The M in MASCH

Before and after pictures are in short supply this week, so I'll post this photo I took on Friday afternoon of the Jemison-Van de Graaff Mansion, a Tuscaloosa landmark.

I just love houses with cupolas, don't you?



Remember in grade school when you'd play MASCH? You'd draw a square with the letters MASCH above it, and they stood for mansion, apartment, shack, cottage, house. This is just the sort of house I imagined when I landed on M.

Believe it or not, I've never taken the time to go inside for a tour. My mother told us long ago that it was once the public library, and I've always thought of it as the perfect library. Books floor to ceiling, sliding ladders, dust motes, cushy chairs in secret corners. I kinda hate to go inside and ruin my mental image.

According to the Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society's website, Historic Tuscaloosa, and the mansion's own website, the house (one of only a few Italianate houses in T-town) was built in 1859-1862 by Senator Robert Jemison Jr. to serve as his town house. The architect was John Stewart from Philadelphia, who along with his partner, Samuel Sloan, designed Bryce Hospital (the state mental hospital, also in T-town).

Most of the building materials came from Jemison’s plantations and sawmills, and the majority of construction was performed by skilled slaves under the supervision of Philadelphia craftsmen. The house had indoor lighting fueled by coal gas manufactured in a machine located in the basement.

If I was living in antebellum Tuscaloosa, I totally would've sidled up to the Jemisons and tried to make friends because their house was the first in town to have an indoor bathroom, including running water, flush toilets and a copper bathtub. (Of course, my family was po' white trash, so I would've been more likely to hang out in a dogtrot cabin snuggling with the family hogs.)

The house also featured a boiler for producing hot water, a gas stove, and a deep dry well in the basement that kept food fresh even in hot Alabama summers.

The house's construction was interrupted when the Civil War began, much like Eutaw's own showplace mansion, Kirkwood, leaving many finishing touches undone. According to legend, it barely escaped being burned by Union troops when boys playing a prank ran down the street yelling, "Forrest is coming, hurrah for Forrest!", and the Union commander skedaddled.

The home remained in the family until the 1940s, when it was purchased by J.P. and Nell Burchfield, who undertook a major restoration.

After serving as the Friedman Public Library from 1955 to 1979, the Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society and Heritage Commission of Tuscaloosa set up a joint board to oversee restoration of the house, which is ongoing. The Tuscaloosa Convention and Visitor’s Bureau has its offices in the basement of the house. The main floor has been carefully restored to its original 1860s appearance, and it is available to the public for weddings, parties and receptions, none of which have I been invited to attend.

I half-wanted to get married there, but Darwin was insistent on one point for our wedding, and that was that it must take place at his family's church. So that's what we did, and I still haven't seen the inside of that lovely gray house on Greensboro Ave.

I guess it's fitting. Po' white trash like me can't go places that don't provide a spitoon.

What the Victorians Did for Us

I have a new favorite show (along with Ugly Betty and The Office): What the Victorians Did for Us. It's a British show that airs on History International, and it's a cheeky (literally ... on the most recent episode, the host Adam Hart-Davis ended the show naked, enjoying a bicycle-powered shower) look at the Victorian innovations that made life the way it is today.

Technology is moving so fast today that we - or I anyway - often think of this time as the most innovative, the most quickly changing. It's easy to consider our ancestors primitive and wonder how they survived in a world with no Internet.

But What the Victorians Did for Us points out just how many of the technologies we take for granted - the indoor bathroom, aspirin, ice cream, and the sewer system - originated with the Victorians. Sure, we come out with a new version of the iPod or Motorola Razr every five minutes, but we're not so superior. We still don't know how to cure the common cold, let alone cancer or Alzheimer's or Lou Gehrig's disease. We still fight wars that go nowhere, and we still burn fossil fuels to travel.

I wonder ... in 100 years, what will the TV shows say about us? Will TV even still exist? Will someone have finally invented that teleporter? And for all the new technology, will the world be any kinder? Will humans be any better?

The Birth of a Bathroom

The first house in Eutaw built with a bathroom in the plans was Magnolia on Main across the street, built in 1904. I imagine our home's owner Mary Julia Dunlap gazing across the street at her neighbor's house as it went up and thinking, "A bathroom inside? Darnit, why didn't I think of that?"

Worse still would be the fact that only two years before, MJ had left the comfort of the magnificent two-story Victorian she'd shared with her late banker husband for this - the little 5-room, center-hall Folkster her new farmer hubby could afford. It just wasn't fair, I tell you! That first house had more bedrooms than her new house had rooms!

Then would start the quiet hints to her husband, Clay. "Did you hear they're getting a bathroom across the street? Right next to the bedroom upstairs! Can you imagine?"

And Clay, who is always the villain in my story because of the disappearing/reappearing-in-another-county act he pulls circa 1930, would say, "Hmph" and mutter something about "newfangled" and "putting on airs."

But eventually our MJ got her way, as we womenfolk tend to do. How else could Farmer Clay compete with the memory of Banker James?

The question is when. Knowing what I know of small towns, women, the South and Eutaw in particular, MJ couldn't have stood it for long.

So I think the porch-to-bathroom conversion came very early in our house's life. Later, three more rooms and a new porch were added, along with a considerable extension of the center hall, all by 1925.

The bathroom naturally went through several changes in the 65 years it belonged to MJ, many of which we haven't puzzled out yet.

Central to the puzzle is the window. When was it installed? The window has weights. When did windows with weights stop being installed? The most recent bathroom reno happened in the late '60s or early '70s. Did they find a salvaged window and replace the taller one? Or was this window already altered before the Parkins came along?

Then, maybe I shouldn't worry so much. I think MJ wouldn't. She'd peep through the curtains at her neighbor's house, and say, "Darnit, why didn't I think of that?"

His History and Mine

On Saturday we had Christmas with Darwin's dad's side of the family. Since we live near the place we both grew up, we have a million and one tedious holiday events to attend each year.

But this one turned into the opportunity I've been waiting for. Darwin's dad, Mac, still owns the old house he grew up in, a little farmhouse complete with can house and corn crib. The Christmas event takes place each year in an old schoolhouse nearby, the one Mac and his brothers and sisters attended in the '40s.

For once, I remembered to bring my camera. That's where the opportunity comes in: I finally got pics of the "old homeplace."

No one is certain of the house's age. Mac's parents bought it in 1941, but it had been there for a while before. In fact, before it was Mac's old homeplace, it was someone else's parents' old homeplace.

I know a bit about the middle class-and-up house styles - the Victorians, Greek Revivals, Craftsmans, etc. But I know just about nothing about these spare little farmer’s cottages, the sort of house where every last one of my and Darwin’s plain-folk farming ancestors lived.

It is L-shaped with a simple porch across the front. One side of the L is the front: two rooms with a center hall between. The other leg of the L is the kitchen. A tiny bedroom and a bathroom were tacked onto the back of the house at some point.

The house is not pretty. The windows are a hodgepodge. Some 1950s aluminum, some older divided lights. The exterior is covered with green, faux-woodgrain shingles. The roof is rusted tin. The walls inside are fake wood paneling.

It’s not a house someone took care to preserve, in terms of history. It’s a house people lived in, lived simply with no thought of old or new, or continuity. If a window broke or rotted, they replaced it with anything that would fit. If the top of the stone chimney toppled, they replaced it with brick. If they needed another bedroom, heck we’ll tack one on right here.

Usually, I despise a remuddle. But somehow, this jumbled little farmhouse has a certain nobility. We’ll probably never decipher its age, and it will certainly never be on the National Register. That’s okay. It’s a house that means something anyway. You can see it in the faces of the men in that family, whose hands helped mend the roof and prop up the falling chimney. It is a part of Darwin’s family’s history, a part of my history now.



The can house. This was where they stored the canned goods. (not really in cans, in jars)



The back of the house. The side of the house. The kitchen chimney.



The front porch. The front of the house.



The corn crib. They kept peanuts on top and corn on the bottom level. The curtain from the stage at the old schoolhouse, dated 1939.

We're on the Map

Oh boy, oh boy! I finally accessed the Sanborn fire insurance maps and found our little casa! Our house was built in 1902 (duh), so I expected our house to be on the 1903 and 1909 maps of Eutaw. Unfortunately, the early maps cut off directly across the street from our house. How sucky is that?

I found the house on the 1925 and 1943 maps, looking pretty much the same on both. But what I really needed to see was the early versions, so we could figure out when the back part of the house was added. Our house is kind of a jumbled mystery ... all signs indicate the house was originally only 4-5 rooms with a center hall. But we don't know if the kitchen is original, when the third bedroom was built (a 4th bedroom was enclosed in the '70s), when the office was added, or when the laundry room was added.

On the left is the map from 1925, and on the right is the layout of our house and property today (click for larger versions):



Notice how today's house fits almost exactly into the footprint of the 1925 house.

Frankly, I am more confused than ever.

Every week a new mystery pops up. We have found two transom windows in the attic now. They match the window over the master bedroom door. But we're not sure where they went because the wood trim around whichever doors have been altered to look like there was never a transom.

A new mystery has developed from the Sanborn maps. They showed three outbuildings in our back yard. Two no longer exist, but one is the same size and shape - and in the same location - as our workshop. We had assumed this workshop was a 1970s creation because it had fake wood paneling on the walls, plywood on the floors and vinyl siding on the exterior. Oh yeah, and the brick patio on front includes a concrete paver with a '70s date written in it.

But perhaps it was built from parts of an old building, or maybe it is even a dressed-up (yeah) version of the original outbuilding. On the map, the building is marked with a D, which indicates it was a single-family residence, if I'm interpreting the map correctly. Hmmm, a servant's house? Or maybe MJ's son James and his family lived there. In the 1930 census, James and family was living next door to his mom in a rented place.

We need to talk to some more people around town, track down Mrs. Jackson, whose late husband was MJ's grandson, and see if we can get some of these pesky details nailed down. I'm a reporter (sometimes, anyway), so I should be able to find this stuff out. I feel a bit like Nancy Drew ... all I need now is some "titian" hair dye.

Research, Baby

I have a sore throat. I stayed home sick from work, and when I felt better in the afternoon, I decided to take the opportunity to finally do some research on our house at the courthouse. It was remarkably easy to find our tax card and then look up the previous deed in a big ol' red book.

Let me quote:

That in consideration of $10 cash in hand, and other goods and valuable considerations, to the undersigned granters ___ Jackson, ___ Jackson and ___ Jackson in hand paid by ____ Parkins, the receipt whereof is acknowledged, we, the said [Jackson Five] do grant, bargain, sell and convey unto the said ___ Parkins the following described real estate situated in the city of Eutaw, Greene County, Alabama.

Excuse me, huh? I roughly translate that to mean, "Mrs. Parkins bought the house from the Jackson kids for $10." Geez, that's pretty cheap. So what does "other goods and valuable considerations" mean? Did they trade something for it?

According to the Alabama Property Record Card, the house and land were only worth $41,700 in 1987. So what about in 1969 when the Parkins bought it?

And who are these Jackson kids, you ask? They are the grandchildren of the late great Mary Julia Dunlap - our house's first owner - whose daughter Laura married a Jackson.

Along with my trip to the courthouse, I went to the big cemetery up the road. And who should I find there but our house's family. Mary Julia shares a stone with her son Adolphus, who died in 1941. M.J. kept on kickin' till 1966; she lived 96 long years, 64 of them in our house. There's no sign of the second man to give M.J. his name - Clay Dunlap. I found a record of him in Jefferson County ... I'm thinking the two of them parted ways before the 1930 census.

M.J.'s first husband and other two children are buried nearby, as well as her parents and brother. I felt so in tune with them standing there among their plots. These were real people who LIVED once ... in my house. I just wish I knew more about WHO they were - not just names and dates.

But there is information to be gleaned from all this. First, that the widow Jackson was right about the lineage of our house. Second, that I was right to deduce we are only the third family to live here. Third, I wish I could've seen this place before the Parkins did their work on it - with one very old woman living here for 64 years, I bet it was nearly unchanged.

That explains the neon blue trim in the kitchen and the fact that the floors only have one layer of Parkins-added plywood/vinyl on top of the original wood. If M.J.'s son-in-residence died in 1941, it makes me think perhaps the knotty-pine office addition was made before then. Why would a little old lady living alone need a large addition?

Or maybe one of her other children moved in with her. There are still so many questions with no answers.

104 Years Young

This morning a man came to the door and announced that he once worked for the previous owner, Miss Syrene, and - the more amazing fact - that he was born in 1900, making him two years older than our house. He had walked to our house, and after our conversation sped away with his cane. I hope I'm as spry if I get to be 104 years old.

I wanted to ask him about our house, but it was hard to understand what he was saying, and I didn't want to confuse him. So we just let it go at being glad to have met him. Same as our house - we may never find out all the answers, but I'm just glad to be here.

Today Darwin has been installing the microwave/vent hood over the rangetop. What a nightmare that has turned out to be. But it's coming along, slowly but surely.



On one of Darwin's many trips up to the attic today, he noticed something fascinating - original cedar shingles on a portion of the roof that had been covered when an addition was made. From the clues, we figured out that the master bathroom and guest room (and possibly guest bathroom) were added on fairly shortly after the house's original construction. This must be the "addition to accomodate a growing family." We think it was added on quite a while ago because it incorporated a fireplace that required a new chimney to be built. Why would you go to all that trouble in a bedroom unless you needed fireplaces for heat?

Another clue - knob and tube wiring. I had never seen it before and wasn't quite sure what to picture. But now I've seen it - right there in our attic! Fascinating stuff. Better than that, though, were the fingerprints all over the roof boards.

According to the attic, the kitchen was original to the house, as I suspected. The office and laundry were added at a later date. Apparently the reason half the roof on that section is asphalt shingled instead of tin is that a tree fell on the house at some point. Darwin saw broken boards and new ones where a hole had been patched.

Also, Darwin found a spot on the front of the roof where a dormer once was. Why oh why didn't they just leave it there? Of course, I like the steep angle of the roof there and can't really picture it with a dormer, but if it was original, it makes me sad to see it go.

Today has been a day of clue-finding. In the little closet under the stairs - the only room in the house with plaster intact - we noted the baseboards.



The baseboards are one flat board with a piece of more decorative molding above it. Apparently, when they were drywalling, they took the decorative piece off and when they put it back, it stuck out a little farther than before. In the little closet, the decorative molding lines up even with the boards. It's nice to have this little window into what the house looked like before.