I know somewhere I have pictures of this house in the summer time when the bridal bushes were blooming and the buckeye tree was leafed out, but all I could come up with was this winter scene from 1962 when we first moved to Iowa from Schell City, Mo. This house near Keystone, Iowa has a long history as most places do, starting back in the 1800's when the farm was homesteaded by a family from Germany. I don't know what year the house was built, but I imagine it was considered grand for the time. There was a cistern by the back entry room that went into the kitchen. A small room off the kitchen was big enough for a long table. The cupboard in the kitchen wall had doors on both sides so dishes could be taken out of the cupboard in the dining room or kitchen to set the table. Between that table in the dining room and another table in the kitchen during harvest season the help could all sit down to eat. Three other doors were in the kitchen south wall. One door led to the living room which had two doors on the west side for two bedrooms. One of the bedrooms was later turned into a bathroom. Until then the outhouse was just north of the smokehouse behind the house and is still there. The second door in the kitchen led to the full basement under the house, and the third door led to a large parlor with a shiny wooden floor. A door in the dining room led to the parlor, too, which was handy when they had company. I can imagine parties and dances being held in that room. The enclosed front porch led right into the parlor or left into the living room or straight ahead upstairs to two bedrooms and an unfinished room known as the attic. I don't know why that room was never finished off, but it was always the room to store odd and ends in. Once in the early 1980's, two women stopped by to walk around the place. We were living in the mobile home. Our son, Duane, was outside so the women talked to him. I didn't realize the elderly woman of the two was part of the original family until it was too late. The women left, and Duane came in to tell me the elderly woman was brought by her daughter to look around the home place. She described a walnut grove where one lone walnut tree stood in the pasture. A small grove of apple trees were out there and a row of elms along the fence. Some of the elms were there at the time, but none of the apple trees. It was just before 1900 when the elderly woman's father decided to re-roof the barn, and tragedy struck the family. One of her brothers, around thirteen, wanted to help the neighbor men who came to work on the barn. Her father told the boy he was too young to be on the barn's steep roof. The boy begged to be allowed to help, and his father gave in, a decision he regretted later. The boy fell off the roof and broke his leg. The bone pushed out of the skin. This was at a time when there wasn't a doctor near them so all the family could do was take care of the boy. His leg got gangrene and in a few days he died. There wasn't a church and minister either at that time so someone tracked down a traveling minister and asked him to do the funeral service at the house. At that time, everyone had their own cemeteries on the land so the boy became the first one and as it turned out the last to be buried under one of the elms in the pasture. His grave had a wooden cross at the head and with time the cross rotted away. Memory of his death and grave disappeared with time. From this story, I came up with a story I will put in my blog next. The barn had three rooms. The one on the east was the milk parlor. I don't know how the farmer used the middle room, but the room on the east was the chicken house. The hatchery set south of the barn. I suppose the upstairs was the hatching room and the bottom was where the chicks were sold or raised. At one time a young man slept upstairs in the hatchery and took care of the chickens until the hatchery burnt. Kerosene incubators started fires many times, but I don't know if that was the cause. I know in the eighteen years my husband, son, and I lived in the mobile home we put the barn to use with a sheep flock, a goat herd, raising pigs and calves. After 1900, the farmer and his wife were old enough to retire and wanted to move to Keystone to live so one of their son took over the farm. There wasn't an old age pension in those days so the son paid so much a month for farm rent, and that was what the elderly couple lived on. All was going well until the Great Depression came. The prices of all agriculture related production dropped, and making a living was hard. The son sold the cows and laid off the hired hand that had been sleeping in the dining room turned into a bedroom. Lincoln highway/highway 30, a dirt road with foxtail wavering along the sides, was traveled by cars and pickups in the thirties. A gas station had opened up in Belle Plaine. The farmer decided to try his hand at selling gas. He pulled a chicken brooder house up by the road and got Standard Oil to lease a small place the brooder house/station set in front of the house. That might have been the second gas station on highway 30 in Benton County, Iowa. Behind the station beside the house were two cabins, each with a wall in the middle so both side could be rented to travelers. Later those two cabins were turned into chicken houses and moved a little further to the west. The idea for income might have been a good one but still the property taxes needed to be paid. In a few years, the farm was put up for sale to pay the taxes. Someone else paid the taxes and owned the whole farm, and the station may have been turned back into a chicken house. A structure was built for the station back from the highway which was being improved and ditches put in. In 1952, that station burnt, and another station was built a few more feet back from the highway and structure is still there today. Several renters lived in the house for a few years at a time and ran the station. The farm land was rented to other farmers. In the early fifties, the couple who lived in the house held a wedding for their daughter under th the buckeye tree in the front yard. In 1958, my grandparents lived there and operated the station. Plenty of company, many of their nine children and their children, visited my grandparents in that house. In 1962, they were old enough to retire and draw social security so they turned the station and house over to my parents. Dad and Mom eventually bought the acreage and lived there until Dad died in 1999 and Mom died in 2002. Mom was a great cook and knew how to fill the table with food for any occasion. We will always remember the family gathering there. Their grandson, my son, owns the property, and the memories of the good times there will always be in my family.