HELLO from your Garden Daddy here at the garden home! This is just too good to be true. This past week, Friday, 02/05/2010, I received a note from someone who had been sent a copy of the newspaper article that was published November 29, 2009, during the LANA Holiday Home Tour about this garden home and your Garden Daddy. It was from the cousin of one of the families who had lived, loved each other and grew up in this home. I was thrilled to say the least. But even with that, there is more...much more! Today, Monday, 02/08/2010, I received a long letter with an old photograph of this garden home from one of the actual children, now much grown and moved on, whose family lived here from about 1939 until the late 1980's. Her letter was filled with information & details I have wondered about and more than that, I felt the love, wisdom and just plain joy and wonderment that came from her life here at this garden home. In fact she told me how she helped her family plant the now 60+ year old Dogwood trees that line my street, now large and giving a canopy of white in late March/early April that mark this block of Division Ave with the grandeur, grace and elegance I have longed for in my home and am reaping the results of this little girls' work and worry. She related to me in the letter how she would dig the dirt around them, bring them water and add her encouragement for growth, when now they are oh so lovely! Look at this photo she sent me!
(THEN & NOW PHOTOS)
This first photo was taken before the yellow siding was added and the house was white and the Dogwoods were in bloom. I was in heaven with this information today. So being the ever inquisitive sleuth, I got her phone number online and called and we had a marvelous conversation, ending with plans to meet and visit when she comes to Tennessee from out of state this summer. I was so thrilled to not only correct some misinformation from the library but to get some explanations about certain "scars" and other structural identities that have been questions in my mind for these past years.
With new friends, new history and knowing in person who has lived in and loved this home, I will go forward with a renewed sense of belonging here even more and to all of you, you may know that your home IS NOT just a roof and walls, but it is a reflection of all you hold dear and have loved and have lost and a MEMORY of that fact you were here. I missed that feeling for many years in the past, even as a child, but in these few short years in MY garden home I have recaptured a sense belonging and owning and sharing something that I know shows pride and joy and love to both give and receive.
In these thoughts with you, I leave you with this garden home affirmation: “Home, the spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest”...Robert Montgomery
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