Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Great Grandparents

I was recently given some pictures of my great grandparents, Hattie and Alva Chiles! I never got to meet my mom's grandmother.  She passed away when my mom was a teenager.  Looking at her kindly face, and knowing how much she was loved by my mom and grandma,  I know I would have loved her too. My great grandfather was very old when I was born.  He was a little scary, so I didn't get to know him too well.  
My maternal great grandparents and some of their grandchildren.
My great grandma and grandmother.  
My great grandma is wearing the dark dress.  Great grandpa is behind her.  I am not sure who the others are, maybe their mothers and their son.  
My grandmother is on the left.  Great grandmother on the right.  Grandma's brother is behind her, next to my great grandfather.  

Monday, December 8, 2014

The House with Nobody in It

The House with Nobody in It 
by Joyce Kilmer



Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.
I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.
This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.
If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.
Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
But there's nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.
But a house that has done what a house should do,
  a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.
So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.

*I posted this after coming across it today in our school readings.  This is exactly how I feel when I see an old abandoned house.  


Friday, December 5, 2014

Thursday, December 4, 2014