He tore down Mrs. Elder's house a couple weeks ago. "He" is the guy who lives behind my mother, and who is a (shudder) developer. My parents moved into their house slightly over 42 years ago. My father had a vision of himself as a country gentleman (on weekends) puttering around his estate, mowing the field and generally being the country squire. Unfortunately, he only got to enjoy his dream for three years before dying in an automobile accident. My mother, on the other hand, has been living there from the day they moved in. She remarried, and my step father lived there for about 17 years before dying himself in 1988. I lived on the property for the first five years of our ownership until I moved off to follow my own star. However, through all these years, the house on the corner has stood there, a welcome landmark telling us that home was only a few seconds away.
I call it "Mrs. Elder's house" even though she has been dead for decades. Mrs. Elder owned the house when we moved in next house down the road. She raised Springer Spaniels who sort of took over the property as she got older. The house itself was the oldest house in the immediate area. It was the original farmhouse for a huge swath of land. However, over the years (century plus) the succession of owners had sold off parcels until, when we moved in, Mrs. Elder was down to about 9 acres, and she could not spin off any more land since the zoning was then fixed at 10 acres. So, Mrs. Elder raised, and sold, Springer Spaniels. As she got older, and the walk to the kennels became more difficult, the dogs started living in the house. By the time her residency ended (I forget if she died or she was moved to a nursing home) the place was pretty rank.
However, maybe that was a blessing for the Rista's, the family who purchased the place and moved in about 30 years ago. When Mr. Rista bought the place, he must have been near 60. His kids we grown, although one daughter still lived at home. He and his wife were nice people who worked at cleaning the place up and making it livable. At least they did for the first 10 years or so. Then Mrs. Rista died. I don't think Mr. Rista ever really got over that. When his wife died, he sort of stopped taking care of the place. Of course, he was getting older too, and, I suppose, money was an issue. Anyhow, over the next 10 years, the place began to decay. The kennels started to sag, the barn leaned a little more to the right and nothing was painted...ever.
We would see Mr. Rista, a thin, small man taking his daily hike down the dirt road they lived on at least a couple times a week. We would wave at him, and he would wave back. And the house was still there, although it did look a tiny bit shabbier. Then about five or six years ago, we suddenly noticed that we hadn't seen Mr. Rista for a while. Inquiries were made, and it turned out that he had been moved to a nursing home. His son, who lives someplace in Arizona and his daughter, who now lives a couple miles away, were now in charge of the house. Well, she, for very good reasons, and he, for not so good reasons, did not much more than pay the quarterly taxes on the place. The deterioration of the house became more pronounced and began to accelerate. Gutters started to come loose, the porch sagged, then one corner gave up the fight and collapsed. Windows were broken and filled with plywood. The roof leaked. We all watched, and clucked our tongues, but there was nothing any of my family could do as none of us had a spare couple of million dollars hanging around.
Finally, this past spring, the daughter finally gave in and sold the place. But she sold it to the developer. Now, the house was in critical shape. In fact, it is possible that it was beyond saving, but I don't know that for certain. I do know that it was a Victorian farmhouse, which means it was close to 150 years old, and that the historic society should have been called in to do a survey. They weren't. The developer closed on the property, and within a week the bulldozers were on site. As far as I know, they didn't even attempt to salvage anything from any of the buildings. One day I went up to my Mom's for something, and the house was there are always, although there were all these large yellow machines parked in the field behind the barn. The next day, when I went back up to meet with some workmen at Mom's, the house was gone. The barn was still standing, but the house and kennels were gone. We thought the barn might survive, but even that hope was in vain. Now only a flat expanse of graded dirt covered by loose hay marks the corner. I know that within the next few months (or maybe next spring, but I wouldn't bet on him waiting that long) the foundations will go in and a new huge mansion, a paean to conspicuous consumption, will begin to rise on the site.
I will miss that old house.
