Back in those days, Granner had fantasies about secession. As in, forming our own Catholic community and pretty much to hell with everyone else. On a serious note, your Grandfather was a true prophet in that he could clearly see the writing on the wall, see where our Country was heading, almost to the point of predicting future thinking and events that would and have followed.
Back to Free State Farm. Apparently there is an Historic element that connects the house to the small town of Marshall, VA. According to Uncle Ron, waaaaaaay waaaaaaay back, Marshall prided itself in wanting to be a Free State, as in self-governing; at one time there were many such towns throughout the United States. I had assumed that Granner had wanted to mentally adopt Marshall as our secession venue and thus named our home "Free State Farm." But, recalled Ron, when looking into the background of the house/farm, we learned that it had been named Free State Farm. We kept the name. (Speaking of names and Uncle Ron, he named our cat "Politique." :)
Dad and I lived at the farm from the time we were married until the Fall of 1974, when we moved to Warrenton.
This is where I was introduced to real gardening. Notice I write "real." Because what had come before bore little resemblance to what Dad showed me. And to canning and freezing. To making home made bread. (I thought only monks made homemade bread. Real story. I also thought "green wood" was literally green.) And I was an ignoramus when it came to baking: Aunt Janie came to spend some time with us our first summer. She and I decided to bake some doughnuts, the recipe taken from a Nova Scotia cookbook Dad and I had bought while on our honeymoon. The recipe called for sour milk. Hmm. So I drove us to the local (and only) grocery store in town and there we scanned the dairy aisle for sour milk. Not finding any, we found the manager of the store and politely asked, "Where do you keep your sour milk?" He looked at us as though we were martians. "We don't CARRY sour milk!" he exclaimed. I can still see his puffy red face and his hands on his fat sides, shaming us no end. Gulp. Huh? Never did get those doughnuts made. And we had rabbits raised for meat. I did know about chickens for eggs and meat so none of that was a surprise. But geese? We had those as well. 2 of them who roamed freely and found immense pleasure in attacking the tires of Uncle Ron's black car when he drove up the driveway. Always. And ducks. We raised ducks. For their eggs and their meat, of course.
What Dad left behind at Metternich Farm he brought with him to Free State Farm. We had parties and dinners and gatherings and music and many, many serious Triumph related meetings that went well into ~ oftentimes too well into ~ the night. It wasn't the new place to be, just another place to be.
Maureen and Clare were born when we lived at Free State. Uncle Ron moved in with us, well, while I was at the hospital with Clare.
Dad and I were last at the Farm 30 years ago, when I was pregnant with Aloise. We had gone to D.C. with Maureen, Clare and Annie to help celebrate Lita's 60th birthday and took advantage of that trip to go home via VA.
We wanted to visit our first home and show it to Maureen and Clare. As with our search for Metternich last weekend, we were shocked that we hadn't remembered how far from Warrenton we lived. Back then, driving the distance every day, it seemed around the corner. But the drive was a good 20 minutes and even back then, 30 years ago, the changes all around us added to our confusion. But we found it. I don't recall more than that ~ that we found it.
Fast forward to last weekend. We wanted to find our home again. Mike's party wasn't until Saturday so Dad and I took advantage of our Friday late afternoon to do some searching. We had driven past our second home (in Warrenton, my next post) and now it was time to keep driving and find Free State Farm. 30 years out since the last time we were there, and everything was now dramatically changed. We knew we had to take a right off of Broadview (the main drag, pretty much unchanged) but hadn't realize until miles and miles later, that we had taken the wrong right turn. But it was all vaguely familiar. So where was the turn off to the road that lead to Free State? It came to me later that the road we had first taken was the road I always drove from my parent's home in Huntley to Warrenton to D.C. That's why it was familiar. It was broader and busier and newer homes had been built but the familiarity didn't escape me. What surprised me was how sad I felt that I hadn't remembered that THIS was the road.
Back at the hotel Dad and I surmised that we had, of course, taken the wrong right turn. The turn was closer ~ it was, in fact, right off the road we lived on when we moved to Warrenton. With so many new buildings (including a huge High School) it was hard to imagine that this was the quiet little road that lead us home from town.
Saturday morning we found Free State Farm. Again, the distance to the turn off was far longer than we had remembered. But that didn't surprise as much as realizing that the distance between the turn off and the Farm was so much greater than our memories recalled.
Obviously there is much new around our little Farm. Once a country road with a few homes here and there, we saw mansions and new builds and would never have imagined that this was the same road we had travelled so many times all those years ago.
But we finally found it.
Above the stone wall, after you climbed the steps, were 2 huge locust trees. We had gone to Aunt Charlotte's (with Maureen) one afternoon for dinner when a tornado touched down and took out those trees. They were torn to splinters. Either one could have collapsed the roof on the house. Instead, a large branch fell on the porch. I recall the yard being full of branches and the porch being an utter mess. The tornado's path was easy to see: it touched past but didn't land in Dad's garden but took out the garden of our neighbor to the right of us.
Far left was our bedroom. Far right the kitchen wing.
I don't remember the bushes being out front by the stone wall. Or the trees. But, gosh, the drive up must have been beautiful.
What I remember is this view:
I do see a bush on the left. But, again, I have no memory of any bushes, certainly not lined up that way.
This was the play area Dad built for Maureen when Clare was born so that I could safely leave her there to play while I nursed and put Clare to bed. The play yard was situated past the porch steps and continued towards the stone wall. Maureen had a lounge chair a bottle of juice and toys and her lovey diaper and her kittens to keep her company. She never complained when I walked away with Clare and locked the gate. She was 11 months old and already very independent.
Dad and Maureen 4 weeks old, on the front porch.
And on the hammock, set under the trees to the left of the house.
Following summer found Clare,4 mos. on the hammock. Maureen was swinging her.
From the outside, Free State Farm looks pretty much the same as it did back then. Age has taken it's toll, however. It's a bit more ragged than I remember. But close my eyes and block out the neighbors and I'm back home in 1972:
The right wing of the house was where we had our kitchen.
It was a long kitchen. Walking in from the dining room that was off the living room, what you see here was on the left.
Across and down from the stove. And there, above the ironing board was our built-in pantry cupboard that extended to the far wall. One morning as I reached for a box of cereal, a black snake slithered out of the box. Dad later told me he had seen the snake there but didn't want to frighten me by saying anything.
You see me giving Clare ~ 3 weeks old ~ a bottle of water. (And the smokes. I know. I know. No warnings back then either) Hospitals would send mothers home with a case of sterilized water because breast feeding was still in it's infancy come-back stage and no one knew much of anything. Or it seemed to me. We nursed on schedule and added water in between. "Breast milk doesn't quench thirst." Really. That was what we were taught. Or maybe Granny told me that??
At the far end of the room you see a door that leads to the side of the yard. I don't recall ever having used that door to go outdoors.
Instead, we walked out back from the covered porch off the dining room. We had our chest freezer and "stuff" in that porch. A kind of catch-all place. I always mourned that it had become a catch-all because although it wasn't an all-weather porch, it lead directly from the home to the backyard and it would have been so much nicer to walk through a pleasant room than through the mess it had become. Romantic me envisioned an area rug and some shelves to display our canning/freezing materials etc. Maybe some plants....
But honestly? An area rug would have been a frivolity and we rarely contemplated (nor could we afford) material frivolities.
This is the door from the back room that lead to the back yard. Aunt Maureen in her late teens and Maureen.
Dad's motorcycle. Did you even know he had one? One afternoon I drove out with him on back roads to visit my family. I kept veering in the opposite direction rather than leaning into the turn. Poor Dad. "Stop doing that!" No one wore helmets back then and on the way home a rock flew up and knocked me on the head. I never rode on that motorcycle again. But Dad loved his ride :)
Maureen (11 mos) with our first car, Calpurnia. She was named by Lorenzo. Calpurnia was a courtesan and the 3rd and last wife of Julius Caesar. Why did Lorenzo name our car Calpurnia? The name had more to do with the fact that Calpurnia was a "courtesan" than because of Julius Caesar. That much I knew. In those days the question was more like, "Why not?"
A beautiful, brand new blue (have never seen that shade of blue since) Toyota Corona. The model no longer exists, now having been replaced by the Camry. It had a cool fabric covered push button to turn on the radio:) which I thought was so cool! And how come a brand new car? Remember the road I mentioned above, the one I (and everyone else) used to drive from my family home to Warrenton? And the all-paid-for-car Dad had (another Toyota) that so impressed me? Because it was ALL paid.
That car and that road.
Well. While we were still engaged, Dad was driving from my home to Metternich Farm when he fell asleep (around 2a.m. after a long visit with Granner....you connect the dots) and WHAM! that paid-for-Toyota drove right under a snow plow and was done for. Dad escaped serious injury due to the fact that he was asleep and his body reacted like a rag doll, as in no reaction at all. Ask him to recount the rest of that story. It really is funny. What wasn't funny was me driving to work (Warrenton) the following morning and spotting his car on the side of the road, turned in the wrong direction, a mess of metal and glass. No cell phones then, kiddies. And Dad was fast asleep (again) on the floor of Lita's office so, of course, no phone call.
So we shopped for a new car. Used cars back then were a very iffy proposition. No Carmax or Kelly Blue Book etc. back then. If I remember well, our monthly car payment was $64. Dad would chuckle when I called the car "our" car since we were still engaged:)
While driving through Warrenton last weekend, Dad pointed to the garage ~ still there ~ where he had had Calpurnia all spiffed up for us for our Honeymoon :)
This is the front hallway, the entrance to the house. The front door was on the right of where Maureen is standing. As you walked in, the living room was on the right, stairs across from front door, and our bedroom on the left. (2 rooms upstairs. One for storage and the other for Uncle Ron) You've seen this picture so many times. The chest was against the wall on the left and after Clare was born, I had to slide it across the opening to block Maureen off from walking across the hall to our bedroom. Maureen could not help herself from climbing on the changing table and making the job of changing Clare 100x more difficult than it should have been. This was the first time I used the chest as a foil. Look at that face :( To her credit, Maureen learned quickly and I was soon able to let her roam free into the room.
The changing table was across from our bed. This picture was taken the first time I let Maureen roam free into our bedroom. She appears to be pondering the boundaries and possibilities of her new found freedom.
Uncle Ron and Maureen were an item. I don't know when Dad and I began to refer to him as "Uncle" Ron, but from the onset, Maureen called him "Doodoo Ron," a name that stuck for decades.
You can see the dining room past the living room in this picture. Our dining room set was a wedding gift from the men at Metternich. An antique sale of sorts. It was a beautiful set that included 6 chairs and a lowboy cupboard. (We lost the table and chairs during our move to SC in 1976. Just never arrived on any of the moving vans)
To the right is the kitchen, to the left the bathroom and down the hall from there was Maureen's room. Recognize the flowered chair? Yes. Same one currently in the little guest room upstairs. This chair was a Christmas gift from Lita for my bedroom in 1965 when our family moved to VA.
As you walked into the living room, this chair was on the far end of the room.
(Maureen is 8 mos. here. Almost walking) The coffee table was a wedding gift. To the right was the couch, to the left, the entrance to the dining room. (The music albums you see in the foreground are many of them now with the Buri's.
Our lovely couch. (Maureen 4 mos old) And the brown chair in the above picture. The first time Dad and I bought new furniture ~ our king size bed ~ was when we moved to our current home. 9 1/2 years into our marriage and we had never bought even a single piece of furniture. The living room set you see here had belonged to my Aunt Patty when Granner moved her and her children to Warrenton. They needed to fill a complete town house before the moved in. Ann Turner (Granner's English secretary and a dear, dear friend) and I were given the task to furnish the town house. In one fell swoop we entered the local furniture store in town and bought everything. We furnished the living room, bedrooms and kitchen. When Aunt Patty relocated and left everything behind (long story), Dad and I had just become engaged. Dad moved into Free State a few months before we were married and Aunt Patty's furniture (and his) moved in with him. My contribution was the chair, my bed (for the guest room) and nightstand for our room. Dad's nightstand is now next to my flowered chair in the little guest room upstairs.
Walking into the living room, the bookshelf Dad made was directly to the left, across from the brown chair. The old sewing table below the Christmas tree was a gift from someone, can't recall who. But I always loved that old sewing table and have no idea what became of it :(
It was late spring or early summer, of the last year we spent in Marshall, that Dad went on a business related road trip with Granner and Uncle Michael came for the weekend to keep me company. I don't remember if it was his idea or mine, but before I knew it, we packed up the girls and found ourselves at the local hardware store...buying paint.
One of our gatherings, I think to celebrate Clare's Baptism. Mike and Mary Jo Lawrence's children are here with Aunt Maureen and Aunt Aloise. Clare in the swing bassinet and Maureen next to Peter Lawrence. Aunt Janie, Uncle Gene and Aunt Charlotte and kids were also there, (Melanie, Andy and Matthew with Maureen)
And I leave you here, with this hillarious look at Aunt Patricia and Aunt Aloise chasing Maureen up the driveway of Free State Farm.
And here, with the last pictures I took, late August, 1974, almost 43 years ago to the day I am writing this:
One note: I've used the name Free State Farm here more times than I have ever spoken or thought about that name. For me this place was "Marshall." As in, "When we lived in Marshall." It was being back with old friends and colleagues last weekend that brought to life so many, many memories. This was Free State Farm, whether I referred to it by name or not. I wish I had more pictures to show you of the interior of the home. (I do have plenty of that time, but they're all pretty much the same). Back then it never occurred to me that I might want to travel back one day....for our sake and yours.
1 comment:
I love everything about this post. And Dad, Brent looks so much like you, even in profile.
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