Post 8: I'm Back! Now With Some House History
Greetings Friends!
It's been quiet here on the blog, and at the house. There's a good reason for that: I had a scheduled foot surgery, and I was out of commission for 11 weeks or so. But I'm back, and work is going to continue this weekend.
I therefore don't have any new progress pictures to show, but I do have some really fun history to share about the house. My friend Wendy (who is amazing) reached out to me last year asking if I wanted the "provenance" of the house. I was an English major and I had never heard this term. Wendy explained that it was is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object.
I emphatically answered yes! I wasn't sure what she would sent back to me, since I'd googled the house plenty of times and got very little information. But what she cam back with blew me away.
Some basic facts are:
- The house was built in 1924 by Charles A. and Emily Larcomb (of Grandview). He was president of the Larcomb Construction Company.
- 1924 Dorothy Jane Drake was the first one to live there. She later got married and sold the house to her parents.
- 1936 Blain and Ernestine Drake were the next owners (as mentioned, they were Dorothy's parents.) Her father was a brakeman for Norfolk and Western.
- 1941 Margaret G. Hillman was the next owner; she served as Senior Regent of the Women of the Moose, Columbus Chapter 206. She also served as “Mayor for the Day"!
- 1957 Lewis Raymond and Katherine L. Clapper
- 1958 Ernest A. and Edna L. Oliver
- 1974 Raymond F. Corbett
- 1986 Bill Kitchen
But even better than this information are the pictures she sent of the various owners, and clippings from local papers that mention the house. Here they are:
It is no secret that I love working on the house. But I also love being there. And knowing more about the generations of people who used to live there makes me feel a connection to the house. I am sure the house was loved and I feel a deep obligation to honor that.
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