–Great, Great Grandfather & Grandmother on Cassie’s Porch 1876, copy shot June 5th, 2007, Augusta, Georgia, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
–Cassie’s House 1876, copy shot June 5, 2007, Augusta, Georgia, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
We spent the day driving around Augusta, looking for landmarks, visiting cemeteries and churches. The synchronicities continue to happen, right down to the prime parking spaces on Broad Street. When we arrived at the 150-year-old St. James church where my mother had gone as a child, there just happened to be a woman there who had attended Sunday School with my Aunt Evelyn. She knew the whole history of St. James church and gave us a long tour.
Then we travelled out to a cemetery where my great grandmother Elizabeth is buried. Three of us scoured nearly every row on foot in the heat and humidity and could not find the gravestone. We were sweaty and tired and about to give up. But not until after one more pass. The last time was the winner. My step-dad stopped the truck on a hunch, stepped out and walked over to the exact spot where my great grandmother is buried, then pointed down, and smiled. It was one of those Kodak moments.
I wonder if it was the blue moon last week or the stars aligning in Taurus? Wait, are we still in Taurus? Maybe the tide has turned.
But what I want to say is that in the photos above my great, great grandfather Moses is in the foreground and my great, great grandmother Martha stands behind him on the porch of their 1876 home. My great Aunt Cassie was probably one of the children in the photograph. We used to visit her when I was a child. I have memories of her there, greeting us at the door.
The photos below were taken of the house yesterday. I stepped along the same brick sidewalk my ancestors walked a century ago on hot and dusty summer days. Details like this urge me on down into the deeper family history.
I scoured the photos to see what had changed, what had stayed the same. I remember the gray picket fence was there when I was a child in the 60’s. It’s not there now. I imagine the post in front of the tree might have been for hitching a horse. It was gone but we did see quite few cement hitching posts as we drove around downtown Augusta. That’s got to be a different tree growing in front of the house. But I find the overall structure to be generally unchanged.
How all this will play out in the memoir, I don’t yet know. I’m in the thick of it now. Full scale gathering. I need time to sit with all the pieces. What about place makes it home? The history here in the South is rich and controversial. But it’s simplistic and naive to think history is anything but gray. You can’t lump everyone into broad, polarized categories. History is about individual people’s lives.
There was cactus growing on some of the cemetery plots, rooted deep in the sandy, dry soil. The thunderstorms of the last few days were greatly needed. Later, all of this will flow through me like rain and sink down on to the page. Living twice. Through writing I can experience everything twice. Each time I come here, I leave with more details. And a few more pieces of how place becomes home.
–Cassie’s House 2007, June 6, 2007, Augusta, Georgia, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
-Cassie’s Porch 2007, June 6, 2007, Augusta, Georgia, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Thursday, June 7th, 2007
In the very first photo of Cassie’s porch, the house looks huge and high. In the photo you took yesterday, the very last one on the post, the porch looks so much smaller. Then I counted the steps to the house. In the old one, there were seven steps up. The new one: five. I wonder if the road level rose over the 130 years with silt and mud and cement and sidewalks. Which then got me thinking about your own process of settling silt and water and mud. Also got me thinking about how things seem so huge in the past and so small in the present, and how I always understood that had something to do with our own size relative to the thing we’re looking at.
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That’s a really good observation. I noticed it, too, and was looking to see if both sets of steps were brick. I wonder if the road did rise or something happened when they paved the streets.
I couldn’t take the photo yesterday from the same angle because the trees blocked the house. I noticed the tree in the old photo did not have any leaves. And I want to ask my uncle why that is so since there really is no winter down here.
My mother just looked at the post and told me the little girl to the right of my great, great grandfather is my great Aunt Cassie. She was the youngest of, I think, six kids.
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Pictures do say a thousand words. Of course ybonesy would count the steps, but I can’t blame her. In the old photos, the house looks so dark and portentous that at first I thought the woman was Mary Surratt, in who’s boarding home John Wilkes Booth planned the Lincoln assassinations. Now I’m curious what the house today would look like if you captured a black-and-white image.
I like what you say about experiencing things twice when you write. Experiencing it once by reading words like yours is wonderful, too.
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Yes, there is a huge difference between the color and black and white photographs. It’s hard to compare the mood, isn’t it? I didn’t even think of changing to the black and white setting on the camera yesterday. I was so busy trying to record and photograph and take everything in.
It would be great to come back someday and take long slow photographs of each landmark. The documentation of so many local places in so little time leaves barely room to breathe in between!
I remember Cassie’s house was dark though. Even when we visited when I was a kid. It seemed huge at the time. And looming. But she was warm and welcoming and some of her stories stick with me and especially my mother.
I haven’t actually been inside the house in years and years. I don’t know what it feels like today.
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QuoinMonkey: I relished these details today,
“Three of us scoured nearly every row on foot in the heat and humidity and could not find the gravestone. We were sweaty…”
especially, because today, on June 7, it SNOWED here in southern Wyoming and I am feeling ready to come join you on your journey. Surely I could carry your camera and recorder, or do something useful.
I like the way that you describe how you don’t know how it will all turn out or how the pieces will fit into a memoir, but know that you must keep gathering. You’ve made me curious, too. Not just to continue reading about your current journey, but also to see what you do with it in the future.
Thanks for sharing a warm memory today!
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breathepeace, it snowed in Wyoming? I can’t believe that. Liz was in Cody the weekend before I left home and I think it was a little cool that week, too. I, personally, love winter and the cold. But I tell you, walking around in this heat and humidity brings back a lot of memories of growing up and playing outside in dog day summers. The environment really brings out all the details.
I’d love to have you run the recorder or maybe you could shoot your own photographs. 8) The sun is setting out the window right now in a huge ball of gold. And the train is moaning in the distance. Come on out here and bask in the sun. I’ll be around these parts until Saturday.
Yes, I keep going somehow. I was telling Mom today that I’m getting pretty tired. But I could not have asked for a more perfect trip. Some days were a challenge, but everything seemed to fall into place.
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The first thing that struck me about the pictures was similar to those of Sharonimo in that the older pictures made the house look so much bigger than the newer pictures. Then I noticed that the refraction of the lens on the older camera also made the house photograph in a keystone shape.
I think the older pictures fit my memories of that house more than your pictures. I remember the dark halls, throwing the balls up the stairs so we could catch them as they bounced down (they were the old rubber balls that were soft when you squeezed them) and being afraid to get them when they stayed on the second floor (that is where Uncle Claude died).
The older pictures are more from a more intimate time when you did things for yourself, where the dead were taken care of by the family, not relegated to business who took care of the dead for you. Finally where recycling had didn’t mean you put a few bottles and cans into a bin for other’s to recycle for you. – Wow, where did this sentence come from? –
I do like your observations about looking for what stayed the same only to become aware of how much things have changed.
R3
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I remember those rubber balls vividly. I remember the smell of those old rubber balls. Do you? And, yes, bouncing them down the stairs. Back then, old rubber was real rubber – from rubber trees.
Your observation of the keystone shape from the refraction of the lens, I had not even noticed that. Good observation. I had to go back up and look at the photograph. I love photography.
Mom and I were going through even more old photographs tonight and letters from around the time this house was built. The handwriting is so elegant.
I had not remembered that Uncle Claude died upstairs either, until you gave me your memory. The beauty of collaboration. No two memories are alike. Yet they can be shared.
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Aunt Cassie’s” home” was a little forboding at times even as a grown up! There was always an aire of mystery about it. Especially when you knew all of the history about it.
G-Granddaddy built it for his bride with double brick walls and high ceilings. This helped to keep it cool in the heat of Ga. There are huge doors that hide in the wall between the main sitting room and the library. In the library there is the alcove area where window boxes are full of beatiful flowers that Aunt Cassie dutifully carried water to and put so many dippers full of water on each kind. There was a fire place in each room and it was always set up to lite for the morning. The library was used like our family rooms today. Over the door there was G-Granddaddy’s civil was musket and on the wall his picture of his regiment, which we are trying to get a copy of from the museum. My Aunt Cassie gave a lot of things to the museum before she passed away. There was a piano there and I remember stories of Aunt Cassie telling me of her sister, my Grandmother, cracking a stick against her knuckles when she was practicing and made a mistake. Her sister was a few years older and responsible for seeing that she practiced .
The dining room was where Aunt Cassie and Uncle Claude spent there down time. There were two rocking chairs there and Aunt Cassie would sit in one reading or tatting(making lace) and Uncle Claude would nod after a meal or read.
In the kitchen were two stoves. A” new” gas range and an old wood stove. Aunt Cassie still used the wood stove until they got gas heaters in the dining room to help heat the kitchen in the mornings on cold winter days. IN her childhood there was a summer kitchen out back away from the house so as not to heat up the house and to prevent fires from getting to the main house if there were one.
Aunt Cassie did a lot of sewing , her treadle machine was in the long hallway in front of a window, out side of the dining room door. Oh yes, there was a screen door on that door also to keep the flies out of the dining area. Why because the hall went clear through the house so both doors could be opened and this was to help cool the house also.
Well enough for now. I’ll get back another time with more history as I remember.
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WOW, God does hide in the details. Thanks, Amelia.
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Like Sharonimo, I’m amazed at the details in Amelia’s comment. It’s so different when people write memory details as opposed to when they speak them. The art of storytelling is the way many cultures carry down their history. On this trip, I am getting the benefit of both. I look forward to reading more.
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My memories of Aunt Cassie’s house start at the door with the ringer that reminded me of the bell I loved to ring on my bike. This one had a bow tie kind of ringer that we would all rush to the door to ring. I remember mother saying, “It’s your brother’s turn this time. We don’t want to ring it too much.” Then the waiting for the door to be answered quickly followed by the request (which was always granted) to ring the bell again, just by myself.
As the door opened you felt the coolness of the house and smelled the dusky odor of a house full of old memories. That smell that you only find in old houses, untouched by modern paint, carpets and lights. The entry way was dark as our eyes adjusted to the room, the tall dark coat rack with the bench attached would appear out of the darkness. Beside it were the vases where the rubber balls were kept, but they would have to wait until greetings were complete and everyone was settled. We would move to the library first where the perennial “silver dollar plant” stems waited in the vase on the piano. The springs in the chairs and couch were hard but bouncy. The books looked out at you through their glass doors begging to be read but I knew my dirty sweaty hands were not made to hold books like that. The walls were filled with civil war pictures and safe from my yearning hands, then muzzle loader hung above the door.
I would try to peek into the adjoining formal parlor and wonder what happened in that room. Later I would come to learn that that was where “guests were met” and where a body would lie in state the appropriate time before being placed into the family plot.
Soon we were ushered into the more comfortable and inviting dining room where we would immediately go to the corner closet to bring out the hand made wooden blocks that were worn smooth by generations of young hands. We would build towers that Frank Lloyd Wright would envy. The prize for me was the Nursery rhyme book that I would love to read. Taking in the pictures that today would not be Politically Correct but which told a story of the social norms of a past era. Aunt Cassie would disappear into the kitchen only to return with peach ice cream that she had made just for us. If you were lucky enough to be in the kitchen when she served she would tell you how she made it as she scrapped servings from the top with a spoon. I can still envision her taking the aluminum pan out of the freezer each hour to scrape the mixture with a fork, mixing the frozen peaches and cream into a fluffy confection for us.
As she and mom settled into “grown up talk” we would go out and pick figs from the tree or explore the carriage house or play with the ball on the steps. How I wish I had the forethought to stay with mom and aunt cassie while they talked. The history I missed and stories I could tell are only relics from the past.
R3
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What great details. Thanks for sharing. I remember that ice cream well. It was delicious. I never had ice cream like that ever again. Hers had a taste unique only to her. The fig tree, we picked them fresh from the tree and ate them. I remember the nursery rhyme book, too. And ringing the doorbell. Mom was looking for the bell and door knocker in the photograph.
Hearing the different perspectives to memory is eye-opening and rewarding. I am holding it all for now. Letting it sit. We shall see where I land.
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I so enjoyed seeing these, past and present. I kept scrolling up and down, comparing. I wonder, does family still own the house? I’m guessing you would have mentioned the interior if you had gone in. I’m continuing to enjoy reading about your travels there, happy to hear you’re not pressuring yourself to do anything but observe and gather.
I laughed out loud at Sharonimo’s comment about Mary Surratt’s look-alike on the porch. Now that we all know Sharonimo’s interest in the murder at Ford’s Theater, well…all roads lead to Lincoln’s assassination. 🙂
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Ravine has missed you Sinclair. Me too.
After I hit the “submit comment” button following my comment referring to Mary Surratt, I wondered if anyone would think I was some sort of Lincoln assassination nut. Guess I was wondering myself.
Remember those American history projects in 8th grade where we had to make an object associated with the history of the United States? Mike Rose in my class made a replica of that spike that connected the first transcontinental railroad. Wendy Laughner made Betsy Ross’s flag. I constructed a miniature replica of the stage of Ford’s Theater the night Lincoln was shot, complete with a dangling John Wilkes Booth mid-way between jumping from the the Presidential box to the stage. Attached to his right clay hand was the knife (used to stab Major Henry Rathbone who attended the play with Lincoln, replacing Greneral Grant and his wife who decided not to go at the last minute). Running up underneath Booth’s suit jacket, up behind his neck was a small wire holding a small piece of paper over his head (like a cartoon bubble). It said, “Sic semper tyrannis!” I got an A+.
Sic semper assassination buffs.
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Sinclair, family no longer owns the house. I haven’t been inside in years. My uncle said it wouldn’t be the same anyway. And it’s good I have my memories. I sure do.
Heading out in a few hours on the long journey back to Pennsylvania, another home. I sure gathered a lot of material. Now…..what to do with it all. Process – you have to love it.
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Wow, I can’t believe it is already time for you to begin the return home from the South, QM. I know there is just a ton of information right now, I know there are no simple answers. And yet, if you had to answer yes or no, what would you say? Was it as you imagined? Were there surprises? Did anything strike you as juicy to write about? Do you know yourself better?
And to Sharonimo, I really like how crazy you are about Lincoln and his life/death. I’d buy a ticket to be witness to a “Lincoln Trivia Face-Off” between you and someone with the same passion. The first season I worked at the Minnesota State Fair, I dutifully read the employee handbook which included the history mid-1800s ’til now. My chiropractor is absolutely mad for the Fair, and while she gives me adjustments I try to stump her with tidbits of trivia. We both think this is the funnest pastime around.
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And yet, if you had to answer yes or no, what would you say? Was it as you imagined? Were there surprises? Did anything strike you as juicy to write about? Do you know yourself better?
Sinclair, all good questions. Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes. Those are the simple answers. It was better than I imagined, full of juicy surprises, with tons of unexpected details, all of which lead to knowing myself as a more whole person.
I can’t wait to begin writing my stories. There is so, so much. It’s hard to hold it all. Yet I must. Until there is time and space to write.
What did you learn in South Dakota?
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I learned it is a good idea for me to rent a car on long road trips. It took a huge load off to not worry about my odometer spinning higher and higher.
I learned road trips are not just fun for me, they are essential and non-negotiatible.
I learned that driving and sitting at historic sites and being alone by rivers and slow-walking in strange and new places is part of my spiritual life, and I can’t afford to ignore that any longer.
I learned I do not regret getting rid of jobs and property that no longer feed me.
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Your clarity sings with a strong voice. I can imagine you slow walking in strange and new places taking in the landscape in South Dakota. Did you hear the voices on the land? I often hear them when I drive through and stop at remote places.
Road trips are essential for me, too. They have always been a big part of my life. I find they jog me out of everyday reality and wake me up. It’s a good feeling.
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I’m back!!! Reading all the comments really brought up more memories. Like R3 and the blocks. When I was a little girl ,I too would go to the closet and pull out the blocks and play under the dining room table , so no one would mess up my buildings. Only I would block rooms in a house , make furniture and put my paper dolls, that I had made and drew clothes for, in there perspective rooms . It was a great pretend time. It’s a shame children don’t make full use of their imaginations now. I loved to design clothes. I can show R3 how to make that ice cream, a lot of love goes into it. You forgot to mention the sugar cookies Aunt Cassie always made for us.
Upstairs there were these huge trunks and Aunt Cassie said when Sherman marched his men down 5th St., right by their house an the way to Atlanta, The young women would be hid in them to prevent being raped. War was a terrible thing that made a lot of people evil.
In the front of the house was a small room used as a play room by the girls. I still have a doll rocking chair that they played with. All the upstairs rooms had screen doors also. In those days they slept on feather mattresses and I helped make the bed when I stayed overnight. We had to fluff the mattress like you do a feather pillow now. And sometimes hang the blankets out the window to air. Boy am I glad I didn’t live way back when !! Oh, and yes I was scared when I stayed overnight, It took forever for me to get to sleep. I heard every noise there was and some that weren’t. I meant to say back when everything had to be an effort. We take so much for grante , the refridgerator, cars, easy food preparation washing machines. Just think about it.
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Amelia, I’m glad you are back! Your comments add so much to red Ravine. I never knew you loved to design clothes. And that you spent time doing that as a girl. I didn’t know you had the ice cream recipe either. Next time, I hope to get together with you and R3 and make a batch. 8)
I remember the sugar cookies. A lot of love went into those, too. And I remember the stories about Sherman and the trunks during the war. From all the stories I hear about war these days, it seems that not much has changed. Was Cassie one of the ones that hid in the trunks?
I remember the screen doors on the upstairs bedrooms with little ceramic knobs for handles. Or were they ivory?
I didn’t know you had to fluff the feather beds. I bet they were kind of hard compared to today’s beds. We do take a lot for granted. It’s easy to forget the days when everything had to be done by hand. I wouldn’t want to go back to that either. But, like you, I sure can see the benefit of using our imaginations more and s-l-o-w-i-n-g down.
Thanks for the luscious details. I hope you visit again if you remember more.
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To Mose and Martha, I’ve been thinking about you again this trip, as I walk the land and grounds that you walked.
Happy Birthday, Aunt Cassie! Mom reminded me this morning. We are tracing your ancestry, back and back and back, honoring those who came before us. In a place where time doesn’t matter.
___________
Cassie’s peach ice cream
rocking chairs on the gray porch
frozen memories
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[…] Most of the postcards were to or from my Great, Great Aunt Cassie. My Great, Great Uncle Claude had worked for the Georgia Railroad and they traveled a lot on their vacations. But there was one in particular that caught my eye – a postcard that Mom’s older brother, Jack, had sent her in high school. The postmark was July 24th, 1952. A postcard stamp was only 1 cent back then. One cent. […]
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I’m back in Augusta, Georgia and we’ve been talking about Aunt Cassie a lot this trip. I wonder if her ears are burning? 8)
Last night, my Uncle Bill made his famous homemade chili he’s been making since he was 12 years old. At the dinner table, he told stories about his memories of Uncle Claude and Aunt Cassie. Some were things I hadn’t heard before. And, of course, from a different perspective than my mother’s. That is the joy of collecting family stories. Hope to write more later.
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BTW, I’m writing from my uncle’s den. He’s got lots of memorabilia, including a photograph of Mose. And the chair my Aunt Cassie used to sit in when she talked to us on the phone. It was out in the hall in her house in this photograph, next to her sewing machine.
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