Once upon a time, in a faraway woods, stood a house. In that house lived a family of five. It would never be on a house and garden tour. In fact, city people would call it a shack. But those of us who lived in it called it home, and we loved it.
Our house was in the woods on our 140-acre farm in rural Louisiana. It wasn’t what anybody would call “farmhouse chic” because its color was tar-paper black – no need or possibility of paint. My Daddy had been in the process of remodeling when he discovered termites and decided it was not wise to put good money after bad.
So the tar-paper-clad, two-bedroom pier house stayed as it was. In fact, all our lives, we called it the “black house.” There was no insulation, no electricity, one propane heater, no toilet and a well outside for drawing water.
What we did have was a family who loved us (three grandparents on adjoining farms) and parents who believed in education as a way up. There were cousins galore, and a little church up the road that completed our family.
Our parents graduated from high school during the Depression, from a small school 3 miles away. My mother, out of sheer grit and gumption, went to college, and my father learned a trade.
As time went on, our family left the farm and began to live like Gypsies, moving almost every year to follow Daddy’s ever more successful construction jobs. Our lives became more prosperous, and our houses more upscale.
Our first house was called ugly and primitive, but it was ours, and we were comfortable. There were no building codes, no permits – nothing to keep us from having a home that fit our economic status at the time. We were not slovenly people. Our house and yard were clean and orderly.
Do we need to look back at simpler times to guide us in our approach to housing today? That basic house lasted for many decades after we left it, providing shelter for several families until it was abandoned and no longer useful.
There is great dignity in providing for oneself at whatever level that may be. Is there anything in my story for us in Cape May County to consider?
Editor’s note: Patricia Hall is the wife of Art Hall, publisher of the Herald.
