Unexpected visitors

 

     "Hey honey!" I said, looking up from a magazine. "I think the 'Northbrook Voice' is casting shade on our house."
     I was reading the January/February issue, a page two story headlined, "Visionary That Helped Make Our Village What It Is Today." That should be "Visionary Who Helped..." but no matter. The article was about Edward D. Landwehr, the postal carrier who was one of 35 men to sign the petition incorporating the village of Shermerville. When a contest was held to rename the town, his suggestion — Northbrook — got the most votes. The leafy suburban paradise I call home.
     My interest was personal — we live in Ed Landwehr's old house on Center Avenue, built in 1905. The Village Hall, public library and old water tower in my backyard are in his old cornfield. The article mentions the house.    

     "Ed and Annie lived on a large piece of property on Center Street," the unnamed author writes. "Although changed, their house still stands today."

     "Although changed...?" Ouch. 

     Tell me if I'm being overly sensitive.... 

     "Although changed..." 

     Yes, the house has faded piebald olive aluminum siding on it now, and a two-story addition on the west side added in the relative yesterday of 1959. A master bedroom above and a rec room below. The place would be quite small without them. I replaced the rough front porch made  of two-by-fours and crumbling brick steps with wooden steps and a nice railing made of lathework. And maybe I'm being touchy — not without reason. It IS my house, after all. But that "although changed..." Do I detect a note of asperity, of censure, in that? Is there a house that hasn't changed since 1905? At least it's still here. The place was sold to us "as is," practically a tear down. The kitchen was a ruin, floor sloping, counters pulled away from the walls. We didn't have a working stove for the first two years we lived there. But we decided to keep it because a) we liked it and b) we couldn't afford to build a new one.

    So yes, we bloody well changed the house, all we could. I plan to change it more.

    Though changed, it is not without interest. I was attuned to this topic because of something that happened in November. I looked out the front window and was surprised to find a half dozen people, gazing at the house, taking pictures. Hesitant to imagine that this might be about — are these the piqued readers that John Kass so worries about? Come to get me? Unlike John, I didn't bolt to Indiana like a terrified bunny and start digging a burrow. Instead I went outside and said hello. They were descendents of Ed and Annie Landwehr, in town for a civic event at the historical society, honoring their ancestor.

     Of course I invited them in — we try to keep a modestly neat abode for just such a contingency. They went from room to room, sharing memories. A grandfather had lain in state in our front parlor. We showed them that the pocket doors between the living and dining room still work. They were curious, friendly, polite and grateful.

      I have a letter I found at the historical society from Ed's son Martin, and sent it to his descendents. I hadn't read the letter in many years. The house was built without bathrooms — that was in the backyard, and Saturday night bathwater was heated on the stove in the kitchen. I was charmed that the same line of evergreens lining the driveway were planted when the house was built, as was the hedge of van houtte spirea that I have battled to keep alive.

     A sane man would have torn that spirea out years ago. That's what the neighbors across First Avenue did. But I am not a sane man, when it comes to spirea, and I estimate I've spent nearly a thousand dollars and planted 15 shrubs if I've planted one. It's worth it every spring when that thing turns into a bed of snowy white. Were Ed Landwehr to suddenly arise and walk among us next month, he would see the thing from a block away, and it would make him happy. Although I imagine heaven is just silly with vanhoutte spirea.

     I thought I should write my own letter someday, encapsulating the quarter century my family has spent in the house. We raised two boys here; I wrote five books in the upstairs library. I like to imagine it would be of interest to a future owner, though the sad reality is that anyone who buys the place will certainly tear it down to build one of those jumbo white faux farmhouses with black trim that are all the rage. Me, I prefer an actual farmhouse, that once was associated with an actual farm — complete with a horse, stabled in the garage in the living memory of our next door neighbors when we first moved in. There are two horseshoes nailed to a main beam in the basement — for good luck. The wood is cracked, but holding — one of the first things we did when we moved in was add a support brace, to keep the place together.