THE PUZZLE

I love antiques. Antiques, whether they are jewelry, furniture, cars, or houses, have a past,and I often want to know about the item's history. Slightly , over 5 years ago my husband and I bought an old house. Initially, we didn't know much about the history of our home, but as time moved on some circumstances would occur to help give us more knowledge of it's history and inhabitants.We bought our home from the bank. We were told that because of delinquent payments the house was under the ownership of a bank vs. a person. Our house is very large. It is 2400sq. ft. The house has 4 bedrooms, large kitchen, 2 bathrooms, dining room, an extremely large living room with 12 ft. ceiling, and a sun room. We have slightly over 4 acres of land which apparently was part of an original 125 acre farm. On the property is an old barn as well as an old dilapidated red frame house located in a back area behind our home. It appeared that someone may have lived in this tiny house which had been wired for electricity, having a kitchen, living room, bathroom, and kitchen. Unfortunately, this house needs to be torn down as it would cost too much money to get it into being livable for any person. Bits and pieces of information came to our attention. We hired an elderly gentleman to put up additional fence alongside the property. Well, it turned out that this man told us that when he was a boy, he came to our home as it once was a medical clinic. On another occasion, we obtained information from Mrs.B .Mrs.B owned an antique shop a few minutes from our home. As she and I would visit her shop, she shared that when she was 19 and a new bride, she and her husband rented our home for 2 years. Mrs.B is in her middle 80's. After learning this, she came to our home and gave a tour to determine how the house had changed through the years. During her time, there was one bedroom, a bathroom, living room and a kitchen. Somewhere, additional rooms were added. Mrs.B told me that the barn was on the property when she was 19. She went to the barn to cry when she had a fight with her husband. A large old oak tree has grown and overshadows the house. It, too, was in existence in Mrs.B's time. Wow! age!Continuing on, one day, a driver in a SUV came up our driveway. We approached this woman. She had tears in her eyes. She told us that this house was their family home through her childhood. when the parents died, a sister bought the house. She shared that family was unaware that her brother-in-law failed to make payments on the house although his wife gave him the money . This woman, very tearful said that they were not aware of the financial issue until it was too late otherwise they would have intervened to keep the house in the family.We assured her we would take good care and love this home. I felt some sadness for this family although we benefited from this situation.As to the old red house, we were told that a nanny who took care of the main house and the children had occupied the tiny house. Getting more settled in our home, we obtained more historical information on our home. We had ordered pizza. As the delivery man was talking with us he said, "I know this house". Apparently, he came to this house to visit with the children and to practice hitting golf balls. One of the things that my husband found was golf balls.Gerry would get on his tractor to do some bush hogging. We were amazed with the no. of golf balls embedded in the ground or found under bushes and trees. Our golf ball mystery was solved. Ideally, I would like to put an orderly breakdown of the house from start to our current time. Maybe I'll eventually obtain more information about the house pre-Mrs.B's time and discover who built the house and about it's earlier inhabitants. Oh! I went out to watch my husband give a jeep ride to our babies(4) dogs. Guess what I found? A golf ball under my shoe.