Historic Photographs

This is history. I have never seen pictures of the house from this time period before and very excited to get them. Betty MacDonald is a cousin who has always lived at the River, and made copies of these for Mom and Dad, who gave them to Lois to scan and send to me. This is a real treat. 

This is a studio portrait of George Lowe, who bought the house from the railroad and moved it to it's current location in 1907.  He was born in 1873, and lived in the house until his death in 1948. He is a young man in this photo so this was probably taken around the time that he bought the house, give or take a few years.

This next photograph is amazing to me. That's George with his wife Catherine (nee MacSwain). She passed in 1945, three years before George, at the age of 73, and she was bedridden the last years of her life, so this must have been taken much earlier than that. The style of the dress should be a clue. I would imagine this was in the 1910's. I don't know who the man is on the right but I'll find out. 

And take a close look at the house! The sunroom that we tore off at the back last summer was once an open porch. I never knew that! The photo below is one I took in 2008 from roughly the same angle, showing what the porch looked like as I always remembered it. The barb wire fence was still there in the photo below. Dad removed it last week. It had become a rusty and dangerous obstacle that grew through all of the trees and needed to go, but will be replaced by a hedge of Peonies of Hydrangeas, or something like that. The original purpose of the fence was to keep cows off the railroad tracks behind the house. No tracks, no cows, and now, no fence. So much has changed, but its still the same somehow. 

Below is what I consider the best picture. Has me thinking about a different way to landscape. That's Catherine sitting on the old concrete steps that I remember, and will be restored. The house is straight and crisp, just a perfect little country cottage. The old cellar hatch is there that was torn off in the late 1970's. The little front kitchen porch had not been built yet! I have never seen a picture of that before either, but I knew it was like that because the interior walls of the porch were shingled. I had them reshingled as a nod to the history of the house. You can see the open porch at the back with vines of some sort growing up and over the steps. That picket fence must have been there to divide the barn yard from the front yard. I also had no idea there was a fence. I wonder what colour the house was!
 

It looks like this might have been taken early on as well, maybe 1915 to 1920, but that's just a guess.

This is Mary Anne, my great-grandmother, sitting out by the Orange Blossom bush. Again, there are clues to things I never knew. There was an extension on the front of the garage. I would guess this was taken around 1950 when she was living there.

These photographs are treasures and only deepens my appreciation of the place. Thanks Lois for sending them to me.