The history of the house is being revealed!
So, Thursday we come home to a post-it on the door from a lady that lived in the house from the time she was born back in '57! She wanted us to call her and talk about visiting the place and wants to take an active role in helping us restore the house! Needless to say, we were in the house 5 minutes before we were calling her. We talked for a few minutes and decided that she needed to come over RIGHT NOW!
She came over about 2 hours later (enough time for us to straighten out the pigsty :P ) and we proceeded on a grand tour of the place through her eyes. A lot of the things we thought should be there in the house and the things that shouldn't be there were confirmed when she looked around. It's neat that a lot of the changes we felt were right were actually the way the house used to be! We had an awesome 2 hour visit or so and then exchanged email addresses so that we could trade pictures of the place. She's going to get her dad (now 85!) to come over and show us all that he did to the place and show us the rest of the "wow! that's wrong" type things. He's apparently saved every single receipt for everything he ever did on this house! Holy crap! Ok, that's something I'm doing, but hell, it's only been 3 months and for them it was over 40 years!
She came over about 2 hours later (enough time for us to straighten out the pigsty :P ) and we proceeded on a grand tour of the place through her eyes. A lot of the things we thought should be there in the house and the things that shouldn't be there were confirmed when she looked around. It's neat that a lot of the changes we felt were right were actually the way the house used to be! We had an awesome 2 hour visit or so and then exchanged email addresses so that we could trade pictures of the place. She's going to get her dad (now 85!) to come over and show us all that he did to the place and show us the rest of the "wow! that's wrong" type things. He's apparently saved every single receipt for everything he ever did on this house! Holy crap! Ok, that's something I'm doing, but hell, it's only been 3 months and for them it was over 40 years!
A little history that she remembered and that she's going to confirm for us:
- We bought the house from Anita Equival.
- She bought the house from the Betty & Harold McFarlan (Brandy's mom and step dad)
- Elmer Webb owned the house when he married Betty, she moved in and lived there until he died and then later married Harold McFarlan.
- Elmer Webb lived there with his sister when she married into the Morley family who owned the house. When she left, he took ownership of it.
It looks like we are almost back to when the Jack's owned the house at this point. Hopefully, we'll see. It looks like after the Jack's had it, it was essentially passed down around the extended family until they sold it in 1995. So, here's the updated timeline as far as I can tell:
- November 26th, 1890 A.S. MacDonald and E.C. Standard bought the property in the exact lots as it is now.
- May 14th, 1892 E.C. Standard sold his half to A.S. MacDonald
- 1893 A $300 improvement was put on the property (aka a house).
- 1894 The first time there is tax on the house.
- September 25th, 1897 F.M. Jack bought the house at a sheriff’s sale
- August 3rd, 1900 There is another record of sale, but no indication as to whom it was sold to. It is surmised that the sale was to another of the Jack family as Martha Jack lived in the house until the year of her death, 1922.
- 1922 - Morley's, I almost positive they bought it then.
- 19?? - Elmer Webb lives in the house with his sister and her husband (Morley)
- 19?? - Elmer Webb & Betty marry and live in the house until his death.
- 19?? - Betty marries Harold McFarlan and they raise their family here.
- 1996 Anita Esquival bought the house
- 2006 We bought the house
She couldn't bring over her pics or HOME MOVIES! of the house yet because she needed to get them out of storage, but she did send us over a bunch of pics she had on her computer. Now, here for your enjoyment, a trip through the past...
I am totally envious right now! The house and the yard was so neat and clean and simple. It will be that way again dammit! Something interesting to note in the pictures from 1965...there was a huge garage and shed that stretched almost the length of the back yard. Apparently, it was in really bad repair and they just couldn't save it without completely rebuilding it. Oh, and notice that there's a FREAKING BACK DOOR! GAH! Ok, looking at that made me want to rip that thing down even more.
Soon, I'll be putting up a swell drawing of what the plans are for the yard and how we're going to make it not suck again.
Soon, I'll be putting up a swell drawing of what the plans are for the yard and how we're going to make it not suck again.
posted by Unknown @ Sunday, September 17, 2006
