They Don't Build Them Like They Used To

My grandfather was born April 13, 1918 in Longview, Mississippi. By that, I mean he was born in a house there. Believe me when I say there wasn't and isn't any hospital in Longview. His dad walked from that house to his job at the nearby railroad depot, where he was an agent. Later, my grandad walked from that house to the one room schoolhouse that is still there on Highway 12.

Longview is on the outskirts of Starkville, getting closer all the time as Starkville continues to grow.

Saturday I saw this house, up close and personal, for the first time. I've long known about the house; when I was about 15, my grandad told me if I wanted to go to Mississippi State, I could live there. My mother has a photograph of her and several cousins taken when she was about five years old at a family reunion that was held there in the mid 1950s. For years, on the way to ballgames I'd catch a quick glance of the old home place through a thick stand of trees.

Now the forest has virtually reclaimed the house. Or is well on its way to doing just that. My parents drove up there one wet Saturday afternoon in October and came home with two doors from the house.
My mother told my brother and me then that we needed to make a point to drive over there and see it before it falls in.

She wasn't kidding.

We were looking for the house and still drove past it. It's not far from the road but the trees and vegetation are so thick around it that in order to get to it, you have to know where you're going and feel pretty strongly about getting there.

My mother warned me of a well that she remembered being somewhere near the kitchen. We trod carefully.

I don't know that we ever determined which room the kitchen may have been.


As much as I would have liked to have gotten inside and looked about, we didn't venture much inside. We came across a bank statement, complete with canceled checks signed by my great-grandfather, from July 1935. The checks were written to the likes of Sears Roebuck & Company, Montgomery Ward. My mother was thrilled to have those; she didn't think she'd seen his handwriting or signature before.

The place likely has more treasure like that but we had a curious six year old with us.

I thought visiting there might be a bit melancholy but honestly, with the house in the shape it was in, it was hard to wrap my mind around what it could have looked like when it was inhabitable.


As we left, we looked closer at a couple of outbuildings, like this that must have been the barn.


and this that was the chicken coop.


I don't know what these are. I saw them as we started walking away from the house. They seemed like a happy omen.

That little pilgrimage is one I'd been wanting and needing to make. I want to go back while I still can.