I know that I have a few new followers to the blog so today, I’m going to share the link to this post, which explains my family’s connection to Bacon’s Castle, the oldest datable (1665) brick home, built by the English, in the U.S., located in Surry County, Virginia.
The Historic American Projects Survey (HABS) began in 1933, and is a documentation of historic buildings in the country. The photos, along with information on those buildings, is available at the Library of Congress web-site.
So the photos of Bacon’s Castle on the HABS site were taken during the time (1923-1941) that my mother, her parents and her 11 siblings lived in that house. And although I’ve been familiar with the HABS site since my son, Marshall, introduced me to it many years ago, I don’t recall ever seeing this photo until last week.
The part of the house nearest the camera in this picture was an addition dating to the mid 1800’s. My family didn’t have access to that area. They lived in the original (1665) part of the house to the right in this picture. You can see the locations of the two sets of triple chimneys.
But what caught my eye in this photo is the bike propped beside the house. My mind immediately went to an old family photo, taken there at Bacon’s Castle.
The adult is my Aunt Lucille, the second eldest of the 12 siblings (my mom was the third), and the little girl is my Aunt Sarah. Sarah was my grandparents’ 11th child, born in 1925, in one of the bedrooms there at Bacon’s Castle. The handwriting in the margin of the photo shows that she was 12 when this picture was taken. That puts it well within the time frame for the HABS project.
Am I 100% sure that it’s the same bike in both pictures? Not really, but since I know that most of Sarah’s siblings would have been grown, married and living elsewhere at that point, I’d say there’s a pretty good chance that’s Aunt Sarah’s bike in the HABS photo.
That knowledge (and Aunt Lucille’s heels and socks) definitely makes me smile.
~These Days Of Mine~
these days of mine 