I grew up in this house. My parents bought it in 1961 from Russ Lillieg whoâ™s farmstead is 64-XWE-7 and he lived ¼ mile away. My parents sold it back to him when we moved out in May 1975. When we moved in I was 4-years old and I was 18 when we moved out.
My parents paid $6500.00 for 2.9 acers hers in 1961. The barn and the corn crib were retained by Russ. The house had no running water or indoor bathroom. It had a coal/wood burning furnace in the basement and a coal/wood burning stove in the kitchen. We had an outhouse and a chicken house which are not present in the photo. The little patch of concrete north of the barn is the well. When we moved in, it had a windmill on it. In 1963, Clare Barryhill, from Vincent, came out and sank a well there and plumbed it into the house. We never had an indoor bathroom.
Because Iâ™m in a writing mood and in case you care, letâ™s start with the bottom left of the picture:
We always had that large of a garden and I usually dug it by hand with a potato spade. Dad used it as child control. If we acted up, he would send us out to weed.
Thereâ™s an electric pole by the shed. It had a transformer on it and one time when dad was showing mom how to shoot a shotgun, she hit it. It blew up and we were out of electricity for several days.
The metal shed was a place I loved. You can see a corn picker sticking out of it. That was the main door. Dad had his workshop out there and it also held stalls for pigs and a milk cow. I can still smell the shed and hear the rain on the roof.
The barn was a forbidden zone for us kids. Russ used it as storage and the hay mow was never used. The corn crib was used for corn and soybeans. I spent many summers shelling corn out of there.
The little white building is a garage and we never used it for that. We used it to store corn and oats for the animals.
The house had a full basement with three rooms, one being the fruit room where we stored canned goods and produce.
The first floor had an enclosed front porch, the kitchen, parents bedroom and the living room. Upstairs had two bed rooms.
All the buildings are gone now and itâ™s plowed under. When Russ left farming, he sold it to Larry who is in 64-XWE-13.
Thereâ™s a lot more that can be written about this place, 14 years worth.
Thanks for taking the pictures, Iâ™ve ordered it and Iâ™m looking forward to getting it.