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For those who have not been following along with us as we made the
"big trek" from the big city to the country - - - - -
In 1999, after living 35 years in Houston,
Tx, we decided to make a major change. The motivation
was a quarter of a section of farmland in Kansas* .
The Move: P and his
brother T moved one huge truckload in early
1999 and stored its contents in what was to become "the shop" at the farm. May, 1999 P,C and good friend J made "the great trek north". Good friend J was
very helpful in maintaining P&C's equanimity - neither P nor C being
unopinionated about the right way to do this whole thing.
The Original Plan: Renovate
the old house that was on the property.
The original limestone
portion was built around 1859 and a frame addition was added sometime
around the turn of the century.
The Reality: The frame part of the
old house was falling down - it did not look like "This Old House" of TV
fame. Builders diplomatically suggested it would be "dumb and foolish"
to renovate. C had her heart set on keeping the original limestone
part; P thought it was silly but was a good sport. The frame part of
the house was bulldozed and burned leaving the basic limestone house intact.
The Construction: Neither
of us had ever expressed a desire to build a new home but here we were
homeless so.... we lived in
a small apartment in Leavenworth,
KS and made plans for our new home. We learned about walkout
basements - not terminology we had ever heard in south Texas - about septic
tanks, propane heat, rural water districts and electric cooperatives. Finally
after much ruminating over house plans and accompanying stimulating discussions,
we came up with something suitable for us. We found we knew a few
things we did want - wood or tile floors, brick exterior - and a lot of
things we didn't want, but we had no idea how many decisions we would have
to make. We made daily visits to the construction site, watching it take shape turned out to be very interesting.
We now feel like excellent advisors for anyone wanting to build a
house.
The Semi-Completion: July,
2000, we moved into our house. P had decided to build
the kitchen cabinets and at the time of move-in only some of the bottom
cabinets were finished but we were finally out of the apartment and in our house.
The Completion: December,
2002 P installed the floor to ceiling bookshelves in our
"library". At long last the 30 boxes of books could be unpacked!
Still to come are some other woodworking projects for our house.
*History: This quarter of a
section of farmland that lies in Atchison County, KS was "pre-empted"
in 1859 by C's great-grandfather and has always been in the Sprong
family. David Henry Sprong to David Henry Sprong, Jr. to George William
Sprong to Aaron Alfred Sprong (C's father) to A.A. Sprong's daughters..
A.A. Sprong did not farm but rented the property out after his mother
moved. When you look at the 30 foot X 14 foot original limestone house
with full length cellar, it is hard to imagine that ten children were born
and raised there. David Henry Sprong journeyed west from Philadelphia
to Kansas for his health - it must have worked because he was 92 when he
died.
For some reason, when you see a physical structure like the old limestone
house, it is easier to imagine what the environment was like in mid-19th
century eastern Kansas. Indians
were probably in close proximity as well as buffalo. Buffalo Bill lived
a few miles down the road. They might also have had glimpses of the
Quantrill
Raiders - Jesse James was
born about 60 miles away. Or to the north, they would have heard
of the Pony
Express riders leaving from St. Joe. They would have known that
many people were outfitted for heading farther west in
Westport - now a part of Kansas City.
They may have seen wagons on the Santa Fe trail - ruts of the
wagon trains can still be seen at Ft. Leavenworth.
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