top as a hood ornament but it would be super cool if they did mount it there.






































Emilie carried River downstairs to the car.























River went into the back seat so she could watch people but Oslo went in his carrier in the very back of the car because he travels better with sensory deprivation, so we were told.

2007 Christmas Issue: Christmas Gingerbread Houses

Gingerbread Houses

Christmas at our house means gingerbread house time. We made some simple ones when
the children were little. You know the kind - graham crackers and frosting - but that’s not what we do now. Before everyone comes home, I bake a house.

Rick starts by choosing a house pattern and making cardboard pattern pieces for the walls and roof. Generally I have to double the recipes for gingerbread to make the house but it goes quickly now because I have a method.


I put parchment paper on a baking pan, roll the dough out, cut around the pattern and remove the extra dough. Since I don’t pick anything up, I no longer stretch the rectangles into some frustrating parallelogram or wonky trapezoid.


When they are cool, I glue the pieces together. The first time I glued a house it was without appreciation for the searing temperature of melted sugar. I thought I had to hurry and while hurrying I dripped melted sugar on my hand. It took about two weeks to heal.

Now I wear neoprene gloves and move slowly and carefully. With all the pieces arranged on the kitchen counter and an aluminum foil-covered board at the ready I melt sugar in a large frying pan. Sugar melts into sticky syrup. I dip two sides of a wall into the goo and then place the wall on the board. I know that there’s enough time to move slowly and deliberately.

I worry a little about putting roof on. I have to use a spoon to drip glue on the top of the wall and then place the roof parts. The small pieces of the chimney go on easily and they add style. Often I put a few trees or shrubs or a snowman in the “yard” or pour the sugar/syrup into a “walkway” in front of the door. The sugar glue hardens and the house waits for candy.

At our house all the food we share has to be vegan and that, just a couple of years ago, limited our choices of candies for decoration but now one can get just about anything in a vegan formula so we get pretty darn colorful.

Christmas Eve is decorating time. We get some drinks, turn on the holiday music and put the house on the dining room table surrounding it with bowls of candies. I make lots of frosting for the decorations and we get the kitchen scissors, knives and our fingers very gooey in the process.


Often each of us claims a section of the house and gets to work, a process that means the house looks different from each angle. We cover it with enough candy-tile to make Anton Gaudi jealous and us happy.

As soon as it’s finished it is okay to start eating it but usually the sampling of materials has already made us sick on sugar by then. Our gingerbread house is the best 50,000 calorie project of the year.



Basic Gingerbread House Dough
From recipes.vegansource.com
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 Teaspoon baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 or 3 tsps ground ginger (use a really good quality spice)
1 or 2 tsp ground cinnamon (Vietnamese is my favorite)
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 cup molasses
2 Tbs soymilk, or as needed

In a large bowl stir together flour, baking soda, salt, ginger and cinnamon. (This is the step where our kitchen floor gets messy.)
In a saucepan, combine the shortening, brown sugar, and molasses over low heat.
Stir occasionally until the shortening is melted and the sugar is dissolved,
but still slightly grainy. Remove from the heat and let the mixture cool to lukewarm.
Gradually add the molasses mixture to the dry ingredients, mixing until well blended.
Add enough soymilk to make a firm dough.

Gather the dough into a ball, and cover with plastic wrap.
Let the dough rest for at least 20 minutes. (When tightly sealed, the dough will keep for up to 1 week in the refrigerator. Bring to room temperature before rolling.)
Preheat oven to 325 F. Position rack in the center of the oven.
Use ungreased baking sheets or use parchment paper.
With a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out the dough 1/4" thick, and cut out desired shapes.
Bake until the edges are slightly brown, about 15 minutes.
Makes enough for 1 small gingerbread house (8" x 8").

Gingerbread House Glue*
Pour a layer of sugar about 1" thick in a heavy frying pan.
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon
until it melts. This makes a quick-hardening, edible glue.
*Caution, this is VERY hot, do not taste or touch!!

Frosting Glue
This frosting works well if made with egg whites but it's okay with water
1/3 cup water (or 3 egg whites)
1/2 t cream of tartar
about a pound of confectioner's sugar
Whip till smooth if you can stand the noise of your mixer.

People tell me that these can be sprayed with a clear finish and saved for years but we nibble on the peanut brittle and chocolate until the house seems less than glorious and then we get serious and eat the gingerbread.

Story Jar - Peace, Love, Flowers and Ribbon: The Wedding

Peace, Love, Flowers and Ribbon
Story Jar, November 2007





I want these words to turn to butterflies, rainbow wings floating with spicy scents amid the rich voices of a thousand violins but of course it’s not possible. Still, that’s what it would take to tell you how wonderful Emilie’s and Josh’s wedding was. I can’t pack the sights, the tears, smiles, pride, energy, love or even the colors of that wonderful day into words but their first anniversary is nearly here so it’s time to do my best.

Emilie and Josh were married. Allow me pause to smile and sigh. On that day Josh was no more our son than the day before because he’d already been in our family
for 6 years.

You might think that because you’ve been to weddings you have a pretty good idea about this wedding but it wasn’t like any other wedding I’ve seen. They were joined by Rev Connie Dutcher in an intentional, purposeful, conscious Celtic Handfasting Ceremony. Let me explain.

They were married at Peace Abbey outside of Boston. That’s where the Dali Lama and Mother Theresa stayed at times and it’s the location of a national registry of conscientious objectors. The chapel holds the holy books, prayer beads, prayer wheels, vestments and flags for all major religions – so many that it barely has room for people so Em and Josh were married in the library.

People who know Josh and Emilie realize that the library was THE place for these two readers, writers, masters of words, thinkers of thoughts, holders of ideas and histories and connections. The library was totally fitting.

Across from the entry door is a finely-crafted fireplace and seating is arranged in a U facing it. As people entered, they took a candle. Karn was there to light it for them. All the candles were placed on a table near the entry and then everyone sat and talked spreading the energy of anticipation. When the guests were seated Rick, Jay and I came in and we each put flowers in what Emilie called our “family vase.” Josh’s family (Patti, Dave and Johanna) added flowers to the vase blending our families and then it was time for Josh and Emilie.


Somewhere in the process I began to worry a bit about the vase. Emilie asked me to make a large vase but clearly I didn’t get it large enough. It was full when Em added her bunch but Josh had more flowers. How would they fit? One of them was a sunflower with a stem about the size of a broom handle. Josh paused a bit considering the situation and then grabbed the vase and shoved those stems in. His smile of triumph was well earned.

They walked to the center of the room, in front of the fireplace, within a circle of rose petals, holding hands, smiling, looking young and happy and whole.

Handfasting is an ancient tradition common in Scotland until 1939. For hundreds of years, only wealthy Europeans could afford to marry in a church. Peasants would fasten their hands together in public (“tie the knot”) as a sign of their commitment. The practice is also associated with the custom of shaking hands to seal a contract. This ceremony was an elaboration on tradition.

Emilie and Josh stood in the circle of flower petals and Connie welcomed everyone and then Emilie began reading her vows to Josh. I started crying, not that I was the only one. Emilie spoke of being a fierce friend and partner. She talked of loving and of being purposely and intentionally together.

Rick had tissues in his pocket so I nudged him but he was absorbed in the moment and ignored me. It took some powerful sniffs and a couple of pokes to get a tissue out of him and by then Josh was reading his vows. He talked of admiring Emilie for her spark, creativity, courage, compassion and sense of justice. There was a lot of crying by then.

They held hands through all of this and then the tying began. Jay was first with the blue cord representing water. He made the cord of ribbon and lace and described how it represented emotional depth, peace and security. Then he tied their hands together. (Sorry, I was crying then. Here's Jay and Em dancing.)


Johanna was next with the white cord made of ribbons and marble discs and representing air. Johanna said that the air-cord represented strength of spirit, healing and protection. (I made this cord and the others after spending hours in Joanne Fabric choosing from thousands of ribbons, cords, braids and fabrics and then sewing them together with embroidery threads and beads.)

Kyle presented the orange chord of ribbons and rope and shinny gauze. Orange represents fire and Kyle talked of passion, liveliness, kindness and encouragement while he fastened the cord.


Kjersten was next with the green cord representing earth. Green stands for energy, success and a full and happy life.

Adding to that was Patrick with the gold cord for metals. It represents activity, intelligence, unity and learning.





Finally was their friend Josh with the brown cord. Brown is for wood and represents skills, talents and love for animals. Like the others, Josh’s tying ended with hugs.




Then Connie spoke to pronounce them partners for life. People stopped wiping their tears long enough to applaud and as the fireplace log burned low, Em and Josh removed their hands from the cords which fell nicely into a wreath – now hanging on the wall in their living room.