Isn't this a sweet home. It belonged to Nellie Herriford. The story goes that she was married for the first time when she was 70. She was the bookkeeper at the Presbyterian Church until she was 100. She went into assisted living at 102 and died at 104.
I stopped by to see Nellie one day about 10 years ago. I thought she might have known something about my grandmother's grandmother who was a Hunter and had lived in Wilmore. My Grandmother rode the train from Sadieville to Wilmore to visit her Grandmother when she was a child. Nellie was about the same age as my Grandmother give or take a year or two. Nellie did not remember any Hunter's. She invited me in her living room and it was clean as a pin. That was my only contact with Nellie. When I found out she was in assisted living and was selling her home and personal items I went to view the items the day before the sale. Everything was immaculate. The auctioneer said all they had to do was move the items, everything was in beautiful condition. I placed a bid for her vintage hankies, which I bought at a dear price but it was fun to sell them in the shop and tell people about Nellie. Nellie didn't have any children and she had outlived her husband.
On my walk this morning I noticed the windows were out of the side of the house. Nellie sold her house to the seminary and for a while a young family lived in the house. It was nice to see toys on the porch and life in the house. The house is empty now and it will be torn down tomorrow. I feel real sad about it. It's a sweet brick cape cod with a nice porch. It's small but it has a basement. It seems to me it would make a lovely guest house for people visiting the seminary. Yes, it would need some updates but the lot is small, will it just become a parking lot? The house is full of wide pine molding with the original varnish. this could be sold and reused but it seems that the liability is not worth it to the seminary. I guess in this litigious society, we have become people who destroy history because we are afraid we will be sued.
Goodbye Nellie's house, I'll miss you.
Me too. I love the old houses in Wilmore and hate the senseless tearing down. [Spoken as a woman who has had 11 houses, an eight trailer trailer park and an apartment with 6 flats torn down around me in the 18 years I have lived here.] Dirty gravel parking lots are not really nice neighbors.
ReplyDeleteI use to walk to visit your shop and was sad to see you close. This house was our home for the first 2 years we lived in Wilmore. We moved to the new seminary family housing, but were very sad to see this house torn down. We loved the character!! Thank you for sharing Nelly's story!
ReplyDeleteThanks Maggie, It was nice to see a family live in the house for a while.
ReplyDelete