Rearranging Things

Armed with some historical information and a bucket of romantic ideas, I thought I had the fabric of this old place all figured out. The documentation said Abraham Housworth built our house in 1843. And, apparently, that's true enough. But using my imaginary moving wagon to arrange their furniture for them, well, that's jumping the gun. We'll never know if he and his family even lived here.

And, sure, his brother Michael bought it from him in 1852. But Michael and his family lived up the road. Did a hired hand live here? A few of his father's slaves? Again, a mystery. So deciding for him which room the kids slept in? A little presumptuous on my part.

I suppose that in-filling these historical facts with my own stuffing hasn't hurt a thing. It hardly matters now to anyone but us and a handful of Housworth families members who might like to keep things straight. Sometimes the cold, hard truths can be even better than my sandcastles, though. Or at least more interesting.

We've been so lucky to have the best encyclopedias about our house that anyone could hope to have. The Housworths have been so kind and generous with ancestry information, family photos, and, unbelievably, recordings of family members recollecting their own lives in the house and in the area. Really fascinating stuff. It's like opening a trunk in the attic and finding a glowing stash of golden coins.

Listening to these people, with their own voices, telling us how it really was [or at least how they remembered it to be] has shaken the little snowglobe I had filled so carefully.

This was a happy home, excepting all of that death and destruction during the War. Overlooking the losses of babies and spouses. Forgetting about hard economic times and failed crops. I mean fundamentally this was a happy family. A family that held itself together through love and necessity through all of those messy things I just glossed over. And I suppose that's what a neatly summed-up history is -  a neat, shiny coat of gloss that hides the real depth beneath it.

The fact that the house was never painted had less to do with my own story, that they had steadfastly refused to change the character of the place, and more to do, probably, with the fact that this was a hard-scrabble life and there was no money to fancy the place up. Things stayed the same because they had to. Seven children and no running water? That's not a choice anyone makes. That's a choice that's been thrust upon you.

It's not to say that they didn't grow up around inconveniences and hard times, like a tree grows up around a stone. They did. And probably enjoyed it a great deal of the time. It's that you really can't make things up because that's how you wanted things to be.

So armed now with a lot more information, I'll try to find some room for a few more of these awesome family pictures. And, while I'm at it, I'll rearrange a few of my preconceived notions.