Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Archaeology on My House

We've finally begun working on my flooded and racked house, and we've been learning quite a bit about it. Actually we now have more questions than answers. It's not as old as I once thought. I saw a map from 1908 and our house wasn't on it. But by the time another map showed up in the late 1920's all the houses on my side of the street were there. So we're trying to get a more precise date on its construction. We've solved some of the mysteries we've uncovered. For example we know the panelling and drop ceiling in the house arrived in the 1970's. We know this because when we took the panelling down in Kalypso's room, we found a large "73" that baffled us. Then we took out the wall heater, and found that the "73" followed "6-30." So this was painted on June 30, 1973, and the panelling likely went up soon thereafter. I would have been 7-years-old.
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Thanks to the person who painted the date. They probably were wearing bell bottoms. The wallpapers in all the rooms are very cool, and probably original to the house. They should hold a key to dating the construction. Kalypso's room has these ballerinas, and she wrote this story about how they got there:
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There is this Japanese wallpaper in my room:
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The living room had this pattern:
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It's made by J. C. Eisenhart W. P. Co., U.W.P.C.O. Union Made. The ballerinas were made by the union U. W. RC of N.A.
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These waves were in Gilgamesh's room:
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We found this mummified bird, or perhaps a baby pterodactyl, in Gilgamesh's chimney:
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Behind the mantel downstairs we found this picture of a soldier.
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On the back the writing seems to say "Richard Lance Creppel 1200." Were they trying to spell "corporal"?
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But in gutting the house it started to lean even more, and we were afraid it might fall over. Abry Brothers had to come and put these support beams so the house wouldn't collapse. We're hoping that Abry Brothers will rebuild the foundation soon and put in the steel support beams designed by Roy Carubba Engineering. They said to not do any more demolition, so now we wait some more. We're getting good at waiting, but it is expensive.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fascinating stuff. I wish I'd painted the date somewhere in our house before we closed up the walls.

Anonymous said...

Michael,
I ran across your blog reading about the Nagin speech and then looked ar your "Archeology" piece. I am tripping....I found that same Japanese wallpaper in two rooms of my house. It was hidden behind the paneling and glued to the original plaster wall.
How about that?
Lynn--fellow MCNO member