A house is so much more than just a house. It is a home, an entity alive with stories, history, and memories.

With an appreciation for the past, I have invested much of my life lovingly restoring a home built in 1935, as well as other treasures salvaged among the discarded and forgotten. I am always filled with awe and wonder by the secrets and history they hold.

This project seeks to awaken and inspire within my viewers, an appreciation for, and desire to preserve the homes, legacies, and treasures of our past, lest they and their stories be lost forever.

I have dedicated my photography vignettes and writings to help keep these memories alive for future generations, so that those to come might know something of those who came before them and gain insight into themselves.

Each verse of the poem below addresses one of the photos.

“An Old Home Recalls”

 

A forgotten home,
now “Gone to Seed,”
A treasure chest
of old memories.
Pass through its door,
venture within,
The years will unfold,
the stories begin.

In a cozy corner
family gathered ‘round
Daddy’s radio playing,
its beautiful sound.
That was way back
in days long gone.
Its music has ceased,
but “Time Plays On.”

There on the porch,
now fallen away,
Great Grandpa, his flute,
each evening would play.
His beautiful melodies
lifted on high,
Until “The Day
His Music Died.”

And there in the kitchen,
Grandma sipped tea
While reading “The Letter”
from her one and only.
Listen carefully, her tears
gently fall,
Generations of memories
within these walls.

And then perhaps
the most somber of all,
“The Final Letters”
told of his fall.
A brother, a son,
who had served with pride,
Perished by hands
of the enemy side.

Oh, what will become
of these memories
Once this old home
ceases to be?
Keeper of time,
relic of past,
A memorial to family
lost at last?