Time passes quickly

Aug 14, 2011

First, I want to thank every­one who has taken over my blog post­ing duties while I’ve been gone. It’s been really nice not hav­ing to worry about blog posts all week and I can­not wait to see what you post about this week.

The pho­tos below are pho­tos of the old Childers home­stead that was estab­lished in 1900 by my great great grand­fa­ther Enoch Childers. He moved to Buck­han­non, WV with his nine chil­dren Daniel, John, Stephen, James, Robert, Min­nie, Albert, Amanda and Jesse. Toby Childers had sadly passed away from an acci­dent in 1893. His wife Rebecca Hin­kle Childers died from con­sump­tion in 1894. The main one room log home was rolled over the hill from across the dirt road not far from it’s loca­tion now, using large logs and horses. They added a bed­room and kitchen later on as well as sev­eral sheds for wash­ing clothes, a few for the men to sleep in, a meat house, and one they dried tobacco in.

My fam­ily brought me here for as long as I can remem­ber each sum­mer and it has a very spe­cial place in my heart. I love all the fam­ily his­tory my cousins have found about the Childers fam­ily, as well as all the mem­o­ries I have from spend­ing long days hav­ing pic­nics with all my aunts, uncles and cousins. I still recall my grand­fa­ther sit­ting on the porch next to me read­ing an old ledger. I was so amazed at how cheap every­thing could be pur­chased. And I remem­ber my grand­mother cook­ing us all lunch on the old wood stove. I sat in the hot kitchen chat­ting with her and thought I was going to sweat to death as it was so hot. But Grammy was hav­ing so much fun cook­ing on it as she wanted us kids to eat a meal from that old stove. I must say it was incred­i­ble food and I have never had bis­cuits like what she made ever again.

All 111 years has taken it’s toll on the build­ings but  in my eyes it is still a peace­ful and intrigu­ing place.

These are the orig­i­nal cor­ner pieces still hold­ing up the barn today. Each piece of tim­ber was hand cut. They kept cows and horses inside. Now it stores the orig­i­nal wagon Enoch and his kids rode on to cross over Buck­han­non Moun­tain to get to this land.

This is their old hay rake that was pulled by horses in the field that now has my aunt and uncles home on.

This build­ing was the smoke house and where they cured, I’m sure quite a few hams. Just behind that huge pine tree was their water well. It was just out­side the kitchen door and had the cold­est water.

 

This is the old door that leads into the kitchen. Oh how many times my brother and I walked through that door. I can still hear the noise of the screen door slamming.

I have pho­tos of Enoch and Jess sit­ting on or stand­ing near this very same swing. I think every sin­gle one of us have sat on this swing. I can remem­ber sit­ting on it and look­ing out at all the fam­ily mem­bers sit­ting on lawn chairs and blan­kets laugh­ing and enjoy­ing the day.

The chim­ney on the house is the orig­i­nal chim­ney. We are all amazed that it is still stand­ing. The small win­dow is the kitchen win­dow. I can still see Grammy stand­ing in front of it. The win­dow to the left was the bed­room where Min­nie and Amanda slept. They were the only two girls out of ten kids.

You can see Queen Ann’s Lace all over the fields and sides of the roads. I think this is one of the pret­ti­est wildflowers.

My aunt and uncle always have a gar­den. This year their corn is taller than me by a good foot.

And walk­ing down the road you will always find wild sweet peas grow­ing up the fence posts. So there is just a lit­tle bit of my fam­ily his­tory (click on the names of each per­son in this post if you wish to know more about them) and why I love it so much here. I hope to always be able to visit this place for as long as I live.