Oswego

August 9, 2000

Abandoned houses

There are poems, sometimes written by people riding a train from one ocean to the other across that stricken expanse of abandoned continent, which celebrate the pathos of a house abandoned in the blowing fields, but I have never seen a poem which deals with the day on which a child of that house is sent out for half a bucket of water and comes running back through the dust to report that the well is dry.

Lois Phillips Hudson
Reapers of the Dust: A Prairie Chronicle, 1965

Since I first began my photographic journeys across the lonely backcountry of central South Carolina years ago, I have been fascinated, intrigued, and humbled by the sight of once proud houses — whether sharecropper cabins or stately, columned homes — abandoned in grown-over yards or fields, left to decay into sandy, hard red soil. They always seemed so forlorn, longing for their glory days when children ran and played in front of them and tall pines whispered in the wind on summer afternoons.

I have photographed these structures, nearly covered with Kudzu and other vegetation, porches crumbling in, windows glassless, tin roofs blown off in wind storms. There is always, without fail, a sense of mysterery and wonder. What was this place like once? Who lived there? What happened?

The above quote came from a wonderful book of photographs of abandoned houses in Otter Tail County, Minnesota. Each photograph, and the surrounding landscape, tells a story. There is no need for words.

But sometimes I am driven to write about these places. When I came across a huge house, lost and nearly invisible in vines and creepers near a remote country crossroads in Sumter County, S.C. a few years ago while working as a newspaper editor, I took pictures and wrote a column about the house. Here is part of what I said back in 1991:

This Christmas season I look closely at the picture I took one cloudy December morning reently and try to see not just a weathered ruin, ghostly and deserted, but the house in its finest days whem the now huge oak trees were a bit less imposing, but stately nevertheless, and brush and undergrowth didn’t obscure the magnificent overhung outside porches and railings on both the first and second stories. On a cold Christmas day in 1910, holly and wreaths probably graced the doors, and single candles may have illuminated the windows. Family came from miles around in horse-drawn buggies and carriages for Christmas dinner in a festively doecorate dining room Fires crackled in the fireplaces providing warmth and cheer, and children rushed about showing off new toys, wagons and clothes…

Not many cars go by the house today, and it’s easy to miss from the road, but those massive oak trees and the great house can inspire the historical imagaination. One can be certain the house still stirs memories of long ago for living former residents and their descendancts. A photographic record is good, but a still-livng house endures, and not just in the imagination of curious passerby.

(I haven’t been back to that crossroads since that time, but I think I will one day soon. I want to see what is still left of that once-proud home.)

How I dream of living in a house way out in the country. If I had the means, I think I would buy and restore an abandoned, but salveageable, 19th century farmhouse and sit out on its porch most summer evenings and contemplate many things about life, just as the owners of the house likely did those many decades ago. Maybe one day…

Here is a fascinating Web site that pictures the type of old house I am talking about. Maybe they can’t be restored, but imagination and sheer will can tranform just about anything.

Abandoned houses on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan:

http://community.webshots.com/album/2206064YOPxbHUxbD

We think so many of the same thoughts, Oswego, especially here in New Orleans. Of course, many of the old houses are getting an face lift but there is one house on Esplande that haunts me. Thank you for this entry. Love

I wonder the same things when I see the old houses here. We lived next door to an abandoned house that belonged to relatives and explored it as kids…we found family history in old report cards of uncles!

Oswego, if you get a chance, visit my diary..your entry inspired a poem I wrote called “Glory Gone”. Love

I pray that when I am old and only a shell of what I used to be that someone caring, like you, can look at me, and see the glory that I once was. Beautiful entry! I can tell that you appreciate those things in life

that really matter. You paint pictures with words. What do you teach? Love,

I took a peek at the website… and can just imagine the history of these houses. Perhaps haunted? Yikes.. one can only guess of the activities of each house in the past.

An honorable dream. I hope your imagination will restore the best of them.

i looked at the pictures on the url..but your words paint more of one than any of the pictures did 🙂 i can almost imagine the lives of the people who lived in them..

i love old houses, especially the old southern ones with the big pillars…nice…your words always paint the most beautiful pictures…smiles…

thank you for sharing the website…I am particularly interested in MI pics these were well worth the visit (spirit under repair)

Bramble

August 11, 2000

Thanks for the link, I am eager to take a look. I get those same feelings, imagining the lives and events that once took place within those walls.

There are houses such at that here also. Makes me wonder why they are empty. Why a family member hasn’t taken over. I would like to move further out, more quiet but then just a bit scary.

Oh, Oswego, I do hope you get to realize that dream, a farmhouse you’d salvage … maybe that’s your true north you’re moving toward.

Fascinating and beautiful. I get that same feeling around abandoned houses (but not in the city) There is an Anglo-Saxon poem where the writer sits in a Roman ruin and imagines the former life there (cont)

(cont) –imagining feasting and festivities in a very different time. Similar!

There is an abandoned homestead on I-5 just outside Ellensburg. Each year the dark board buildings lean a little more, soon they will collapse, then, over time, reintegrate with the soil. Dust to dust.

These abonded houses are maybe cheap? Some of them looked rather in bad condition. If this is THE DREAM – of couse it’s possible! If you want it strong enough!

Oswego I love the way you paint your entries with words, but when are you going to show us your photos?! I’m waiting…

This entry brought to mind some specific houses along the way that I have always wondered about. It’s the kind of mystery that I like.

i like your idea about restoring an older home.sometimes older is better than new.

when i see really old abandoned home like i that i think to myself too bad soembody isnt restoring it.the house maybe covered by kudzu & occupied by a family of raccoons & maybe a few bird nests.

Amanda Cayhill

August 16, 2000

I can not pass by a dead old Oak, a dilapidated old school house or a rusty vintage car, without thinking of the great photo it would make. A wonderful backdrop to a portrait photo, in the very least.

The wedbite was fun! Thank you!

Aak! I can’t type today… sorry! “The website was fun… Thank you!” There, much better.

The pictures remind me of the abandoned house right behind my grandparents house in North Dakota. As children we would play in it for hours pretending it was our house and WE were the adults. Such fun.

There is just such a house near me I want to photograph. Mind my words; I’ll mess around and it will be gone before I get there w/camera! It has a magnificient roof with aging red shingles. So steep and squared @

squared @ the top!

Edelweis

April 8, 2002

Yes Oswego,what you see in your dreams when looking at such houses…I can relate to that very well. It’s as if everything inside and around comes back to life again. These dreams are fascinating and at the same time a little sad for all what once was and then dissolved in time. As usual, it makes me aware of finiteness of life, and that certain “things” will be here long after we are gone.

I hope our soul will have the infinite “life”. The part of your colmn is very beautiful!!! I like how you made your dreams visible here. I was looking at this site and am amazed to see such beautiful houses abandonned!! The book you talked about (a few days ago) must be a wonderful present!!! Take care,