Monday, July 26, 2010

My Indiana Home

As many of you know, I have just returned from my trip to Indiana.  Each year I like to take the kids up to visit their grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends, and friends who are just as good as family!
This is a picture of the house I grew up in.  The picture hangs in my parents' dining room now - but it was taken in the late 1800's.  We believe that these are most likely the people who built the house.  It was built around 1890.


Here is a current picture - nothing too drastic has changed.  The front porch was expanded around 1940. Then my parents enclosed it in the late 60's.  They also added an additional room towards the back in the 1990's.  They have been in this house for over 43 years.  The land around the house used to be an orchard, and you can find a few fruit trees still scattered near by.  My favorites are the Montmorency Cheeries - they used to provided buckets and buckets of cherries, which I picked, pitted, and ate like crazy as a kid.  Now, the trees have seen better days, and the few cherries they produce are eaten up by the birds.  
It's a great old house - I've wished lots of times that the walls could talk.  I would have loved to have seen the interior as it was in the 1800's.  Now that I live in my much, much newer suburban home in a large sprawling metroplitan area in central Texas with every convenience close at hand - it takes a little getting used to, going home each summer.  The air conditioner, when needed (which isn't very often in Northern Indiana), doesn't begin to cool the upstairs.  The best produce is right outside the back door in my parent's garden- not down the freeway at Central Market.  If the kids want to run barefoot in the grass, they don't have to watch out for fire ants, snakes or scorpions!  Want to smell the country?  Just walk out to the barn and give "Bubba" the horse an apple to crunch and scratch his ears.  But it's best to wear your boots around the horse apples on the ground though.   

These are just a few more pictures I took around the house.  I'm sure I'll share more later - feels great to be back in Texas.....but there are some things I miss about my home in Indiana.

"Bubba"
"Yep - beans fresh from the garden - and they are delicious!"

5 comments:

Empty Nest Full Life said...

Beautiful! Jackie

a.tonagel said...

:)
I love that house too.

RetroLeeTX said...

a. - I know you do :)

Steve Sosinski said...

Thanks for sharing this story and pictures. Your house is a part of my childhood memory that I'll never forget. Since my old house has been transformed and not the same anymore, it's great to see these pictures that instantly take me back to another place and time. I'll NEVER forget all the funs times of playing in the barn, swimming, 4H "share the fun" rehearsals (ugh!), playing restaurant on the front porch...heck my high school senior picture was taken in your barn! I could go on and on. Seems like it was such a simpler time and place back then.

RetroLeeTX said...

Steve - glad you liked it! Happy to say that not a lot has changed. My kids played in the barn, swam like crazy, played on the front porch, picked raspberries, and helped in the garden.

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