If This Old House could talk

Every Old House has a story to tell.  It doesn't matter the price you paid for it, if its brand new or a hundred year old house.   It doesn't matter if it has one bedroom or six. It doesn't matter if its falling down now or if its been remodeled. Do you live in your childhood home or do you drive by it and say, "That's my Old House?"  How many family members live in your home? Do you have family gatherings there?
The only childhood home I can remember was in Dallas. That was the house where I can remember my mother painting with her oil paints, sitting hours in the den in front of an easel. Cousins came to visit in the summer time to go to Six Flags with us. There was an alley in the back, behind the yard that cut through to my best friends house. And it was the home next door to a family I babysat for and who later became my Guardians when I was a teenager.

Green Terrace Street

Dallas, Texas 

Many years ago I walked down an old childhood memory of my mothers with her as she shared what it was like growing up on the hill. As we walked in the yard at her old house in Terry, Mississippi, she told me about her childhood growing up in that old house.  She said it was one of the best  memories she had as a child. It was one of the nicest new homes in Terry  back then, built on 69 acres of land. It had a two story barn, a big creek with an Indian trail and the house sat on a hill. In the front lawn hedged in green bushes, were roses and gardenias that always made everything smell so good. They even had an apple and peach orchid . Mom said the old place took a lot of hard work and all the kids had chores they had to do back then but it  also had its rewards. She said that at noon they would take breaks and she would lay in the  green grass looking up at the clouds. She said you could hear the airplanes practicing friendly war fare. They would dive at the treetops and look like you could almost touch them. 
They always had a garden, a  couple of cows, and lots of chickens. My grandparents would sell vegetables and eggs to help make ends meet.  They would can their bounty from the garden and smoke meat in the old smoke house. Mom’s eyes would light up when she talked about the old Terry place. It wasn't easy for all those children but the lessons of life could never be taken away from her heart.
Today, the old Terry house still stands. It has been remolded and updated. The first photo was taken by my parents back in the 60's when they visited the old place. It had been remolded then and the second photo is what it looks like today.

Old Jackson Road

Jackson, Mississippi

The old smoke house and chicken coop were torn down by my cousin Edit’s husband , Bill, and turned into a little house that displays  some of Granny and Granddads belonging as if walking into their small life of memories. What a treasured gift that he built not more than a  few steps away where Edith  and her husband  now live , near the old Terry house.

This is where my husbands Grandfather, Charles Whitney lived, when he was a little boy. The house is still there but about to fall in. Not sure who owned it after his grandfather, My husband broke his leg playing on an old tombstone at the Talco Cemetery near there. His grandfather made him a pair of crutches that we still have today.

Charlie Whitney's house 

Talco, Texas

510 Hartfield St.-Jackson, MS. Home of Mr. & Mrs. Smith E. Brand The home looks new. about 1940.

Henry Uriar Hall's Home

William Monroe Harrigill , home where he died on Main Street Natchez, Mississippi. Years later it was the parsonage house for First Baptist Church. The locals nick named it the Keyhole House.

The old Wroten Home Thomas Sylvester wife Alice & Frank Wroten and the Dog

Mayberry and Arabelle Britt Family in Mesa, AZ

Home of  George Pinkney Newman 

located south of the Villiage of McNair in Jefferson County, MS. Photo dated 1897

This was the home that belonged to my Aunt Phyllis Thomas. It was her fathers home and is located on the Natchez Trace in Mississippi. I spent the night there once and I can still remember the tall feathered bed and the wash stands in the room.

Philip H. Marble, bought Woodland Plantation in Churchill, Mississippi in 1936 which was in ruinous condition but her parents undertook a complete restoration of the property, including additions to the house which was furnished in period pieces and the construction of a number of service buildings. Their daughter, Phyllis lived and managed the plantation until 1974 when she sold it to the present owners. Woodland is on the National Register of Historic Places in Mississippi.

Bennie Buckles home
D'Evereux Mashion
Natchez, Mississippi

Lucille Whitney Home 

Talco, Texas

Natchez Residence of Howard and Agnes Smith 1952-1984

This was my Grandfather's home where we visited many times as a child. I sat on that porch so many times, swinging with my grandfather Pap. I have blogged before on how I can still hear those crows, along with the whip wills and Bob Whites as we swung silently in the crisp mornings.  There were times that the front parlor had to hold a family loved one for a funeral because the town didn't have a funeral home. They would bring in air-conditioners for the windows and it would be ice cold in that room and the furniture was all taken out, leaving just the casket.  As a child, it was pretty scary to go in there. 
The house only had one bathroom and in the winter time, it was really cold in there unless someone lit the space heater. There was always a domino game going on outside under the trees and my grandparents Nanny was always frying chicken for dinner. The house has been totally remodeled, but that porch still holds a swing where many of my childhood memory's are. 

John Vallery & Doris Harrigill home

Roxie, Mississippi

The Bunk House

Minden, Louisiana

Home of Roy & Renea Harrigill

Melton, Florida

Home of Margie & Scott Newman
Buckeye, Arizona

Our Home Sweet Home

Minden, Louisiana

Cindy & Glenn Whitehead

Mississippi