CrossRoads Farm

A Little History

09 December, 2004 - 3:26 pm

Jonas Pye walked up to me at school yesterday and asked if I was “the gal that lives in the yellow house there on the CrossRoad.” When I told him I was he unleashed a flood of information about the house.

”I grew up there,’ he said. “Place burned down Christmas night 1956. I was three years old – it’s the first thing I ever remember.”

He told me that there is well beneath the floor of the family room. Just a few feet from where I am sitting. And that at one point there was a full concrete basement beneath this room where he and his father used to work on cars.

Later in the afternoon I was clearing slushy patches from the driveway and searching in vain for the drain pipe that empties the puddle ant the foot of the drive. Jonas drove up and parked in the road he got out and walked up the driveway with me, pointing things out as he went. It was a fascinating conversation. This farm used to encompass almost 200 acres. And for a while it was a chicken farm. Jonas showed me where the state dug out a quarry to build the highway and recalled that the blasting would knock his mother’s dishes right off the shelves. There used to be a carriage house attached to the back end of the house and it extended quite a ways into the yard.
And he mentioned the silo. We’d found the foundation to it a while back. Jonas’ father built that silo. And the east hill used to be the garden.

It was an amazing conversation. I had known that there had been a fire in the house but I hadn’t known when. I’m tickled to have a little of the history of the house. I don’t know why exactly. It is unlikely it will ever be my house. Though I do feel quite attached to it. Maybe it just makes me feel more attached to Ramsey.

<<<--- --->>> Questions, comments, suggestions???