Raising Laura

A Victorian Kitchen Revival – Part 3

2011-09-04T14:28:00.000-07:00

Before I begin this post, I’d like to tell you about this antique shop on the corner of Main and Bird in Hannibal. It’s called Hyland Antiques and it’s one of our favorite shopping spots in the Hannibal. It’s also a professional pitcher’s stone’s throw from Laura’s house. How better to furnish the kitchen than with locally acquired items, many similar to what the Hawkins household would have used “back in the day”. Items are salvaged from old homes in the area, and the asking prices are not too hard on the pocketbook either.

The Hyland Antiques on the corner of Main and Bird
(223 Main Street)

Here’s a view of downtown Hannibal
looking north from outside the shop.

Here’s the view looking south on Main.

So what would the kitchen in the Laura Hawkins House have looked like in 1928, the year of her death?

Below is a model kitchen any housewife in 1928 would envy with its compact, yet spacious shelving against the walls (keeping things tidy and out of sight) and of course, modern running water from a sink with legs. It was the Cat’s Meow back then.

A model kitchen circa 1928

Below is a 1922 photo of Laura in front of the Star Theatre on South Main. She’s the model of a woman who’s obviously chosen to retain her Victorian identity. “Hello, it’s the 1920’s!” Like, sure “I’ll embrace the flapper (read: punk) concept of streamlined furnishings and fashions that’s all the rage now-a-days.” NOT!

Let’s peer into period kitchens of America’s restored home and museums between 1860 and 1928. Below is the kitchen in the historic Bingham-Waggoner House in Independence, Missouri. George Bingham was a famous Civil War artist. The kitchen is circa 1860.

Bingham-Waggoner House kitchen

Circa 1870, the kitchen below is from Magnolia Manor in Cairo, Illinois. Very Civil War like in appearance, wouldn’t you say?

This 1890’s kitchen in the Mattapoisett Historical Society Museum in Massachusetts is one I find utterly fascinating.

Here was the idea 1900 kitchen according to the marketing folks from Campbell’s.

The next kitchen, circa 1910, is in the Mahler Museum in Brea, Ohio. It would be an easy one to emulate for the Laura Hawkins House.

With the 1920’s came a more streamlined kitchen. Here is a typical model located in the Hamilton Street House in Washington, D.C.

I could be mistaken, but except for minor details, it doesn’t seem to me that kitchens advanced much in their appearance or utility between 1860 thru 1928.

Flooring for the most part was hard wood with hand-braided rugs or oil cloths, walls were painted, sinks were made of iron as were stoves, and a large work table occupied the center of the room. Walls were covered with shelves and hooks so pots, pans and utensil would be within easy reach. In addition to a pantry, storage of food was supplemented with cupboards, pie safes, and more shelves.

If Americans were to follow a standard list for furnishing a kitchen around 1900, it would be from a list out of The Modern Householder written in 1872 (this book gives an English list, but is similar to what was used in the USA). The list includes the following:

wooden chair
floor canvas
coarse canvas to lay before the fire when cooking
wooden tub for washing glass and china
large earthenware pan for washing plates
small zinc basin for washing hands
2 washing-tubs
clothesline
clotheshorse
yellow bowl for mixing dough
wooden salt box to hang up
small coffee mill
plate rack
knife board
large brown
earthenware pan for bread
small wooden flour kit
3 flat irons
an Italian iron and iron stand
old blanket for ironing on
2 tin candlesticks
snuffers, extinguishers
2 blacking brushes
1 scrubbing brush
1 carpet broom
1 short handled broom
cinder sifter
dustpan
sieve
bucket
patent digester
tea kettle
toasting fork
bread grater
meat chopper
block-tin butter saucepan
colander
3 iron saucepans
1 iron boiling pot
1 fish kettle
1 flour dredger a sifter
1 frying pan
1 hanging gridiron
salt and pepper boxes
rolling pin and pasteboard
pie pans
1 larger tin pan
pair of scales
baking dish

So readers, we have out work cut out for us. Stay tuned for more updates on the Laura Hawkins kitchen.

Meanwhile, I’d like to share a time-honored recipe cooked up by my long-gone relatives in Hannibal. My folks came from Kentucky and the Ozarks before settling in the “big city” of Hannibal around 1900. My grandmother was a cook at the now-restored Mark Twain Hotel for many years between the 1940’s thru the 1960’s. She measured nothing in her recipes, opting instead to throw in a handful of flour here, a couple of shakes of salt and pepper there. She then fried everything with lard in a cast iron pan or in a large pot.

In the Ozarks around the late 1800’s thru much of the 1900’s, many families kept hogs. They allowed them to run wild and forage in the woods. Come winter, they’d come back home where they were butchered. Every part of the hog was used and the fat (lard) was used for frying. Pickled Pigs Feet was one of my favorite meals from this household.

The recipe is very simple - just toss disjointed and cut-up pig’s feet in an iron kettle full of water, cider vinegar, salt, pepper, pickling spices and chopped onions. Cook covered over medium heat for at least an hour. Length of cooking depends on how chewy you like your meat.

I like to doctor my food and will throw in secret ingredients to make this dish more savory. So in goes a bay leaf, a tea bag of mulling spices, garlic, liquid smoke and a couple of dashes of Kitchen Bouquet. I serve the pig’s feet with collards & sliced carrots fried in bacon fat, salt & pepper, onions, red pepper flakes and a secret ingredient that will remain secret (hint: it’s not a spice from this country), buttered jasmine rice, and maybe some back-eyed peas. Viola – a meal that feeds the soul!

A Victorian Kitchen Revival – Part 2

2010-11-20T21:13:00.000-08:00

Totally restoring Laura’s kitchen is such a deliciously satisfying challenge. One can tell a lot about a household from its kitchen. Nesters will often hang their pots and pans on a pot rack, “feminize” the décor, and cook with a crockpot while a freer spirit might experiment with the latest gadgets, install ultramodern décor elements, and cook meals using recipes from exotic cookbooks.

In Laura’s day during the late 19^th century into early 20^th century, this area was always busy and as expected, almost always in the back part of the house away from the grander rooms. Preparing food and cleaning up afterwards made a mess, was hot, had odors and were to be shielded from public view; families would often congregate around the kitchen stove on cold nights. In addition to its main purposes of cooking, eating, cleaning, and food storage, the kitchen might also be a sleeping room for a servant or double as a place to do laundry.

Upon inspection of Laura’s house, the laundry would have been done in the basement or on the back porch adjacent to the kitchen. Use of the back porch in this way would likely have caused the household to protect it from prying eyes with wooden lattice panels, as shown in the photo below.

Not all porches were for lounging and watching the world go by.
Credit: "Victorian Style: Classical Homes of North America"
by Cheri Y. Gay.

In all, the crowded Victorian kitchen was as a testament to all of its various functions.

In our last kitchen post, we gutted the kitchen walls. Since then, those open and newly insulated walls have been covered with drywall and plaster.

Remember this?

Here’s what this area looks like now…

Here’s a view of the corner directly diagonal from this one, before and after…

Before…

And after…

Remember that extended pantry?

It is now almost ready to store containers of canned foods, food tins, etc., as was its intent.

Put in some shelves and a set of moldings and a door,
and we’ll have this nailed.

We are now down to painting the walls, plastering and painting the ceiling, and refinishing the moldings and the wooden floor. Here’s Nick painting the walls adjacent to that pantry.

Not a bad first coat by someone who’s never painted a kitchen wall before…

This color might be a tad too dark. The second coat will be
more like the original wall color which was a chalkboard green.
Nevertheless, we liked the contrast between this color
and the brick wall so much, we intend to keep the brick exposed.

That bathroom adjacent to the kitchen gets the same treatment, only in a rich curry yellow…

Actually, we felt this color was a tad too intense.
Being in this room felt claustrophobic, like being in a
cell purposely painted with crusty mustard in order
to overwhelm its occupant. The next go round will see
this room a lighter, cheerier lemon or butter color.

So the question still begs – what was Nick Kosciuk doing painting our kitchen? We invited Nick to be our artist for two portraits of Laura, one of her as Becky Thatcher and one of her in her mature years when she occupied this house until her death in 1928. We’ve been collecting Nick’s paintings over the years and felt he was the best artist for “Becky Thatcher” which now hangs in the Mark Twain Museum (much more on this in a later post).

Nick and his model Paige Cummins in front of “Becky Thatcher”.

When we invited Nick over for the unveiling of his Becky Thatcher painting last month, we (us two resurrectors, Ron our guy, his son and his nephew) were well into restoring the exterior and interior of the house. The atmosphere was feverish and infectious with enthusiasm, so naturally anyone would want to pitch in, Nick included.

In our next post, we will discuss how we intend to furnish the kitchen. We will show you sample kitchens we're using as our base and we'll even share some old family recipes dating from late 19th century to early 20th century Hannibal.

“You Need to Post to Your Blog!”

2010-11-13T12:31:00.000-08:00

You are correct dear reader. I could tell you about how I am buried in work up to my eyeballs, etc., but I do need to luxuriate in a little downtime and pursue one of our most favorite things to do – work on, document and promote the Laura Hawkins House.

So much has happened to “Laura” since we last posted. Among them are dry-walling all rooms needing it, stripping ineptly chosen wallpaper, painting a few rooms in luscious Victorian colors, scraping and painting the house exterior, launching a Laura look-alike model search, commissioning paintings by Nick Kosciuk (our Becky Thatcher and Laura Hawkins artist), engaging in adventurers with fellow Twain enthusiasts Dave Thomson and Cindy Lovell, donating a painting to the Mark Twain Museum, and being attacked by a huge swarm of wasps. Whew!

These things will unfold in future blogs. First, I want to first tell you about a couple of readers who showed up on our doorsteps asking us to post…

As we worked on Laura’s exterior last month (with our team of Ron et al), Jim and Renee paid a visit to our worksite. Having traveled the country, they greeted us with “You need to post to your blog!” Imagine our surprise as we listened to their story of their travel from Maine and eventually to California, and having decided to veer 100 miles off-course to make a stop in Hannibal.

Jim Buehner, traveler, restorer and boat shop owner.

Renee Dawson, on Campobello Island in New Brunswick, Canada
(across the Lubec Narrows in Maine),
varnishing her and Jim’s boat this month.

We were so happy to learn of having loyal followers, I proceeded to give Jim and Renee the grand tour on the progress on “Laura” as well as the progress on our other house next door.

Being a fellow blogger and restoration enthusiast, Jim directed me to his website showing the restoration of the McCurdy Smokehouse complex in Lubec, Maine...

For more information, access:
http://www.mccurdyssmokehouse.org/

Notice the lovely landscaping? The complex was at one time a herring smoking center in an industry that employed hundreds of men, women and children in its factories back in the 1800’s, with business tapering off as the 20th century matured. In the McCurdy buildings (named for Arthur McCurdy who bought the complex in 1950’s), herring was hung high in the rafters and slowly smoked for 6-7 weeks. The time and care given to these delicacies (once a staple of 18th to19th century plantation culture) boggles one’s mind considering that modern fish processors allot only 1-5 days to cold-smoking herring.

Today, McCurdy’s Herring Smokehouse is an historic site, sharing its heritage of a now-lost traditional fishery industry. Kudos to you Jim and Renee for taking on such an enormous project.

We will highlight the latest developments on Laura’s kitchen in our next post coming your way within a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, check out Laura’s exterior thus far…

No longer the ugly green thing, doesn’t Laura look like a doll’s house
plopped down in the middle of the neighborhood?

Here’s another view looking on the south side…

Using ivory and white colors makes Laura
look as if she's grown in size.

Who’s this guy painting our kitchen????
It’s none other than nationally known artist Nick Kosciuk.
Read our next blog post to find out why he’s painting our kitchen.

A Victorian Kitchen Revival – Part 1

2010-03-14T19:49:00.001-07:00

Have you ever walked into a room and felt transported into something untouched by the erasure of time, imagining the smells and activities that might have taken place there (Déjà vu, if you will)? Sure you have, that is if you have any intuitive sense at all. And if you are involved in restoring an old house, you have a sense of intuition that grows keener with each new, creative activity you employ in your projects.

A few places in Hannibal have done this to me. They include:

The grounds of the Garth Mansion. The entire spread with its virtually undisturbed acreage and an old Victorian mansion painted grey made me feel as if I had walked into a 100-year old postcard. That is, until I accessed the restaurant in the back of the house. The newness of this area will jolt you back to the present.
An attic of an old house on Olive Street where I once lived. All the smells, tools for living, and cast-off literature made this space a virtual 100+ years time capsule.
An old general store at the corner of Center and Main. The dark, smelly and closed-in room with heavily stocked shelves, old stains (blood?) and faint remnants of sawdust on an ancient wooden floor was not for the claustrophobic. The store was converted to something else during the 1970’s.

In all of these properties, I (seamlessly) transcended the present into an alien time staged by props from another era. This sense of transcendence is our goal for a restored Laura Hawkins house, and nowhere am I more excited about staging than in the kitchen. So, back to the restoration of this room…

During the Victorian era, the kitchen was the least regarded room of the house, as far as interior decoration and furnishings go. Preparing food and cleaning up afterwards made a mess. In some of the wealthier homes, extra measures in the architecture were used to separate this room from the more presentable areas of the house. In the case of the Laura Hawkins house, a small hall with an adjacent washroom separated the kitchen from the dining room.

You are looking at the small hallway that leads from the kitchen to the
dining area. A heavy curtain hanging from a doorway likely shielded
the dining area from both the kitchen and the washroom (to your left).

Note the half-hearted attempts at updating the walls and the moldings in the photo above. The plastic bag on the floor of the washroom covers a hole where a toilet once stood - not an original toilet, mind you, but one that would have been installed during the late 1940’s to 1960’s.

Why do I often refer back to the late 1940’s when discussing previous renovations? Based on the extensive (and horrid) remuddling of the house exterior circa 1947 and the look of some of the existing bath fixtures, this was when the house underwent much renovation in an effort to “update” and “be like the neighbors”.

As with most restoration projects, the kitchen is often the most extensive and Laura’s house was no exception. So, we stripped through the layers of additions, bad paint jobs, and mismatched amenities to reveal its bones. Remember this wall?

The North Wall of the kitchen. The doorway on the left leads to the basement,
while the doorway on the right leads to the 2^nd floor of the house.

Here is that wall, gutted…

Here is a view showing the ceiling that has now been insulated…

Note the exposed brick on the west wall and the stove pipe portal in it. Here’s another look at it…

If you look closely, you will see that a brick inserted into the stove pipe portal.

The family likely converted over to a “cleaner” method of

food cooking via a gas or electric stove.

Here is what that wall looked like before its gutting…

Note the plastered circle where the stove pipe portal existed.

Remember the east wall that overlooks the backyard?

This 1960’s style sink cabinet is long gone.

Here is that wall now…

Moving to your left, here is the northeast corner of the kitchen…

At one time this room was a pantry stocked with canned and dry kitchen goods.

A door which had long been removed enclosed this small room.

Here is a glimpse of the extended pantry that was in place before the gutting…

Moving to your right past the sink cabinet, here is the southeast corner of the kitchen with its sole source of heat (other than the stove)…

Here is another view showing some of the insulation installed…

Here’s a closer look at the heat register…

Finally, moving further to your right, here we are in the southwest corner of the kitchen, right back to the small hallway that leads to the washroom and dining room…

In my next post, we will delve into the many activities of a Victorian kitchen with all of its ugly implements and furnishings. We’ll also look at some sample kitchens of the time and I will share with you our plans to take this kitchen back to Laura’s day.

I’ll even share a recipe or two enjoyed by my own Hannibal relatives during the late 1800’s. Yes readers, I have roots in these hills and like the Hawkins family, they were part of the Scotch-Irish set that migrated from Kentucky during the 1800’s and early 1900’s. Hmm, pork, rabbit, fish… and snapping turtle!

Full Circle (A Thirst for Connectiveness - Part II)

2010-01-24T11:15:00.003-08:00

Our friend Don sporting the last of the Becky Thatcher House T-shirts.

In our last post where we attended an open house for the Becky Thatcher house, everyone in attendance was told of what would be in store for the restored structure. Here’s the high-level plan as we understood it:

Restore each room to reflect Becky era activities in accordance to times of the day. The ground floor rooms will be dioramas, each one accentuating morning, midday, and evening activities. The 2^nd floor will be used for classes and other learning activities held or sponsored by the Mark Twain Museum.

These figurines that once belonged to the
Becky Thatcher House went on auction in August 2008.
Here is the link to the auction post:
http://raisinglaura.blogspot.com/2009/09/once-in-lifetime-auction.html.

I’m relieved that the Becky Thatcher House will not be doing exactly the same thing as the Laura Hawkins House. Originally, the first floor of the Becky Thatcher House was a bookstore and the 2^nd floor was a period room for viewing only. The latter is our vision of the Laura Hawkins house with all rooms exhibiting the décor and furnishings related to the Victorian era of Laura’s later years. Included will be the parlor, dining room, bedrooms, kitchen, bathrooms, and even the attic. Eventually, we want to expand use of the house to include Victorian themed art shows. After this, who knows?

This old postcard shows the 2nd floor period room before it was gutted.

Gutted.

After expressing dismay at the lack of photos (published or otherwise) that exist of Laura Hawkins, Henry Sweets, curator of the Mark Twain Museum and emcee of the open house invited us to visit him in his office in the Mark Twain Museum. Eager to see his cache of photos, we accepted and a week later, found ourselves wandering the upper floor office area.

For anyone who hasn’t been to the museum (and I can’t imagine a local not visiting at least once), it is a must see. The original Norman Rockwell paintings illustrating Twain’s book Tom Sawyer are alone worth the price of admission, which is $9.00 for adults, $7.50 for seniors, and $4.00 for children 6-12 years old. A child under 6 years of age gets in free. Admission includes access to 8 different buildings including the childhood homes of Mark Twain and Laura Hawkins (aka Becky Thatcher).

Norman Rockwell paintings in the Mark Twain Museum
(Photographed by Dr. Cindy Lovell, Mark Twain Museum Director)

We were shown the direction to Henry’s office – a corner suite overlooking Main Street. He opened his cache for us and indeed we recognized some of the better known photocopies that exist of Laura. There were a few we were not that familiar with. Here are some of the photos...

This photo has been published in countless publications when it came out in 1925. In this photo, Laura is shown commemorating Mark Twain’s 90^th birthday in 1925 at the Mark Twain Museum. The museum back then and for many years afterwards was housed in Mark Twain’s boyhood home.

Here is the same event, with Mrs. George Mahan. George Mahan was a prominent Hannibal attorney who bought Mark Twain’s boyhood home as a gift to Hannibal...

Here is Laura standing on the porch of a house I believe she occupied for many years on the 500 block of steep Rock Street. More research is needed to confirm this.

Here’s another photo showing Laura standing at a fence, possibly on a farm she lived on in Palmyra. Again, more research is needed.

I recall as a teen seeing a photo once showing Laura tending an antique store in downtown Hannibal. So this is one photo I intend to search out.

As we come closer to our goal to preserve and display the Laura Hawkins House, it is our wish to join hands with the Becky Thatcher House in displaying Laura’s life full circle.

Our next post will show the kitchen of the Laura Hawkins house in its various stages of work. Here are a couple of teaser photos:

This was the sink cabinet - very 1960's - that has since been removed.

EEYEOW! What were they thinking with this color scheme?

A Thirst for Connectiveness - Part I

2009-12-26T07:38:00.000-08:00

NOTE: Laura Hawkins died 81 years ago on this day (December 26, 1928) at 3:15 am in her home. Cause of her death was listed as "senility". For more on her death, click the link to the blog post, "Lady of the House - Part 2":
http://raisinglaura.blogspot.com/2008/09/lady-of-house-part-2.html

Happy Holidays Everybody!

During this spirit-of-giving time of year, many of us review our connectiveness to those we touch in our homes and in our communities. In our camp, we reminisce about all who've made our work on the Laura Hawkins house possible - the Friends of Historic Hannibal (FOHH), Bob Yapp, Ron our fix-it guy, and our neighbors.

As those who follow this blog know, members of Friends of Historic Hannibal (FOHH) (http://www.hannibalhistoricsocieties.org/FOHH.htm) and their friends came out in 2008 to show the world the original face of "Laura" in an event called "The Unveiling". It was a face that, until 1947, brightened the neighborhood when the house was first built over 100 years ago. On a tip from Bob Yapp, a crew from NPR came to Hannibal as part of their broadcast on Missouri, a bellwether state in the 2008 presidential election. The Laura Hawkins house was a lead-in to their story. A very well done piece, here it is ...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96176983

To listen to the piece, click on "Listen to the Story" (All Things Considered) at the top of the webscreen and then click the "download" icon to the left . You will first listen to Richard Garey, Hannibal's Mark Twain impersonator, followed by a short conversation between our guy Ron (with his full Hannibal accent) and myself, and then you will listen to Frank Salter give his voting analysis for the 2008 Presidential candidates.

Frank Salter at the Unveiling of the Laura Hawkins House - October 2007.

For those who don't know Frank Salter (and just about everyone in Hannibal does), Frank is one of Hannibal's key folks in the town's restoration missions. As public relations focal for FOHH and an educator, he's also one of our favorite persons to ask for advice. Frank conducts classes for the Hannibal campus of Moberly Area Community College (MACC) (http://www.macc.edu/) and once conducted an Abatron 101 class, just for us. Abatron BTW, is a liquid wood product used to restore columns, shingles, window frames, etc. It's really amazing stuff that can restore the most decrepit of wood moldings.

Aaahhhh... Was this not worth it?

As the Christmas weekend dwindles down, I'm basking in the glow of the two historical events that were benchmarks in the restoration of Laura's house - the Unveiling and a bookmark in the annals of NPR's archive - the 2008 Presidential election and the part Missouri played in it. I'm so looking forward to 2010 and all it will bring for Laura.

Next blog post - our connectiveness to the Becky Thatcher House, Laura's first home in Hannibal. See a similarity between the two houses built 54 years apart?

Restored gable on the Becky Thatcher house (built 1843).

Revealed gable on the Laura Hawkins house (built 1897).
Frank's wife Donna is peeking through one of the palladium windows.

Upstairs, Downstairs - Plaster & Laths

2009-12-06T12:09:00.000-08:00

A key thing to look for in any house intended for restoration is its foundation. An unsettled foundation (and termite infestation) will result in many problematic projects throughout the house, not the least being the ceiling.

We lucked out with the Laura Hawkins house in this respect. Though the aged plaster had been cracking and disintegrating, exposing the laths and the rafters, the wall moldings and their levels relative to the ceiling remained intact. The foundation of the Laura Hawkins house was very solid with virtually no settling. The destruction of the ceiling was mostly due to water damage, general aging, and vibrations (hammering away at the exterior slurry during the Laura Hawkins unveiling didn’t help).

Me hammering at that blasted, hardened slurry
installed on the side of the house circa 1947.

Here is the blog excerpt on that Unveiling event:

http://raisinglaura.blogspot.com/2009/04/strip-tease.html

I’ve seen less-than-stable houses where the center of the ceiling remained intact, but the sides were inches lower. This forced the owner-restorer to re-level the ceilings with edge supports and cross beams from one end of the ceiling to the other - something best left to a professional.

Our guy Ron had done numerous ceiling replacements while working for one of Hannibal’s major restoration companies. He suggested replacing the ceilings and the laths totally with drywall, and then applying an old-fashioned, hand-laid plaster skim-coat over this.

As a purist, I questioned this method. Didn’t we want to keep the lathwork and reapply plaster over this instead of drywall? In a word, no. This process can be prohibitively time-consuming and expensive. Laths damaged by plaster removal need replacement as these timbers were often made from cheap wood. Applying new plaster to laths is something that should be left to an expert (read: $$$$$$). You may have to remove all the laths anyway if no insulation existed in the ceilings, and it will not exist if your house is over a certain age.

Laths were usually poplar or pine waste and edgings
and often do not sustain plaster removal too well.

But shouldn’t the construction of the ceilings be as authentic as possible, you may ask? I had reservations about this aspect of the restoration, but you know what? After installing it and covering the drywall with plaster, who can tell? Drywall is sturdier and easier to plaster over and insulation did need to be installed after all. I couldn’t imagine reinstalling new laths on all the ceilings. So we went with the drywall option.

A few weeks into the job, my suppressed concerns of using drywall instead of installing new laths were allayed when we visited the Becky Thatcher House during Open House…

The restoration of the Becky Thatcher House exterior thus far.

Henry Sweets, curator of the Mark Twain Museum, greeted a small group of residents and discussed plans for the restored girlhood home of Laura Hawkins aka Becky Thatcher (this in a later post)…

See me in the middle? To the left of the photo is Dr. Cindy Lovell,
new Museum director and to the right is Henry holding court.

The home, built in 1843 (when Laura Hawkins was 8 years old), is 54 years older than the Laura Hawkins home and it showed in the rafters which needed reinforcement…

The added reinforcement not only saves the stressed rafters,
the upper floor area needs to support the parade of students
who will attend Museum classes that will be held on the 2nd floor.

Dr. Cindy Lovell with Becky and Tom.

We asked Henry how the Museum intended to install new ceilings and he said that drywall is a possibility. To our relief, he assured us that this method was acceptable to the standards of those who’d ultimately judge a house on its historical authenticity merits during restoration (like, committees who federally fund historical grants).

So, back to Laura’s final residence…

The rule to restoring a house is to start from the top down. Here is a "before" picture of an upper floor ceiling…

Missing plaster from the 2nd floor ceiling of the
"Master Room" that faces the street.

The culprit: Water in the attic from a leaking roof.

This photo shows the plaster in place…

What? We missed the stuff inbetween? Below are the steps for total ceiling replacement. These were taken at ground level in the living (or library room)…

The plaster is almost totally removed from the ceiling.
The laths appear to be intact, but...

The laths will be removed anyway,

To make way for the insulation,

And the drywall.
The drywall for the ground floor ceiling is slightly thicker
than that used for the 2nd floor ceiling.
This gives a greater noise baffle for the "museum area".

Here is work that was ongoing in the small dining room.

And here are the before and after pictures of the parlor ceiling.

It wouldn't have taken much for this ceiling plaster
to have collasped on the floor.

This is more like it.

See how the moldings have remained level to the original ceiling plane?

We are at a stopping point on the ground floor ceiling. Plaster will be applied after we sand and paint the 2nd floor, reconstruct the 2nd floor bathroom and move in period furniture.

Meanwhile, the Laura Hawkins kitchen is being gutted and removed of its crumbling walls - the subject of a subsequent post.

Next post - a link to the Becky Thatcher house.

THE GARDEN MONSTER AND OTHER HORRORS

2009-11-01T08:31:00.001-08:00

Nothing tells you more bluntly that you have a monster restoration project than two things: a falling ceiling and a neglected, weedy yard. First about the yard…

What the hell are those humans DOING to my yard?

The backyard of Laura’s house is a JUNGLE with nothing but weeds – thick trunked weeds – growing there. It’s survival of the fittest with various weeds muscling and nudging one another for their own turf, so they can continue to grow out of control.

Think I’m kidding? Here’s a typical bi-monthly haul of mowed down weeds – only weeds. No grass grows in this yard.

This bird was overseeing our efforts.

Here’s one of us after wrestling with these critters just a couple of weeks ago.

The Garden Monster

The Garden Monster's claw.

Contrast this with the backyard of our adjoining house, lush and green like a tropical garden.

So we have a yard that is our burden. But it will eventually be our joy as we turn the yard into a lavish garden, one a true Victorian would be proud of.

Next the ceilings…

For any of you restoring a house, don’t you love it when you come upon yet another plaster chunk that dislodged itself from the ceiling?

If it's just the ceiling (often, it is not), be thankful. Deteriorating ceilings are symptoms of bigger roofing problems. Here’s a major example of this when a roof recently collasped in a building just down the street and around the corner from us…

The recently condemned building at 520 Broadway.
(Photo courtesy of Hannibal Courier-Post)

The collasped 2nd and 3rd floors.

(Photo courtesy of Hannibal Courier-Post)

Why, oh why do people allow their buildings to get to this condition? For months, this building was offered free to anyone who would step up and restore it (within an 18-month timeframe). There were no takers and now the City of Hannibal is coughing up over $40K to demolish it.

If you think this folly wrought on Hannibal is done only by neglectful, fund-less locals, I assure you it is not. The deterioration of otherwise desirable and useful properties has also been the domain of out-of-towners who bought their properties at prices unheard of in their native cities.

Often these out-of-towners come from a sunny climate and are virtually ignorant of the effects of extreme cold and stormy weather in the Midwest (Case in point: just last month, Hannibal witnessed its greatest monthly rainfall at a whopping 11-1/2 inches. Normally, October sees a little over 3 inches of rain.) They’ll leave the house unattended during the winter months not understanding that an unweatherized, leaking roof will allow water to infiltrate the house and cause ancient electrical wires to ignite and burn.

This happened to one Californian at the worst possible time of year – a time when Hannibal streets were clad in ice. Add that the street was very narrow and steep, and this owner’s house became a total disaster when fire trucks couldn't make their way up the street to douse the ensuing fire. Owners who get away with a powerful drenching of their hardwood floors are more the norm and are the lucky ones in this case.

No danger of this with the Laura Hawkins house. The first thing we did (and what every new owner should do with an old house) was replace the roof and replace & upgrade all the electricity. Nearly all old houses in Hannibal come with a deteriorated roof and old knob and tube style wiring (often uninsulated and almost always unable to carry large, modern load demands).

So, Laura’s ceiling…

Here’s what it looked like…

Major plaster losses.

Major water stains.

Here’s the work ongoing to replace the ceilings totally. No half-ass, patching jobs for this historic house. The ceilings will be our subject of a subsequent blog post.

In the end, all of the ceilings in Laura's house will be like new.

Certain Cities “Get It”

2009-10-18T14:29:00.000-07:00

We visited Kansas City last month for two of the best reasons to go there during September – the Art Festival in the Country Club Plaza and the American Royal Parade.

One of the things we love about K.C. is that this city “gets it” as far as preserving their heritage. I’m talking about revering and preserving their old buildings. Downtown developers in general loath tearing down anything old and replacing it with new structures. The result is many restored structures recycled to house new businesses and purposes in downtown Kansas City. A prime example of this is K.C.’s Union Station…

This Beaux-Arts station opened in 1914 as the 2nd largest train station in the country.

This grand depot (used in a scene in the movie “Kansas City”, made in 1996), like many others fell into disrepair and required massive restoration if it was to be saved. K.C. stepped up to the plate with stunning results:

The “Lobby”.

95-foot tall restored ceilings...

Harvey House Diner...

This retro-style restaurant serves diner style breakfasts and blue-plate lunch specials.

I wince whenever I think of what Hannibal could have had were civic leaders more mindful of preserving their Union Depot. Here is a photo of that structure. It was demolished in 1953…

The Royal Parade was in its setup stage as we toured K.C.’s Union Station. Here is a shot of it with K.C.’s wonderful old downtown looming in the background.

The American Royal in Kansas City began as a cattle show in 1899. Today, it is an annual 8-week season of barbecue competition, rodeos, livestock shows, equestrian events and agricultural activities benefiting youth and education.

On to the Plaza Art Festival…

A crowd is forming late in the morning. Later, this would become wall-to-wall people.

Within a few minutes of arriving, who did we happen upon? None other than four Hannibalians displaying their unique creations. You’ve likely seen these artists’ works at Fresh Ayers and other venues around Hannibal.

Joachim Knill. Website: http://www.joachimknill.com/

Joachim’s huge photos take you into a fantastic play land where you will ogle, agape in an attempt to glean some meaning from his surrealistic world – a netherworld of towering dolls, creatures and plant life. Joachim uses a huge camera (I believe the largest in the world) that he himself designed.

Janice Ho. Website: http://www.janiceho.com/

Janice designs jewelry – morsels of organic shapes created in gold and silver, depicting miniature compositions of nature and scenic elements. Elegant and contemporary, a piece of Janice’s jewelry is a simple, fun treasure one would give to a close friend or relative.

Michael Cole. Website: http://www.colesnaps.com/

Michael is originally from our neck of the woods – Seattle and Tacoma, Washington. He got his start blowing glass art in the studio of Dale Chihuly, the area’s best-known, living super-artist. Michael’s photos immortalize insects, roads, old cars, tools and standing structure on aged photo stock – images that are icon-like and cause you to recollect similar images from deep within your own memory. To frame his works, Michael borrows from salvaged architectural panels.

Melissa Dominiak.

Melissa paints realistic oils of room interiors. I asked her if she was inspired by the interiors of Hannibal abodes; she said that interiors in general inspire her. In viewing her paintings, I kept telling myself “yes, that brings me back to this place from my past… déjà vu?”.

Melissa and Michael bought the old Douglass Community Center building in Hannibal a few years ago. It is their studio and showplace.

The Studio of Michael Cole & Melissa Dominiak located at 1100 Broadway.

Don’t you just love Kansas City so far? It’s a wonderful place to escape to when we desire a change of scenery from our idyllic Hannibal. Kansas City has it all – a wonderful arts community, many jazz clubs, its own brand of BBQ, a Farmer’s Market, the Country Club Plaza, Westport… the list goes on.

Once back home, we continued rebuilding the Laura Hawkins attic. Here are more goodies that will populate this area of Laura’s house, like this restored trunk from the Civil War era. One of several attic trunks, these will display magazines, textbooks, report cards, and other remnants from Laura’s earlier days…

A hooked rug fashioned during the late 1800’s.

This unique “folk art” hooked rug is actually a product of “poverty. This would have been something handed down from a poorer relative of Laura’s. Hooked rugs were fashioned from remnants of factories that produced machine-made carpets for the rich in the 1800’s. Often the creators of these rugs were women employed by these factories.

Though girls like Laura were taught to embroider and quilt, fashioning these rugs and mats were never part of their curriculum. It was considered a country craft. So off to the attic or other “out of sight, out of mind” area of the house it goes.

This adorable Victorian doll carriage from the late 1800’s would not have been used by Laura during her childhood in the late 1840’s – early 1850’s. It would have been used by a child from the Judge’s household in the late 1800’s. And that’s what an attic is about – a time capsule containing nearly forgotten remnants of a multi-generational past.

The hand-woven rug underneath the buggy will go into the “escape room” in the attic. What’s an escape room? Why, it is a room in the back part of the attic where one might have escaped the rest of the household. It has a great view of the Mississippi and its own door to shut out intrusions.

More treasures abound in our upcoming posts.

We're Getting Noticed

2009-10-10T13:02:00.000-07:00

As I sit in my cozy corner of our Chateau pounding away on my keyboard, I spy that we are getting noticed.

This online publication, Small Town Living, used an excerpt from our blog (with our permission of course) for their October/November issue. Click on their current issue, and scroll to page 42...
http://www.stliving.net/

And this company noticed our restoration efforts and developed house plans based on Laura's house...
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=366191

In the next few weeks, I'll be posting more on the Laura Hawkins attic, the complete ceiling replacements, and our chance meeting with a Hannibal artist foursome at the Country Club Plaza Art Fair in Kansas City last month.

Meanwhile, here are some items that will go into Laura's kitchen which is also being restored to reflect Laura's turn-of-century way of life...

Shown are a grinder, a sausage maker and a primitive rolling pin
hand-carved from a single piece of wood.

An OPULENT Period in Hannibal's History

2009-09-13T11:16:00.000-07:00

I must have been a Victorian in my past life because I love to buy things, lots of beautiful things. I especially love to buy at auction and from auction sites such as eBay. eBay is a godsend availing anyone to a plethora of antiques and art at prices well below what retail or even wholesale markets offer.

So, Laura Hawkins House-Victorian Interior, what should this home look like?

We enthusiasts of the Victorian era know that interiors back then were opulent, to say the least. We know the Victorian era to be a materially extravagant one - a materialism triggered by the industrial revolution.

This revolution brought the means to manufacture goods quicker and cheaper with steam-powered machines. Wealth was being created in this country at an enormous rate (income tax was not yet a concept) and with it came new-found money and more affordable possessions. Hand-made items were replaced by machine-produced ones, and chemical dyes replaced natural pigments for fabrics and paint, making bright, rich colors commonplace. Decoration, which once was the domain of the rich, became available to the masses.

The Duffy-Trowbridge Stove Manufacturing Company
located on the "other side" of the tracks was the
largest stove manufacturing company in the midwest
around the turn of the century.
The factory supported hundreds of Hannibalian
and emcompassed nearly two city blocks.

From top to bottom are the Moulding Room,
the Sample Room and the Mounting Room in the stove factory.

But with the industrial revolution came filth. The massive increase in the number of factories and people migrating to cities in search of work resulted in major environmental and household pollution (and illness). The pollution came in the form of dirty smoke (from burning coal) from chimneys and factories. This smoke would block out light and cover streets and houses. In additon, many of the streets were dirt roads supporting mere planks along its outskirts for pedestrians to walk upon.

This was the Beggs-Goodson Wagon Factory, also located on
the "other side" of the tracks in Hannibal.
This leading Hannibal factory for farm and freight wagons
was established in 1901. The manufacturing center was
producing 3,000 wagons annually by 1905.

In reaction, the Victorians came to view the interiors of their homes as an escape from the filth outside. So, their new wealth was used to furnish interiors to make their homes a beautiful part of their lives. As the Victorian era progressed, interiors became more elaborate with another influencing factor - the rise of the British Empire. The colonization of India, Australia and Africa fueled an interest in oriental rugs, sensuous fabrics, brass accessories and tropical houseplants.

Armed with all this information, choosing interior décor for the Laura Hawkins house had become a fun part of this entire project. So let’s step back to the pre-Victorian era in the 1840’s when Laura was a girl ...

Back then, furnishings were rather plain. They were hand-made treasures passed on to subsequent generations. So, wouldn’t it make sense that the interior of Laura’s house be a combination of earlier family treasures and the Victorian grandeur of Laura’s later years?

Let’s start with the color scheme of the house. The house was built in 1897 and by then rooms (particularly more public rooms like the parlor) used rich jewel tones of blue, red, green and purple. Additionally, walls were adorned with oriental and floral-inspired wallpaper and floors (polished wood, of course) were adorned with richly patterned oriental rugs.

This turn of the century Anatolian carpet from Turkey
will grace the dining room floor of the Laura Hawkins house.

Antique Qom (city of Persia, now Iran) area rug.

To keep the “filthy” environment out of their private home lives (and to retain interior heat), Victorians layered their windows with dark heavy drapes. Ivory lace curtains were used to allow in natural light while keeping outdoor scenes out of view.

Damask Period Drapes...

This period pattern belongs to a set of drapes going into the house.

Accessories used in a Victorian home are what excites me the most. The Victorians surrounded themselves with personal treasures – photos adorned with ornate frames, souvenirs from foreign countries such as polished brass, peacock feathers and tropical plants in oriental urns, and ornate lamps...

Antique banquet parlor lamp.

For dining, Victorians set out the finest (most ostentatious) utensils and sets they could afford. These things were as much for show as for their intended use (in some cases, frivolous).

Antique Reposse Tea Service.

And of course, chandeliers were grand and highly decorative...

This turn of the century chandelier will grace the small dining room.

Victorians loved to collect paintings...

John Brown George painting. John George (1831-1913) was one of

19th-century America's most skilled and popular painters of children.
In some circles, he was dubbed the "Boot Black Raphael".
Victorians relished Renaissance style paintings.

Such was the "gilded age", as Twain so coined it in his novel of the same name and of whom he named a principle character "Laura Hawkins".

In contrast to the glorious public rooms, the less public rooms (kitchen, bathrooms, and bedrooms) were more ascetic with muted, creamy shades, and floors were often painted to match the trim.

We plan to add a feature of display in the Laura Hawkins house - the attic. With few exceptions (Anne Frank attic, for example), attics would not normally be a draw for your historical house enthusiast. Imagine this though ... Laura moved in with her son and family during her final years and wanted (no, demanded) to be surrounded by cherished treasures from her childhood and earlier adulthood. This was agreed to and many of the items were kept in the attic.

This "rustic" collection will populate the attic and not so public areas of the house. This will be the subject of my next post. For now, here are a couple of teasers...

I don't know who this is, but I loved that it is an ancestral portrait,
circa early-to-mid 1800's. This was an estate find from a seller in the
Kentucky-Tennessee area - the area from where Laura's family
migrated to Hannibal around 1840.

Ice skating on the Mississippi was a popular pasttime
in Laura's day. These ice skates made in 1850 would
have been similar to what Laura would have worn.

A Once-In-A-Lifetime Auction

2009-09-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

GASP!!!

I'm finally coming up for air after what seems like an eternity of work. Do you know when you're a work addict? A couple of things will give you away...
-You don't feel like you've been fully constructive with your time if you haven't worked past midnight for several weeks in a row.

-When you have a few moments free, you don't know what to do with yourself.

So there you have it readers, the writer of this blog is a workaholic who is lucky to have an occasional hiatus to pound out Laura's journey in the most nouveau of bites (remember nouveau cuisine from the 80's?).

Construction-wise, the ceilings of the Laura Hawkins house are being replaced totally. The cracks, water stains and large chunks that have been littering the floors demand this. So we're having the ceiling plaster removed and replaced with dry wall and then smooth plastered over, the old-fashioned way. But this is not what this blog post will be about.

I'm switching from posting construction-related stuff for now and treating you to eye-candy. I'm going to show you the furnishings for the innards of this old lady.

First, I'll take you back to last summer when the contents of the Becky Thatcher House were being auctioned off.

The Becky Thatcher House, girlhood home of Laura Hawkins.
The house is located at 211 Hill Street
right across from Mark Twain's boyhood home.

Mark Twain's boyhood home,
located on 208 Hill Street in Hannibal.

The interior of the Becky Thatcher house before the 2008 auction.

In August of 2008, Hannibal was the scene of an auction of the contents of the historic Becky Thatcher house. This was done to make way for a million dollar restoration. Oh, few if any items were original to the house when Laura lived there as a child. Most of the antiques were staging props used to make the house look like it might have back in the mid-1800's (Laura's day).

Nevertheless, Becky Thatcher house items are a real draw for us history buffs and folks wanting to restore a similar house.

The widely-advertised auction held at Hannibal's Quality Inn drew a crowd of locals and out-of-towners alike. I noticed a few familiar faces, such as Henry Sweets (curator of the Mark Twain Museum), Wesley Knapp (new Director of Downtown Development), Barbara Errako Taylor (local artist and author), Candace Klemann (President of the Hannibal Arts Council), other civic leaders and some merchants who would later resell their winnings.

Members of the crowd position themselves.

One fun part of course is the pre-auction perusal.

Even these props were being sold.
This Becky Thatcher mannequin has a very mid-century
(20th, not 19th) look about it. I'm so glad it's out of that house.

That goes double for this prop, supposedly Becky's mother.

This adorable hand-carved baby bed went for a mere $235.
I passed on it opting instead for items representing
Laura's later years as a child and woman in Hannibal.

The auction begins...

I'm a regular at auctions, and when I want something badly, I will keep my head down and continue raising my arm to display my assigned number. Other bidders realize I will get that item no matter what. Sitting in the back of the room and jumping in just as everyone thinks the bidding war is over is also great tactic for throwing off the competition.

Of the two things I bid on and got, this is one of them - a hand-carved youth bed from the early 1800's. Laura Hawkins would have slept in something similar as a child. I won it for $230.

See the rocking chair on the left?
This is a hand-carved rush seat rocking chair circa 1835.
This too will go into the Laura Hawkins house.

Here is the other item - a pier mirror, circa 1875. I got it for $400.

Here's the glorious crown on that pier mirror.

Items went for amazing prices with folks "stealing" deals left and right. In looking back, I wish I'd have bid on more items, but you know what? These are props, albeit nice antique props, and we all know where the best deals for these are.

That's right, good ol' eBay.

For my next post (and I promise it will come very shortly), I'll show you some of the furnishings going into the Laura Hawkins house, compliments of this very popular auction site.

So long for now...

Amish folks are regular visitors and this group visited our town
during the auction, right after the flood of 2008 subsided.
Here they are riding the Hannibal horse-powered "trolley".
In the background is the Mark Twain Hotel
(now a restored subsidized apartment for seniors)
with the open lot about to be infilled by a new theatre.

See the sandbags on the levee in the above photo? The flood had subsided from its peak in June 2008 and the levee gates were left open.

For your entertainment, here's a video by Richard Boggs that I discovered on U-Tube about the flood in Hannibal during this period. The haunting background song is "When the Levee Breaks" performed by A Perfect Circle:

http://vimeo.com/1298431

No Longer That Haunted House on 5th Street

2009-06-06T10:30:00.001-07:00

Now that Laura’s house no longer looks like the “Haunted House on 5th Street”, we’re at a stopping point and wondering what to do about a porch. I’ve scoured the library and other resources, and learned that photos of the house during Laura’s day are virtually non-existent.

I sent out a call to Steve Chou, a local historian on Hannibal. You may have read two of Steve’s books displaying photos of Hannibal during the late 1800’s and also mid-1900’s. If you haven’t, these are musts for even the most lukewarm of Hannibal buffs:

Hannibal: Bluff City Memories

This book mostly shows photos of Hannibal in its Heydays
(late 1800’s to 1929) when it was a wealthy, bustling town
in a lumber and steamboat economy.
Buy a copy.

Hannibal: The Otis Howell Collection

Otis Howell was a photojournalist with the Hannibal Courier-Post from 1945 to 1980. In this book are shots of buildings, street scenes, and scenes from everyday life in post-war Hannibal. This book should be part of the library of every Hannibalian baby boomer and folks who are interested in the Midwest during the years after WWII up to 1967. Buy a copy.

As a former bonafide local (I went to high school and junior college in this town), I like referring back to the photos of places that continue to exist – and there are many despite the local pastime of demolishing historic structures. This urge to destroy has left gaping lots in much of downtown Hannibal which are now being slowly infilled.

So, a quick e-mail to Steve (easy enough to find through Friends of Historic Hannibal) asking him to delve into his vast collection yielded this response:

"Nora;

I have watched the work progressing on the house and have been very impressed. I am so glad to see Hannibal's historic past preserved.

I have looked through my archives and unfortunately have not come across any photos that would be of any help to you. I am, however, always coming across new material, and will let you know if I find anything of your house. Residences are a lot tougher to find images of; I have quite a few photos of old homes in Hannibal, but the chances of having an image of one specific house is, as you can appreciate, somewhat remote. I thought I might see part of your house in views of the old YMCA, or in panoramic shots, but so far no luck.

You might contact the YMCA - they might have other photos of the old Y which might show your house; it's worth a try.

Good luck, and as I said, I will continue to see what I can find.

Steve Chou"

So, until I can locate old YMCA photos, I’ve decided to search Google images for houses similar to ours. This will be the topic of my next post.

In my research on Victorian porches, and this one in particular, I learned that porches were not necessary built with the house. From my research on the original house plan, the Laura Hawkins house was initially built without a porch.

The same went with our chateau next door. Remember our chateau from previous posts? That porch was not built to the house until two years later. This view is strong evidence of that…

Note how the originally built stone facade
is obscured at the top by the newer porch ceiling.

So our journey now takes us through the annals of historic photos and of course through eBay, a good and major source of 1800’s architectural buys. Stay tuned…

The Saga Continues

2009-06-06T09:35:00.000-07:00

Work continues to progress on the front part of the Laura Hawkins house, and we will let these photos speak for themselves…

As we continue from our last episode...

Remnants of an old planter are getting ready for a haul.

The front door, especially, gets the treatment.

Well Hello Laura. It's so good to see that turret back
where to it was - after being covered for over 70 years.

In the middle of our job, community service calls. Hannibal was fortunate and smart enough to create a new position of "Executive Director of Downtown Hannibal Development". Our new director Wesley Knapp hails from Galveston where he was immensely involved in that town's restoration efforts. Wesley made a call for volunteers to help on a nearby house being rehabbed.

This particular project is part of the HeRo program, a "Dream Initiative project in Hannibal. Backing up here, the "Dream Initiative" is a statewide program that provides selected communities technical & finanancial assistance needed to revitalize their downtowns.

The HeRo program (funded by the Missouri Housing Development Commission) provides funds for an assortment of renovation work for qualified homeowners. For 2008, $119,000 in state dollars were received locally through the HeRo program and allowed work to be undertaken at five homes within Hannibal’s DREAM area. This is one of the houses, which is located a block east of the Laura Hawkins house, on 4th Street.

The crew. That's Wesley in the light green shirt.

The house had already gone through nearly $20K of lead abatement and now volunteers were needed to remove the very dilapidated porch. The porch would be stored as reclaimed wood.

Ron, our guy, examines the porch
for the best way to bring it down.

We'll do this one board at a time.

And thar she goes.

There's no shortage of projects like this needed throughout Hannibal. The town needs so much of this and volunteers who can help make it happen. Back at the ranch...

The priming of the old girl commences.
Remember that burned out part of the turret?
This will receive the board and shingle treatment.

The primer job goes very quickly.

The finishing crew.

It's looking more and more like the original Laura all the time.

Before the shingle restoration & priming,
Laura's home looked like a haunted house.

INTEGRITY

2009-05-24T09:22:00.000-07:00

Forgive us if this post comes across as a sermon. This is Sunday after all, and it is also our way of venting on a particular issue. So, here goes with one of our first commandments of historic property restoration…

When one restores a historical piece of property, one adopts the role of “keeper of culture”. Wittingly or not, this role automatically implants itself in those who step up and subsequently, INTEGRITY becomes the moral dilemma that confronts each task and each phase of a restoration project.

Integrity - NOT! This was an unfortunate eBay purchase.

Bad packing aside, the method of casting iron did not preserve

the build integrity of this stove.

Merriam-Webster defines integrity as the “firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values”; Wikipedia expands on this definition as “a consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations and outcome.

Throughout our work on the Laura Hawkins house, we’ve weeded through much misguided advice and agendas and have become sufficiently schooled on the value of integrity. At the very least, we’ve learned some of what it constitutes and what it does not...

THIS IS INTEGRITY	THIS IS NOT INTEGRITY
Putting the construction of the property back to its initial and intended state. This means the Laura Hawkins house should be removed of later addition asbestos-cement shingles, casted slurry, or aluminum siding. It also should have its dentils or other original features replaced if they were removed to accommodate the above added facades.	Masking or destroying parts of the property to make it something it is not.
Taking the time to understand the methods used in constructing the property and then, empathizing with this during restoration.	Ignoring the time-honored methods used in constructing the property. This means removing an original porch and replacing it with a flimsier, newer one. [There’s a reason why many older homes have lasted as long as they have.]
Reveering interior features and doing everything in your power to retain them.	Converting interior features to accommodate certain lifestyles and in the process obliterate or destroy those things that make the house what it is. This means sawing into door jamb moldings to accommodate glass shelves. This also means tearing out fireplace mantels to sell them to the local second-hand store down the road - Yes, these things actually happened and we will discuss them in a later post. Meanwhile, here are photos of the dastardly fireplace mantel thefts...

Parlor Fireplace.

Fireplace in the adjacent "Green Room".

With that out of the way, we will now proceed to our next adventure in the Laura Hawkins project – the daunting task of restoring the original shingles on the front of the house. First, here is some bad advice we decided to ignore:

-Cover the exterior with aluminum siding. This is not worth commenting on except to advise you to run, not walk, from a contractor who would advise this for a historic home.

-Pressure wash the exterior and then paint it. Bad, bad, bad advice. Pressure washing would deeply embed moisture into the wood and take a very long time to dry. Meanwhile, painting over this treatment would severely reduce the life of a paint treatment.

-Leave the upper shingles alone and paint over this. From ground level, I can see the crackling and flaking of the original paint on the very top shingle on the third floor. Can you imagine what this would look like painted-over?

From our perspective, there’s no “Easy Button” to press when it comes to restoring the shingles. Each shingle must be individually removed of paint and then sanded to accept a new coat of paint. Badly deteriorated or missing shingles need to be replaced with high-quality exterior shingles constructed of the same material – in this case, cedar.

So with a crew of four, we delved into our weeks-long project…

One shingle at a time...

To restore each one of them.

A heat gun and scraper certainly expedites things.

Good 'ol wood putty patches up the holes.

Most of the shingles remained amazingly intact.

Even the window moldings get the treatment.

Wonderful, is it not?

Those 1947 planters on the ends of the porch have to go.
I enjoyed doing this!

The turret area on the north side needed a complete overhaul...

First comes the new braces...

Ron, our man, is up to the task.

And things go uphill from there.
New, high-grade luan is used for replacement shingles.

Voila! Now aren't you glad we got rid of that
obliterating, &@*# planter?

Scaffolding is set up for the upper areas.

Getting out to the top of the scaffolding was easier once
we removed these boards from the Palladium windows...

And then crawled through. Here's me at the top.

The secret to staying up is to not look down.

So far, so good.

Stay tuned to our next post showing our final work on the front of Laura’s house.

The Full Monty

2009-04-23T20:28:00.000-07:00

In this post, I think these photos will speak for themselves...

The Lift Truck is here.

John standing next to his truck.

This is tough to get off.
Our new city comptroller does the honors.

Realtors Talley and Ravenscraft get jiggy with it.

Candace, husband John, Mia and Carrie too.

Isn't this fun?

Me, shoveling the endless debris.

This fellow didn't know he'd be stuck in that lift for awhile.

George: "This has got to give..."

Is that really you, Laura?

Off with that porch!

Laura, unveiled.

All in a day's work.

Bob Yapp conducts a paint removal class afterwards.

This is how you do it right.

The wrecking crew.

Strip Tease

2009-04-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

Ya-ha-ha! I'll bet some of you out there thought I'd dropped off the edge of the earth.

With the workload I wrestled with the past several weeks, I wonder if that wouldn't have been preferable. After many candle-burning nights, the hiring of four new employees, and several impossible deadlines, I'm finally back to posting -- however brief this hiatus will be.

So, I'm going to tease you with mere glimpses of the strip-down the Laura Hawkins house took. Stay tuned, and I'll treat you to the full monty in my next post...

Glimpses of Laura's petticoat...

OMIGOD. Are those palladium windows?
Bob Yapp is doing the honors.

No area went untouched.
Smart, mask-covered volunteers work this side of the house.

That petticoat looks better and better.

And better...

Hmmm... Not so better.
I wonder how close this fire came to doing Laura in.

Easy does it.
This curved glass window is irreplaceable.

Just another day in this sooo ripe-for restoration neighborhood.

Well readers, I've given away too much already. Stay tuned next week for pics on the porch removal and the full monty.

A Modern Barn-Raising – The Plan and A Community

2009-01-04T10:14:00.001-08:00

The concept of barn-raising has all but vanished in our modern society. This event brought together an entire community to assemble a barn for one or more households, particularly in 18th- and 19th-century rural North American. The tradition continues in some Amish and Old Order Mennonite communities.

A barn-raising in a rural area of Ohio, circa 1899.

Our friends, the Talleys, brought up the issue of removing our exterior house tiles at a meeting of the Marion County Historical Society- this in an effort to solicit contractors who could do the work. Almost right away, their newest member, Bob Yapp piped up, “Handle it like a barn-raising. Make it an event, give it lots of press and invite the community in a shared effort!”

Now why hadn’t we thought of this? We’d been so busy looking into contractors (with some hits and some misses) that this concept alluded us altogether. I mean, this is Hannibal – America’s Home Town. The concept of folks helping each other to improve their community is very much alive in Hannibal, with some of the more popular activities being:

- The Loaves and Fishes program which serves hot meals to anyone dropping by a designated church in town.

- A very active Habitat for Humanity program which employs volunteers into building house for those who can't normally afford one, much less rent for one.

- A townwide "Clean Up Hannibal" event where volunteers do just that. Scour Hannibal in search of debris, dumpings and anything else that would hamper the image and beauty of the town.

Apparently, our big-city lives had blinded-sided us to remotely consider the possibility of a community-involved effort. Though similar programs are designed to help those in need, apparently little is done to further neighbor relations in the big city.

You see, back in Seattle we barely knew or spoke to our neighbors even though our neighborhood was fairly dense. Most people were either too busy or too migratory. When neighbors did come forward to greet their neighbors, it was often met with suspicion. In our Seattle neighborhood, neighbors didn’t approach each other unless it is was to request the cutting down of trees, to learn of house-addition plans, or any other thing that might impact their property values.

That’s what it’s all about in Seattle - increasing your property values based on views of a body of water or some other desirable scene. The most valuable homes are located nearly at the water’s edge. Construction of the home is not as important as the view and location in the Emerald City.

This is what we woke up to in Seattle.
City neighborhoods are lush with greenery
which often obscures a lake view.

Yapp, being the go-getter he was, called us right away with plans for a media release and a plan. Obviously, he had been involved in similar pursuits so we were only too happy to let him orchestrate the event.

We were now very excited about the project. We lunched with Robert and Pat at the Brick Oven to go over the anticipated event - and to feel each other out.

BTW, the Brick Oven is one of Hannibal’s newest restaurants. The owners, locals in this town, bought a building in the downtown area that housed a then-defunct art gallery and a salon. The concept consisted of making brick-oven baked, thin crusted, hand-kneaded pizza onsite. The restaurant serves other Italian specialties, and was a much-needed and applauded arrival in the downtown area. Here's the restaurant’s link:

http://www.classicwfl.com/customers/hannibalbrickoven/

We left the restaurant with such goodwill and hope with the Yapps. We are always happy to meet other expatriates like us in Hannibal. And with one of us having attended high school in Hannibal, we also had our old-time friends and acquaintances. Together, this adds so much to our Hannibal living experience. Not surprisingly, our friends and counterparts are mostly located in Hannibal (not Seattle) even though we lived in Seattle for over 20 years.

Bob dispersed a flyer to the media in Hannibal, Quincy and even NPR. Here's the artwork used for the flyer.

The line drawing was done by an artist for an article
on the death of Laura Hawkins in the
Hannibal Courier-Post, December 26, 1928.

So in the tradition of an Amish barn raising or in this case an Unveiling, Hannibalians (particularly those interested in progressing the historical restoration interests in town) were to come out to the party.

Here's the writeup in the Courier-Post the day before:

http://www.hannibal.net/archive/x635410955/Volunteers-to-peel-back-history-on-Laura-Hawkins-House

Next post, the Barn-Raising is accomplished in One Day.

The House Doctor Moves to Hannibal

2008-12-28T07:51:00.001-08:00

Ever have a favorite uncle, one you adored because he was cool and wasn’t like your other uncles who just talked about work all the time and wouldn’t let you make noises at his place? Or worse, didn’t talk to you at all and relegated you and your siblings to the “kid’s table” during holiday feasts? It made you aware of your 2^nd class kid status and you thought this other uncle was WAY boring.

Likely, the favorite uncle was creative and lived a different lifestyle than your other uncles. His house was always full of cool stuff and cool projects he worked on. He threw fun parties and was full of tales.

This is how we’ve come to view our newest neighbor, BobYapp aka the House Doctor. He bought one of the coolest houses in Hannibal and is restoring everything in it the way they used to back in the “olden days” – with care and the intention of making it last a lifetime.

The Doctor makes a house call.

Bob’s even made a school out of his house and is teaching other people how to restore things the right way. The school is called the Belvedere School for Historic Restoration.

The Belvedere School for Historic Restoration,
just around the block from us.

Bob’s wife Pat is cool too and displays nice artwork on the walls of the house. I wish I could see her entire art collection and not just the pieces she shows.

Even their dogs are nice and want to play. They aren’t like other uncles’ dogs who are old and growl and might even bite you.

Gee, am I sounding like a kid gushing about her favorite uncle? I guess I am.

Bob and Pat Yapp and their dogs arrived in Hannibal the earlier part of 2007. Bob is an expert on home restoration, a master carpenter, and a furniture maker. He even had a radio show and a PBS show called “House Doctor” in the late 1990’s, hence his moniker forever after.

http://www.qconline.com/progress98/people/171.htm

Bob and Pat chose Hannibal out of the many towns they scoured looking for a place to settle. Here are some of their reasons:

- Hannibal, with its numerous historic districts is a town that has a good preservation ethic and track record to go with it.

- Their love of the Mississippi River and the culture that surrounds it. Hannibal with its long river history & Mark Twain connection is the quintessential Mississippi river town. The town is also within a couple of car hours within a major city, Saint Louis.

- An affordable lifestyle with reasonable property taxes, low cost of living and affordable historic housing.

- Quality economic development with low unemployment and expanding factories.

- A city manager form of government with a part-time mayor as opposed to the strictly “good ole boy” type of government.

These sound like very good reasons to us for moving to and living in Hannibal.

Next Posts: The “Barn Raising” Plan and Getting Down to Business.

Meanwhile, treat yourself to Bob's book, About Your House published in 1997. This is not just a do-it-yourself book. You'll also be introduced Bob's pioneering philosophy behind restoring older houses and how this is an essential part of the green movement today.

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=m38&_nkw=bob+yapp&_sacat=See-All-Categories

Merry Christmas Everyone!

2008-12-25T09:21:00.000-08:00

Isn't downtown Hannibal beautiful when it snows?

Scaling a Big Green Monster

2008-12-20T11:31:00.000-08:00

When I look at our green-scaled behemoth, I Imagine this chat taking place during the late 1940’s when those scales were installed…

“Holy mackerel, Mr. Spencer, I see that your house got itself torched. That charred area on the turret – lucky that got put out in time. Did your insurance rate go up?”

Evidence of a fire, as seen from the interior of the attic.

Mr. Spencer looks at his house and cringes at the unsightly scorch marring the once-gorgeous turret.

“Have you thought about using this new fire-proof siding everyone’s putting on their houses? It looks pretty spiffy."

Mr. Spencer ponders for a moment and admits to having noticed newer siding being installed on houses about town.

“Your neighbors are putting these asbestos-cement tiles on the sides of their houses and it makes them look brand new,” continued the hawker. “It’s fire-proof, termite-proof AND they even look like wood shingles! Dan up the street installed it on his house and the Simmons a block over did, too. They told me it’s real easy to install.”

Mr. Spencer studied his house as his young neighbor traipsed away. A few steps later, the neighbor stopped and turned to have his final say, "To tell you the truth Mr. Spencer, just knowing another fire could knock off a house just up the street from us gives me the heebie-geebies!”

The late 1940's and 1950's was a time of a huge construction boom, and this one spurred a big demand for asbestos-cement as siding and roofing material.

Typical installation for asbestos-cement siding on a house.
From McCawley's, 1940

Asbestos. The word itself makes me nervous. It’s a hazardous material that can kill and who wants it on their home now?

The EPA banned this material in 1973 after it was determined it caused mesothelioma, lung-cancer, and pnemoconiosi when breathed in. Today, the production and use of the naturally-occuring, silicate fibers have been totally halted.

So what does someone do about a house that’s covered with the stuff?

One alternative voiced by a contractor was to leave it on. The reasoning being, the cement binds the asbestos which, if allowed to remain undisturbed, will not be released into the air where it can be breathed in. According to one misguided piece of contractor advice, aluminum siding can be installed directly onto it. Was he serious?

The other alternative was to take the siding off with precautions not to severely break or pulverize the material, and then dispose of it (tiles and felt lining) in a special lined dumpster. A contractor’s cost for the job? Easily upwards to $10,000 for the whole house.

So the house sat for awhile – a dinosaur with its ominous green scales lying in the yard next to our Chateau...

A big green dinosaur, for now.

Sometimes things happen – almost divine things – when you are searching for an answer to your current dilemmas. As usual, a call to the local preservation society yielded the best results.

Next Post – The House Doctor comes to Hannibal and makes a house call.

What’s the Matter With Illinois?

2008-12-14T08:00:00.000-08:00

Since we haven’t lived in Hannibal for very long and admit to being totally ignorant about Illinois politics, we yearned to understand the politics of this state next door, particularly in light of Blagojevich’s cataclysmic exposure.

From this vintage postcard (1950's), one can see the Illinois state border
on the other side of the Mississippi from Lover's Leap,
a familiar Hannibal landmark.

So we had a former classmate who now lives in Chicago (and has for nearly 30 years) explain it to us. Here’s his put:

“I have always thought Blago as being a slimey person. The Republicans weren't any better as we have George Ryan currently in prison. It's all about greed. Isn't it always?"

"Blago married into the political machine with his wife Patty. Her father, Richard Mell, was a influential Chicago alderman with powerful connections. It's funny that being a Democratic state Illinois has had mostly Republican governors.When the Ryan scandal came to light, it wasn't hard for a Democrat to win."

"When it comes to governors in this state, I have always voted third party. Rich Whitney who is a Green Party member and Cal Skinner who is a moderate Libertarian.We always seem to be able to vote for decent senators here but never good governors. There are always jokes floating around about the corruption that takes place in Illinois politics. I guess Blago was arrogant and stupid enough to think he could overtly flaunt his corruption without any repercussions."

"Our Lt Governor, Patrick Quinn seems like a decent person. He might be stepping in to replace Blago soon. There are all kinds of scenarios of what could happen. Balgo could be impeached, he could resign, he could be forcibally removed as being impaired to carry out his duties as governor or nothing could happen until a trial which could take some time. I personally see him out of office shortly as we have to get a new senator one way or another. If Quinn steps in he could nominate the senator or else we will have a primary election, and then a general election in the next couple of months."

"They estimate this would cost the state anywhere from 50 million to 90 million. Our state is already broke so this wouldn't help. Illinois is pathetic when it comes to spending. It is top heavy with government workers and pension plans. A lot of that has to do with being a political machine. What that means is the power people have friends or family (for whom they make up unnecessary positions) employed by either the counties or the state. Many of these people have six figure jobs with six figure pension plans. It adds up.”

This calls to mind the 2005 book by Thomas Frank, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” Frank has become a well-known author and Wall Street Journal columnist, and is a Kansas-bred populist. In this book, Thomas examines in depth how Kansas, once home to farmers who marched against "money power," is now solidly Republican and hence have ignored their economic interests. It’s fascinating reading for those who not only care about what’s the matter with Kansas, but what’s the matter with America, too. Frank now has a new book out titled, “The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule”. In this book, Frank explores how the cult of market privatization ruined decades of government progress in this country.

All this has us wondering if politics in this country have always contained the seed of corruption, and if this seed has now come to full fruition.

What were things like in Laura’s day?

Lover's Leap in earlier days of Mark Twain's beloved Hannibal.

Photo credits, Mentor Magazine 1924

I delved into my copy of “Mirror of Hannibal” for clues on what was expected of our politicians and how they may have governed. Written by Thomas Bacon, a local Hannibal lawyer, this book was a history and review of the commercial, business and industrial activities in Hannibal around 1905.

My findings could fill several blog posts. In reading the biographical abstracts given of the town’s civic and business leaders, one theme repeated itself over and over again – that of the personal character. Each biography was filled with assessments such as:

“He is a man of integrity, faithful to the trust imposed in him…”

“His business life has been one in which honor and integrity have long been manifest…”

“He has gained the esteem, respect and implicit confidence of the entire community…”

“He… has ever been known for his uprightness and sterling principles of character.”

The eulogies go on and on.

Obviously, our ancestors placed high premium on character, making it as important (if not more) as the businesses or professions they engaged in.

With character assassinations replacing character eulogies these days, it’s very difficult to gauge anyone’s character unless one has dealt with that person personally.

Has mass media actually made this task harder? Even to the point of contorting facts? It does seem that with all of the information we have at our feet, we are in no better position to select our politicians than were our ancestors who received their information through personal contact or word of mouth.

A Final Glimpse of Laura’s Bonnet

2008-12-12T06:57:00.001-08:00

Readers, Here are final closeup views of our roofing job on the Laura Hawkins house.

Here is Laura's new crown.

Here's what it looked like before the roofing job:

Didn't this look like the cone roof of an abode occupied by trolls or fairies as illustrated in children's storybooks? We hated to see this go (NOT!), but we feel the new roofing looks much more professional. The very tip of the cone has been sealed and will eventually be fitted for a cupola...

Moving eastward...

And looking toward the Mississippi...

Remember what it looked like before the job?

Here's the drop that would befall a less-than-watchful roofer:

Here's a closeup shot...

Here's a closeup of the original roof...

Even Laura's garage got the treatment:

Watch for my upcoming post on the “unveiling” of the Laura Hawkins house. This was a community effort that shed the home exterior’s green scales right down to its original clapboard, as built in 1897.

A New Bonnet for the Old Lady – Part II

2008-12-07T09:20:00.000-08:00

The roofing job for the Laura Hawkins house continued on and off weather permitting. Here was the work in progress:

The worksite ...

A few final touches, and ...

Laura's crowing glory in now in place ...

A tourist's view of the job.

The rest of the roof is now in place.

Luckily, no one fell or suffered an injury. The only mishap was the loss of a $400 ladder taken from the worksite overnight. A few months earlier, another contractor had lost an entire slat of shingles on an area job, also in the dead of night. So, it pays to have insurance and it doubly pays to hire only insured contractors for expensive jobs like this. "This was one of the toughest roofing jobs we've had because of the pitch" said Mike. " Glad to have had you on the job, Mike.

Despite the incidents of property theft, help is on the way for our emerging and growing neighborhood. With more folks discovering Hannibal, neighborhood networks that look out for each other have expanded. In only one year alone, our neighborhood saw some forced evictions by the bank and new owners.

Property mishaps (which are generally par for the business) aside, we lucked out in a major way by dodging a freak hailstorm which hit Hannibal the month before our roofing job commenced. The storm created many claims for dented autos and damaged rooves in Hannibal. Our own roofing contractor, Mike turned down roughly 70 roofing jobs in this bonanza for roofing contractors in the area.

Here’s a U-Tube video showing the torrent. This was taken just west of the downtown area:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxDWkqXFjH0

In our neighborhood, a small river of these globules made its way down our street.

With the installation of a new roof, we reached another milestone in the reconstruction of this Victorian home back to its original state and purpose. Like most Victorian homes, it was there to protect a family from the harshness of the world. Strict rules were laid down for this, meaning the house was to be kept neat and clean and to be a place where peace was preserved and order and comfort kept up.

Afternoon tea was a popular pastime in the homes
of proper Victorian women.

19th Century Facebook Foto – Uncanny Resemblance

2008-11-27T11:58:00.000-08:00

Dave Thomson, our Mark Twain expert sent me a daguerreotype image of a little girl who possesses a number of Laura Hawkins' features and hence bears a surprising resemblance to her, were she a child:

This photo was taken around 1850 which would have marked Laura's 13th birthday. Although this girl appears to have been between 9 and 12 years old, it’s easy enough to envision her as being Laura’s sister, maybe even a twin sister.

To see this and other such dagguereotypes, CDV's and early films, click on this blogsite:

http://naztybaby.livejournal.com/

For all of you Mark Twain enthusiasts out there, here is a dagguereotype of the young 15-year old Samuel Clemens taken about the same time as the little "Laura" girl:

Dagguereotype, compliments of Dave Thomson.

19th Century Facebook Foto

2008-11-23T08:02:00.000-08:00

Readers,

I'm postponing Part II of our roofing adventure to show you this photo regression I had done of Laura Hawkins.

Thanks to our Mark Twain expert, Dave Thomson, I learned (embarrassingly enough) that the little girl photo I posted several posts back was not Laura Hawkins, but Olivia Langdon, Mark Twain's wife!

Sooo.... with the derth of photos out there on Laura Hawkins in her younger days, I tapped into the services of an age regression artist. This is the photo I submitted...

Laura Hawkins at age 19

Here's the regressed photo created from the above:

Laura Hawkins at age 12-13

I was surprised with the final product and questioned the skill level of the person who did this regression.

For instance, is the chin shown here really the chin of a child? Shouldn't this have been smoothed out or tightened somewhat? Also, does it appear that the bone structure is a bit overdeveloped?

And the eyes... I believe the eyes should be spaced wider apart. Typically, the eyes of infants and young children appear wider apart due to the ratio of the length of their faces (top of forehead to bottom of chin) to the spacing between eyes. With age, eyes will appear closer together, if only due to increased face height. In my opinion, the close spacing between the eyes appears a bit premature.

The suppleness of the facial flesh in the regression also bothers me. I believe the child Laura should have been treated to a slight facelift around the mouth and jowls. The lips too should look softer and less chiseled. Despite the difficult lives of your typical pre-Victorian child, I wouldn't expect a child to purse her lips so tightly. To me, it's eerily Charlton Heston-like.

The more I look at the photo, the more I wonder if anything was done other than to house Laura's face at age 19 with a new hairdo and clothing. Even the hairdo makes Laura's young face appear overly cropped at the sides. With hair pulled back this tight and plastered against the skull, I'd expect that her eyes not only would be spaced wider apart, but she would have a slightly Asian look as well.

I'm inviting your opinions and then I will engage the expertise of American artist Nick Kosciuk (of whom I'm a great fan and collector). Nick paints heavenly faces of children and teens. Here's a blog post and article about his fairy-like children paintings:
http://dantesheart.blogspot.com/2007/05/nick-kosciuk.html
http://endicottstudio.typepad.com/endicott_redux/2007/09/the-art-of-nick.html

I also intend to search out a second opinion from another age-regression artist.

A New Bonnet for the Old Lady – Part I

2008-11-09T09:28:00.000-08:00

Loyal readers, I’m finally back blogging after weeks of screaming deadlines and the unveiling of the Laura Hawkins house. Unveiling? Watch for future posts on this exciting event. I’m also slowly coming down from this country’s seismic shift in electing Barack Obama; I'm still overwhelmed by this promising gift to our country and the world.

The artifact in question from my last post was an original cupola that capped the cone roof of the Laura Hawkins house. Cupolas are dome structures covering a circular or polygonal roof. These can either be architecturally significant to the house (as lookout perches with windows) or merely ornamental like this metal one, which is more appropriately termed a turret finial.

The cupola, resting on our Chateau floor,
next to our blocked fireplace.

So how original is this cupola or finial? I’m not sure, but I’ll assume it was installed when the house was first built and miraculously saved and installed for subsequent re-roofings. This Victorian cupola is now a decrepit, rusted structure and possibly won’t survive another attempt to install it. It will be relegated to our future museum. Museum, you ask? Museum.

Here's a close up of the Cupola which I hadn't even noticed until the roofing commenced. Wouldn't an architecturally interesting copper cupola with a lightning rod be a nice replacement?

Upon examining the cupola, I wondered why this otherwise mundane artifact would have been installed as a decorative element. Sure it was shiny when new and I suppose its ceramic nodules offered a modicum of decoration. Nevertheless, Victorians did not do decorative elements in a small way. Perhaps the norm of Victorian architecture dictated this to be a standard feature, even if it did not really fulfill its original purpose as an ostentatious showpiece.

It’s Roofing Time…

I poked a couple of members of our local historical preservation society for roofing referrals and received two. Surverying the house later, my spouse was approached by a crew who’d come into the neighborhood to look over a possible demolition job. Our good friends from the Garden House B&B wanted to demolish a later addition to the Munger house they owned. The Munger house (originally owned by William A. Munger) housed the former LaBinnah Social Club for the social elite in Hannibal's heyday around 1900.

The LaBinnah Social Club (Munger House) sits almost directly across the street from the Laura Hawkins house. Note the later addition on the right of the house. This was added during the 1970's to house the then-owner's business, George's Beauty Shop.

Here is a visitor's register from when Mark Twain visited the Club in 1902...

A 1902 newsclip from the Saint Louis Globe-Democrat is attached to this register. It describes Mark Twain's visit to Hannibal and Laura Hawkins, his childhood sweetheart. Kudos and thanks to Dave Thomson for sharing this with me.

The Munger house is currently a restaurant, which after some trials and errors went from being LaBinnah to LaBinnah Bistro. This bistro specializes in grass-fed beefsteaks and cosmopolitan menu fare. More on this later.

“Hey, you looking at a new roof?” cried someone who appeared to be the foreman. My spouse looked at him quizzically, pointed to the roof and replied, “Yes?’ “Well, we’ll come over later to look at it and give you an estimate.” the foreman retorted.

Normally, an interaction like this would bring to mind those unscrupulous fly-by-nights who trick guileless souls into buying a shoddy asphalt job at a hiked-up price. In a small town like Hannibal, this folksy approach is the norm. To protect ourselves, all we had to do was ask a few locals about the person. From this we’d expect to receive a no-holds barred, full-blown report in return. How I wish I’d done this with an earlier contractor.

As it turned out, the foreman was someone I'd gone to high school with back in the 1970’s. Mike Treastor in those days was a seriously hard worker whom teachers hired for summer work. The creation of his business, Mike's Construction, LLC is a local success story, as Mike often has to turn down bids for his services in Hannibal and the Midwest region.

We agreed to a contract for both the house and the garage. Since asphalt shingles had always been used for the house, we opted for this choice again. The architectural shingles we selected (except for the cone section) are expected to last 40-50 years. The contracted work was a bit more pricey than the norm, but this was to be expected considering the dangerous pitch of the roof. "If someone falls from this roof,” explained Mike, “he’ll die!” The work commenced a few months later.

During the hot days of early summer, the workers arrived faithfully around 6am each day and carried out the awesome task…

The roofing commences on this balmy June day.
Photo compliments of the hosts of Garden House B&B and LaBinnah.

Note the awesomely steep roof pitches on this Queen Anne.
Same credits as above.

The roof cone work commenced almost right away.
Photo compliments of Pat Kerns,
our neighbor and area art teacher.

This dumpster became a coffin for rooves past.
Ditto, Garden House credit.

Shocking Revelations

2008-09-28T07:33:00.000-07:00

Understatement…

Laura’s house couldn’t have been less ready to accept the challenges of supporting 21^st century electrical demands. This is an understatement considering this house should have suffered serious damage due to overloaded circuits and a badly placed service box long ago.

Bad Stuff…

One service box was mounted out on the exterior porch wall adjacent to the kitchen.

The fuse panel in the basement gave service of a mere 60 amps – not nearly enough to provide power to three working bathrooms, a full service kitchen, heat and light a 2500+ square foot interior and support computer hardware.

We still had all the knob and tube wiring from the basement to the attic and not enough ground fault interrupters (GFI) to cut power in the case of overloaded circuits. If ever there would be an electrical failure that caused a fire and no GFI was in the circuit, an insurance company would not cover the loss.

So, we decided on these major alterations...

Remove and replace all non-insulated knob & tube wiring in the basement up to the attic.

Add GFI’s in the basement and bathrooms.

Upgrade the fuse panel to 400 amp service.

Move the service panel from the porch to the basement.

In the freezing dead of winter, we approached our good friends, the Talleys and Rick Rose of Rockcliffe Mansion. Both recommended we use John of JM & S Electric. For over 30 years, John had been a popular contractor of choice among locals, businesses and out-of-towners in Hannibal and its surrounding area (all the way down to Saint Louis).

Here were some of the electrical changes John and his crew made. Some of it might look like overkill, but it really wasn't, considering what we had in mind for the house.

The new circuit breaker box in the basement.

Scads of electrical cables in the basement...

John and his crew had to drill through the basement rock wall and other walls, and remove asbestos-cement tiles to install these conduits on the exterior of the house...

Here's a close-up of the conduits. As you can see, we have another restoration project down the road with the original clapboards.

The rewiring job reached all the way up to the attic.

The uppermost room in the attic has a nice view of the
Mississippi River.

Our next project will be the roof. Meanwhile, can you guess what this is?

A Dead Dinosaur in The Yard

2008-09-20T08:40:00.000-07:00

Here's the sugar-coated expectation: We've tasked ourselves with resurrecting a wonderfully historic abode that embodies our fantasies of the Gilded Age.

Here's the reality: We were living with a dead and decaying dinosaur in our yard right next to our Chateau, and it was becoming more decrepit with time.

We were self-congratulatory in buying the house as we prevented the possibility of an undesirable making camp there. The carcass would have been finished off in a matter of a few years. Now a mammoth project awaits.

We hired an inspector to give us a detailed prognosis. Here were some of his findings. Starting with the obvious, here's the roof…

Not only was this roof long neglected, whoever installed it was an amateur at best, a clueless do-it-yourselfer at worst...

Missing flashing!

Granted this was a difficult area to access, the installation of these shingles nevertheless was ghastly.

And of course, the gutters sagged painfully...

Note all the gravel that had accumulated in the already "expired" gutter. The masons at the right were tuckpointing our Chateau at the time of this photo.

One of the most alarming things our inspector found was the state of the electrical wiring. “I wouldn’t spend a night in this house!”, he proclaimed.

Indeed, the electrical wiring was a relic from the Victorian era and it wasn’t about to handle today’s modern electrical demands. Heating, lighting, appliances and computer hardware all going at once would overload the circuits and very possibly cause a fire. Here were the electrical findings...

Overloaded and undersized circuits.

Deteriorated service entrance at the meter.

Unsafe service entrance to the garage in back.

Additional splices in knob and tube wiring.

Electrical cord extension used as permanent wiring.
No comment on the idiot who did this.

Scorched extension cord also used as permanent wiring.
Another idiot undoing of the house.

Other evidence of burns which miraculously did not do the house in...

Burn marks at the furnace.

A charred beam in the attic. Hmmm, it would be interesting to browse the archives of the Courier-Post to find any newsworthy reportings on this.

A leaking roof exacerbates the consequences of electrical load problems...

Water puddle in the attic.

Cracks in the 2nd floor ceiling plaster - very likely the result of water leakage.

Moisture damage at one of the main floor windows.

Leakage below the tub. You are looking at a wooden "doghouse" built to contain the plumbing adjacent to the tub. You can see the edge of this tub in the photo's left - a nightmarish pepto-bismal pink tub born of a bad 1950's designer's dream.

There were water leaks all the way down to the basement.

Piping along one of the walls of the basement.

Dried water stains on floor framing,
in the basement ceiling.

Termite trails in the basement. Evidently, the moist basement created a hospitable environment for the buggers. With a ready meal of barnwood that covered the walls,
this was termite heaven.

Open and filled well in the basement floor.

So, first thing’s first – prevent the house from self-destructing. We had the roof covered in plastic to prevent further leaks...

To get to the roof, a makeshift bridge was created from a beam which spanned the 2nd floor windows of the Chateau
and the house.

The entire roof gets the treatment.

As does the garage roof.

We then employed the services of one of Hannibal’s most respected and long-standing electricians – JM&S Electric. This will be the subject of our next post.

Lady of the House - Part 3

2008-09-13T11:59:00.000-07:00

So, what was Laura Hawkins Frazer like?

Why, Laura was a product of her times…

She was the daughter of Judge Hawkins, a well-respected county judge in Hannibal. Judges have almost always belonged to the upper social stratum of society and hence were required to maintain an appearance of utmost respectability.

Social-economic profiles lacking, this judge most likely associated with the professional elites of the church, civil servants, academy, and commerce. Though this judge was no lumber baron or other member of Hannibal’s economic elite during the mid to late 1800’s, the Hawkins family was respectably upper-middle class.

As a female offspring of this household, Laura Hawkins would have been brought up and groomed to become the wife of a successful man similar to her class or better. This man would have been a doctor or lawyer or someone of considerable wealth.

Could Samuel Clemens, the teen who abandoned school to become a printer have even hoped to become a serious suitor of Laura's?

Laura Hawkins as a girl aka Becky Thatcher.
Photo from Mark Twain Museum Website.

Despite the advantages of an upper or upper-middle class upbringing in pre-Victorian America, a girl definitely had her place - to grow up as a woman living and staying at her home in a subordinate role to her husband. And, history does suggest that Laura Hawkins was your typical upper-middle class Victorian wife and mother. This meant:

She was pious.
During Laura’s lifetime, women were expected to be morally competent and the moral center of the home. It was even a part of a woman’s education to aspire her to “moral greatness”. In marriage and the home, women were charged with providing moral uplift, with the father being the family's moral and religious ruler.

In the latter part of her life after her husband’s death in 1875, Laura moved from Renssalaer to Hannibal and accepted the position of matron of the Home of the Friendless (for orphans). This fit neatly within acceptable societal expectations for moral righteousness and charity.

She was home-centered.
Home and marriage was the career-choice imposed on women in Laura’s day. Even if the woman had acquired advanced education as Laura did, women often saw this effort wasted away. Upper-classed women in particular had no professions available to them, and professions such as teaching and nursing were largely the lot of poor or middle-class women who distinguished themselves academically and henced faced the possibility of life as spinsters.

She endured hardships.
Life was unpleasant (by our standards) in Victorian America even for the well-to-do. For instance, people tolerated incredible filth with coal dust coating every interior surface. Clothing was heavy and dirty, and baths were infrequent. Food was extremely bland even for the elite. And, women rarely questioned their inferior status. It was generally accepted that women were mentally and physically weak, and women themselves seemed to accept this with little questioning.

Laura Hawkins at a 1922 movie premiere
featuring one of Mark Twain's books.
Note the heavy clothing diminutive Laura wore
even after the Victorian era unofficially ended.

Note:
This appears to be the Star Theater in front of which Laura is standing. The Star was very nicely restored a few years ago, bought only one day before it was to be taken down. It currently hosts special events and is a "dinner & movie" venue with a full menu and classic films. The theater is located at 213 South Main in Hannibal, almost directly across the street from the restored Mark Twain Hotel.

She was appropriately demure.
Victorian women were considered to be the fair or gentle sex, particularly upper and upper-middle class women. They were expected to walk quietly through the streets, seeing and hearing nothing that they ought not to. Upon meeting acquaintances, a woman would give a courteous nod and with friends, she gave words of greeting. She was expected to be unobtrusive and never to talk loudly or laugh boisterously. She wasn’t supposed to do anything to attract the attention of the passers-by. She went along in her own quiet, lady-like way and was modest, discreet, kind and obliging.

So, what was Laura's home like?

Laura had two sons. One of her sons, Louis. E. Frazer was to become a lawyer and commissioner and later, judge. It was in his house she would live during the latter part of her life. Hence, the social-economic life of a judge and the social mores of Victorian Hannibal dictated the family’s living structure.

Examples... it was common during this era for more than two generations to occupy one house. Also, Victorians strictly assigned each room in a house a specific purpose with different family members occupying their own areas of the house. Parents and children and servants each occupied separate quarters, hence the requirement for tall houses during this era. Furnishings were often created by hand during Laura's day and were handed down generation to generation. Almost nothing was thrown away hence furnishings generally reflected earlier time periods.

We purchased this youth bed (hand-made circa 1835) from the Becky Thatcher (childhood) house located in Hannibal's historic district. It would have been similar to one Laura Hawkins could have slept in as a child and will be on display in the
Laura Hawkins house.

In upcoming posts, we’ll carefully examine the details of Laura’s domestic life and how the house’s interiors and furnishings will reflect this “Cult of Domesticity” in Victorian America.

In the coming weeks and into winter,
there will be considerable activity at Laura's house.

Lady of the House - Part 2

2008-09-07T21:58:00.000-07:00

In Part 2, I’ll touch on the death of Laura Hawkins in 1928.

Below, Laura Hawkins' death certificate lists cause of death as “Senility”. Senility? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. While growing up, it was not uncommon to be told someone died of “old age”. I suppose we can view Victorian age's “senility” as the grammatical equivalent of “old age” used in the latter part of the 20th century.

In researching certificates of 19^th century deaths, a definite pattern follows…

Infants died of ''convulsions,'' ''fits'' or ''failure to thrive.'' Seniors dropped dead of ''dropsy'' or ''senility'' or simple ''old age.'' People got tired of ploughing fields, or working in sooty factories, or spending their rare free moments in a drafty church with a bad toothache, and died of '' exhaustion.'' Any number of pulmonary disorders were listed as ''tuberculosis'' or ''consumption'' or the dangerously over-consonanted ''phthisis'' (TIE-sis). (Source: New York Times, Article, March 25, 2004)

Based on some of my sources, the funeral of Laura Hawkins began at the house. Many visitors came to pay their last respects before the funeral ended at her current grave in the Rensselaer, next to her husband who preceded her in death over 50 years ago. Incidentally, Laura was often seen wearing the customary black gown expected of widows in her day.

Laura & James Hawkins Tombstone in Big Creek Cemetery in
Rensselaer, Missouri (7 miles north of Hannibal).
Source: Find A Grave Website:

Here is a shot of the cemetery itself...

Source: Find A Grave Website

There is a mystery connected with Laura's casket being on view at home. How did they get it through the front door and into the house? The width of the existing door (approximately 36 inches) could not have accommodated a casket, assuming it had all of its decorative handles and moldings. The front door frame appears to be original, and the foyer area that awaits a visitor is small.

Welcome to 210 North 5th Street.
You are looking from inside the house. The door is standard width.
I'm glad the etched glass house number sign is intact.

I'm sure these entry tiles were not original to the house.

Other entrances into the house – back porch, basement door – are of similar size.

Here's the back of the house.
Note the standard width porch and basement doors.
Can you imagine anything larger than a bathtub being brought in?

Up the porch and to your left is the door to the kitchen
(interior view shown).
I can't imagine maneuvering a casket up the stairs,
through the porch door and then through this door.

I suppose discovering mysteries such as how a casket could be brought into a house with standard sized doors will solve itself during our restoration journey.

In Part 3, I’ll share my interpretations of what Laura Hawkins was like and how we’d like to do the house.

Lady of the House - Part 1

2008-08-31T10:44:00.001-07:00

On December 26, 1928 , the Hannibal Courier-Post featured this headline:

Mrs. Laura Frazer--'Becky Thatcher' of Mark Twain's Stories and Sweetheart of His School Days Here--Dies at Age of 91

The headliner went on to read:

"The "Becky Thatcher" of the world's greatest books of humor and the childhood sweetheart of Mark Twain, their author, Mrs. Laura Frazer, died at 3:15 o'clock this morning at the age of 91 years. Her death came in the home of her son, Judge L. E. Frazer on North Fifth street, less than four blocks from the site of the little private school where she and Sam Clemens attended more than eighty years ago.

Mrs. Frazer was widely know as the inspiration for one of the most lovable characters in Mark Twain's books, little Becky Thatcher, and the famous writer often referred to her as the original."

The sketch above used in the headliner was an artist's drawing
made during the 1920's for a feature story
written earlier in the decade.

While much had been written for the character Becky Thatcher, there is remarkably little written about Laura (Hawkins) Frazer, the person.

Perhaps such could be attributed to Laura's era when women were not considered substantive figures in their communities as much as men were - or perhaps women themselves preferred a more anonymous existence, agreeable to societal expectations of female modesty. But then, this was not the era where all could look forward to receiving their "15 minutes of fame".

Here are some things that are known about Laura Hawkins:
-She was born in 1837 to Elijah and Sophia Hawkins in Georgetown, Kentucky.
-She was only a few years old when her family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, where they lived in a two-story frame house on Hill Street, across from the Clemenses.

The childhood home of Laura Hawkins at Hill Street between
3rd and Main. The house is currently undergoing
massive restoration. Photo courtesy of Wikepedia.

-She attended Van Rensselaer Presbyterial Academy in Rensselaer, Missouri (about 7 miles east of Hannibal).
-In 1859, she married James W. Frazer (1833–1875), a physician, with whom she had two sons - Judge L. E. Frazer of Hannibal and Ben Frazer who settled in Shreveport, LA.

Laura Hawkins in 1856 at age 19.
Courtesy of Mark Twain Museum archives.

- She became the matron of a Hannibal home for orphans and the indigent (Home of the Friendless) in 1895.
- Samuel Clemens visited with her in Hannibal in 1902 and in Redding, Connecticut, in 1908. He had left Hannibal in 1853 and went on to a literary career, portraying Laura Hawkins as Becky Thatcher in Tom Sawyer (1876) and Huckleberry Finn (1884), and used her name for one of the principal characters in The Gilded Age (1873).

---------- * ----------

Bits and pieces of the personal side of Laura Hawkins have been immortalized in long-ago written memoirs and in the memories of the very few left who knew of her.

So, what was Laura like? Much that was original to this house clue us in to her life. Yet much has eroded or disappeared the way others' memories have.

We're grappling with restoring the house to showcase some of Laura's tastes and preferences during the latter part of her life. Any speculations or suggestions, readers?

MRS. LAURA FRAZER (LAURA HAWKINS)-"Becky Thatcher" serving tea in the Mark Twain home, Hannibal, Missouri, November 30, 1915, in memory of the author's birthday - Photo from The Mentor magazine, May 1924

Stupid Contractor Advice

2008-08-23T17:58:00.000-07:00

Most contractors will not be sensitive to your desire to restore a Victorian treasure back to its original glory.

That said, here's some ~~stupid~~ idiotic contractor advice I received concerning restoration of the Laura Hawkins house.

Cover the exterior with aluminum siding.

Ya, ha, ha! Even someone as inexperienced as we were knew what a sacrilege this would be. Aluminum siding? Be real. This house is already suffering the indignity of being sheathed in cement-asbestos tiles installed during the late 1940’s. And you want us to cover the exterior with aluminum siding over this?

Said the contractor, “Locals like aluminum siding and you’ll be more able to sell the house with this installed.” No comment.

Replace all the windows with new brand-new, double-paned ones but first, staple 6 mil plastic over the window exteriors.

Now come on, Mr. Contractor. This house has survived well over 100 years with its windows exposed. It’s not going to matter one whit that we leave the windows alone for awhile longer. Is this one of your “make-work” schemes?

Also, we intend to painstakingly restore and refinish each window frame, particularly the curved glass one on the northwest corner of the house.

This curved window pane has remained intact despite the gradual decay of its frame.

We may replace certain panes, but this will be done judiciously. Any frame replacement will require a clone in its place.

Put on a new roof, but there's no need to remove the existing shingles of which there must be several layers.

There was something so wrong about this advice, I didn’t even want to consider the contractor who gave it. Does he really know what he’s doing? And isn’t it even illegal to leave more than 2 or 3 layers on when re-shingling a roof?

As we were to learn later, the house contained four layers of asphalt shingles. And, each layer was well beyond its intended life.

The current roof had obviously seen better days.

Get rid of the existing radiators and install infrared heaters.

And put these protruding infrareds where? On the wall for the viewing pleasure of our guests? Now really, what could be more fitting to heat the Laura Hawkins house than its handsome and original period radiators?

This curved steam radiator is so unique, and so precious.

This steam radiator sits in front of the living room window on the front of the house. Lovely transom above.

We intend to replace the converted coal-burning boiler in the basement with an efficient boiler. New World (new boiler) will meet Old World (steam radiators) with class.

I'd call this the "Jabba the Hut" of all boilers.

These contractors are idiots, aren’t they?

Our goal is to restore the house as much to its original glory as is possible. If we find areas where improvement can be made without compromising the integrity of the house, we’d definitely consider it.

I think Laura would be pleased, don’t you?

Laura Hawkins with Samuel Clemens in Hannibal, 1903. Photo courtesy of Hannibal Courier-Post archives.

We Got It, We Got It!

2008-08-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

Upon learning of the foreclosed house, our gears began turning. We were filled with excitement about the property next door and we were filled with doubt...

We're already restoring a behemoth, dare we take on another? Yes we can; this is the Laura Hawkin's house - a treasure that could fall in the wrong hands and possibly never be restorable again. Also, a new owner would be our new neighbor. What were the chances we'd have undesirables living next door to us again?

We watched...

Our good neighbor who owned Rockcliffe Mansion scouted the property and nixed its value due to the massive amount of junk still in the house. He gave the bank a lowball offer which was subsequently turned down. Surely this neighbor who had brought life back to Rockcliffe knew what he was doing.

A worker of a contractor we hired scouted the property and got his even lower offer rejected.

A member of the local preservation society made an offer. No bite.

A relative of the not long-deceased owner vied for the property. Nothing.

We observed...

Meanwhile, the bank hired a crew to clean out the house. In about a month and four big dumpsters later, the job was nearly complete; the house was cleansed of all clothing, furniture, books, appliances, and the many bags of garbage that filled the property.

Here were some of the rooms just before cleanup:

This was the porch on the south side of the house. It was used as a dumpster by the former tenants.

This was the bathroom just off from the kitchen. It stank so badly, we eventually gutted the room of all of its fixtures - cabinet and shelves, carpeting, paneling, toilet, and even faux ceiling - a fire hazard constructed of styrofoam.

Incidentally, I'd much rather die in a plane crash than use any of the toilets that existed in this house. Not to worry about us tossing out antiquities. The toilets and bathtub were unfortunate 1940-1950-1960''s attempts at bathroom remodeling - particularly the garish pink tub on the 2nd floor.

This was the main area of the attic and another dumping area, apparently one of several.

Fast forward - this is the west end of the attic cleaned up. If you look carefully, you'll see a little room on the right past the stairs. See the small makeshift door cut from the black plastic? According to some of our experts, this was at one time a greenhouse for a particularly illegal cash crop. Does this solves the mystery of how the former and non-working head of household could eke out an existence for as long as he did?

The east end of the attic. From here, one can view the Mississippi River.

Here's the view of the garage in the backyard from that attic window. This is a photo taken after we purchased the property and sealed the roof before replacing it.

According to the cleanup crew, the former tenants simply threw their Hefty bags of trash down the basement, as they used no garbage service. This went on for about two years and the basement was literally filled with garbage bags. EEWWWW!

We did our homework...

We decided in spite of the rejections we'd look into the vitals of the house and headed for the Marion County Courthouse in Palmyra.

Marion County Courthouse in Palmyra, just 10 miles north of Hannibal. Photo from this website: http://www.flickr.com/

In going through the records in the Recorder of Deeds office, we discovered that the house was bought in 1999 for a mortgage of a mere $46K. Some of this had been paid off, leaving an outstanding mortgage balance in the mid $30K range. Who walks away from a mortgage this low?

We jumped...

With our knowlege, we finally went into action. We called the bank and requested a showing - a very quick perusal which revealed a gutted and tattered home needing everything repaired or replaced. The house's saving grace was its apparent solid foundation, despite being infested with roaches, mice, and termites.

We requested a sealed bid request, which the banker was eager to have us fill out right away. Later that night, we contemplated the previous offers and why even reasonable ones were rejected. We were to learn that the bank was as civic-minded as could be and wanted a serious restorer to take over the property. We knew we'd be up to the task. We had to be.

We got it...

We offered the bank most of the mortgage outstanding, got a counteroffer back and volleyed our counteroffer in return. It was accepted. We got the house for under $30K. Omigosh, what a feeling.

The DO’s and DON’T’s of Successful Small Town Living

2008-08-11T20:22:00.000-07:00

Before I get into the guts of restoring the Laura Hawkins house, some of you may be yearning for a Rockwellian piece of pie and figuring how best to go about it.

If you are contemplating owning your own private Hannibal or whatever town you fancy, here are some things I’ve learned and witnessed and want to pass along to you.

DO:	Bring your (portable) job or business with you.	DON’T:	Arrive in a small town and expect to get a decent-paying job.
DO:	Understand that the scale of economies will dictate that you and you alone will be the manager and funder of your grandiose restoration dream.	DON’T:	Announce grandiose plans to resurrect a local landmark and expect money & support to flow from every conceivable pore in town.
DO:	Keep a low profile for the benefit of naturally suspicious locals.	DON’T:	Flaunt your freakish lifestyle and not expect to get your freak run out of town.
DO:	Keep your house or other assets in your big city until you are 100% sure you want to fly for good.	DON’T:	Abandon your safety net and safe retreat and sell everything you own to live in a small town.
DO:	Understand that there is a bit of “lawlessness” in a small town.	DON’T:	Call the cops everytime your neighbors fight or park the wrong way on your street.
DO:	Conduct yourself outside the house as if everyone is watching – because someone is, and that means everyone will know what you did.	DON’T:	Do something that will cause folks to talk trash about you. If you do, it will be your signature for life – just like "that girl who had an illegitimate kid" 25 years ago. Nobody will forget.
DO:	Accept the S_L_O_W_E_R pace of life.	DON’T:	Expect your neighbor, friend, or contractor to come to your place at your agreed-upon time, pronto.
DO:	Attend social events and get involved, as there can never be enough volunteers.	DON’T:	Be that hermit or mean ol’ man who never talks to anyone.

Get it? Got it? Good.

A Diamond in the Rough

2008-07-27T18:00:00.001-07:00

As construction winded down on the chateau, we noticed some extraordinary activity (or rather lack of) from the house immediately south of us.

Normally, much of this activity had been boisterous - loud rock music, domestic fights at 3am, and kids flooding the front yard and sidewalk day and night. It was not the type of activity one would associate with a resident on Hannibal's Millionaire Row, at least not of late with the influx of newcomers snapping up property to renovate them into B&B's, restaurants, and private offices.

We were to learn that the residents next door were evicted by the local bank down the street for failure to keep up mortgage payments. Could it really be? For two years, officers had been called in the middle of the night to quell disturbances at the house. The disturbances had become more frequent with time as did other things, such as the spreading of yard litter throughout the neighborhood and unfamiliar visitors coming to and going from the house. Could it really be that the neighborhood was finally rid of these incidents?

We were to soon learn that this indeed was the case. Some brief history is in order. The house had been purchased by a retired Californian a few years earlier. The family was a typical nuclear family with a father, mother and two nearly grown offsprings. The offsprings flew the nest, however the father died shortly after (two years ago). The man's son and his family began living in the house and two years later, mortgage payments were defaulted upon. The bank took possession of the property and after a few attempts to evict the family, they were gone.

This house was the final residence of Laura Hawkins, the model for Becky Thatcher in Mark Twain's novel, Tom Sawyer. The house which shows evidence of being at one time a glorious Queen Anne was built two years after our chateau was built in 1895. The untimely death of her husband (Dr. Frazer) left Laura a widow at age 45, and she moved into the house shortly after it was built in 1897 with her son Judge Edward Frazer. Laura Hawkins lived in this house until her death in 1928, at the age of 91.

So, there it was, staring at us in the dead of winter – a diamond in the rough with all the potential one could imagine…

It’s a Buyer’s Market in Hannibal

2008-07-20T08:06:00.000-07:00

Recently, this article appeared in the Hannibal Courier-Post:

http://www.hannibal.net/news_local/x2050100049/Its-a-buyers-market-in-Hannibal-region

These paragraphs jumped out at me:

“The number of units (homes) sold is up almost 6 percent, and the volume has increased 7.5 percent. The average price has risen only 1.5 percent.

John Ravenscraft, the association’s president (The Mark Twain Association of Realtors), gives low interest rates and low regional unemployment much of the credit, but adds an intangible that often isn’t mentioned with such trends.

He said local real estate agents and banks “continue to have a positive attitude” and “continue to work hard” to make sure buyers get what they want.

They’ve also stayed away from sub-prime lending that’s gotten some financial institutions in trouble.”

Upon reading this article, I found myself wishing the writer had added a broader view reflecting a national trend of house-buying toward towns like Hannibal where...

Houses are cheap! Very, very cheap. It’s easy to find decent houses for well below $100K in Hannibal. Prices here would amaze much of the rest of the country. Had folks the inclination to look outside their own cities and towns like we did in our search for a more Rockwellian existence (and in a grand house), it is easy to find a Victorian glory for well below $200K, and even less than $100K, if a fixer-upper were desired.

Additionally, Missouri is one of few states that allows non-Missouri residents access to the state’s tax credits program for restoring historic and historic district houses:

http://dnr.missouri.gov/shpo/TaxCrdts.htm

More on our experiences with this later.

Though we had our Victorian glory well into the restoration process, we decided to make another purchase - a purchase that was a result of the house-buying climate today, where many find themselves in a mortgage mess. That house purchase would be the Laura Hawkins (Becky Thatcher) house, right next door to us.

Exterior Brickwork - Part 3

2008-07-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

Finally, this is what we've been waiting for...

Remember that leaning wall on the southside of the house?

Here is the original southside wall (taken from the previous post):

Here's the new wall on the northside of the house:

Here's the original north wall:

As you can see, the condition of this wall was about the same as the south wall. Entire bricks and chunks of mortar were removable from both walls before they were torn down and reconstructed. See the mismatched cement (or concrete) used in a futile attempt to repair this wall?

Here's the restored north wall viewed from ground level:

Note that the stone edge of this wall is now evident.

Here's a closer view of the north wall at the stone edge:

Here's a closer look at the center of the north wall:

Here's a view of the north wall with the stone base shown:

Here's the edge of the south wall with a new gutter installed:

Here's a closer view of the brickwork:

Here's a view of the entire south wall, at least as much as I could get considering the close proximity of the two houses:

If you were to walk down the small alley on the southside of the house and turn the corner on your left, this is what you'd see:

I love that the exterior brick walls are now structurally sound for another 100 years, yet have retained that "old house" patina. Initially, the masons wanted to clean the bricks to make them look newer. We wouldn't have any of this. Instead, we had them make new bricks installed look just like the patinated, original bricks. Who says newer is better?

You might be wondering why the house next door was built so close to ours. Many of the houses in the latter part of the 1800's were built close together as Hannibal became more urban and population became denser. Also, close neighboring houses took advantage of heat contained within and radiating from brick and stone construction. Folks were concerned with generating and retaining heat, particularly during the harsh winters in this part of the country.

Yet, heating a house in the 1890's was a laborious task. It required the women of the house to start the wood or coal-burning, cast-iron furnace and stove very early in the morning. The heat generated was expected to keep the main floors of the house warm for hours, and even an entire day.

One drawback to the neighborhood design of closely built housing was the potential for exacerbated spreading from a single house fire. Fortunately, this was never to happen in Hannibal's Millionaires Row.

A Pause to Pay Homage to Hannibal's Most Famous Son

2008-07-13T07:46:00.000-07:00

This week, Time magazine devoted its July 14 issue to Mark Twain - Laura Hawkin's friend and childhood sweetheart.

Mark Twain on the cover of Time Magazine. View the articles at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1820166,00.html

This Time issue is well worth reading. It contains homage to a great man, homage that couldn't have been printed in earlier days (particularly concerning his progressive views on race). I've bought several copies of this magazine myself.

And speaking of earlier Twain homages, one of the earliest posthumous ones was published by this magazine in 1924, fourteen years after Twain's death in 1910:

The Mentor, May 1924

The Mentor was a popular literary magazine published in the 1900's up until the Depression years. One could consider it the equivalent of Times today.

One excerpt from this issue of Mentor, titled The Old Home Town features Hannibal, Missouri; it was of particular interest to me. Here are the pages from this excerpt:

Built in 1840, Huck Finn's childhood home was demolished in 1911. A replica of the house commenced construction in 1997 and was completed in 2006 - to a tune of about $300k. This house is now part of the Mark Twain museum tour.

This structure was demolished. Why, oh why do demolishers not see the irreparable damage they do?

Florida, Missouri was Mark Twain's birthplace in 1835.

Other excerpts in this magazine issue include Mark Twain - Boy and Man, Mark Twain as Speech Maker, The Many-Sided Mark Twain, Gleams of Mark Twain Humor, One Love of a Lifetime (Olivia Langdon, his wife) and tributes paid by Joseph Conrad, General Grant, Twain's physician, and Twain's daughter, Clara. I'll share some of these excerpts with you as time goes on.

Incidentally, I've been told Mark Twain once stayed in this "big" house of mine. While I have no documentation to back this up, it certainly is a fact that Twain visited Laura Hawkins (Frazer) at her house in 1902 for a dinner in his honor.

Exterior Brickwork - Part 2

2008-07-13T06:05:00.000-07:00

Work on the exterior brick of the house commenced last winter - the dead of winter, with all the snow and ice storms that plague this area of the country.

After negotiating all the particulars, the job commenced with the building of scaffolds around the north and south sides of the house.

The scaffolding is almost complete on the northside of the house. Fortunately for us, we experienced unusually sunny days for this leg of the job.

Here's the loftier area of the northside.

Scaffold building commences on the southside of the house. Note that the stone edge of the brick wall has now been returned to its original color, after a thorough acid-washing. Notice the difference from my previous post?

Since the upper portions of the brick walls have been free-standing (unattached to the main structure) for the entire life of the house, these areas required the most intensive treatment. Solution: tear down the upper 8-feet portions of both walls and rebuild with original bricks, new bricks, and mortar.

An army crew descended upon the house, working on and off (weather permitting) for two months. In Part III, I will show you the amazingly seamless results.

Exterior Brickwork - Part I

2008-07-12T12:22:00.000-07:00

"VEGETATION ON NORTHSIDE OF HOUSE NEEDS TO BE REMOVED. CAN DAMAGE BRICK AND PROMOTE ROT AND MILDEW GROWTH"

This item on the house inspector's report had now been taken care of. Here's a final look at the entire north wall of the house just before all the vines were removed:

See the dead vines? These were infinitely easier to remove than were the live vines just a few weeks earlier.

Another item was:
"BRICK AT TOP OF SOUTHSIDE WALL ABOVE THE ROOF IS LEANING SEVERELY TOWARD ROOF AND NEEDS IMMEDIATE REPAIR"

Timber?

Here were other troublespots on the exterior:

This was the north wall of the house, accessible at ground level. Note the amateurish and glaring attempt at tuckpointing.

Here's the entire north wall again, sans the vines and ready for a facelift.

Here's an upshot of the south wall. At one time, an attempt was made at tuckpointing. Upon closer inspection, the mortar in many areas was applied merely as a 1/16-inch thinset. This is not nearly enough to rebond a brick to the wall. At least they got the mortar color right.

Here's another view of the south wall. You wouldn't know to look at it, but those are stone inserts on the edge of the brick wall. I doubt they had ever been cleaned, as they should be much closer in color to the adjacent stone.

This indeed was to become the biggest restoration job for the house. Fortunately, we were able to procure the services of a mason from Quincy - one who not only specialized in old houses but boasted expertise passed down generations within the family.

Small Town Gastronomical Survival 101

2008-07-04T17:59:00.000-07:00

Introducing yourself to the local diet is one of the novelties of living in a small town. Dining on hand-breaded tenderloins, huge & tender steaks, maid-rites, and an occasional BBQ are sinful indulgences for someone used to dining on sushi, Vietnamese spring rolls and Pho, and steamed veggies and octopus (for breakfast!).

Standard Hannibal fare is cheap and plentiful. Here’s a sampling:

• Huge platter size tenderloin sandwiches - $4 at the Becky Thatcher Restaurant

• 8-oz prime rib with stuffed potato, salad and eat & peel shrimp - $11 during early-bird hours at Lula Belle’s. Website: http://www.lulabelles.com/

• Two Maid-Rites, onion rings and a root beer - $7.50 at the Mark Twain Family Restaurant (formerly the Mark Twain Dinette). Website: http://www.marktwaindinette.com/

After awhile, the novelty wears off and this former urbanite is swinging-from-the chandelier crazy for her native diet. This happens to all of us transplanted urbanites, so these tips are to be shared with other second-lifers like yourself:

1) The Post Office Is Your Best Friend.
Do your normal dry-goods shopping locally (if on urban soil) or online (eBay, if not) and ship your specialty teas, asian noodles, seaweed, wasabi, and any other such goodies to yourself. Make sure a good neighbor intercepts these things for you, as lonely packages tend to walk off within a day of sitting at your doorstep. Send enough for yourself and your neighbor who no doubt experiences the same withdraw symptoms as you.

Some of my favorite things...

Lavender

Penn Cove Mussels

Specialty Teas

Rishi is absolutely the best tea brand out there. Other great brands are Mighty Leaf and Taylors of Harrogate.

2) Consider Building a Mini Greenhouse or Growing/Drying Your Own Herbs.
I’ve yet to encounter a bulk bin in any Hannibal grocer. I know these things don’t exist ever since the day I frantically left my house in search of dried lavender for my tea. I discovered every grocer in town and upon asking, locals looked at me like the lavender freak I was – I just had to have my fix.

3) Invest in Reusable Ice Packs and a High-Performance Travel Cooler.
If you stay in your midwest small town for extended periods of time, you will crave those perishables which simply don’t exist there (at least not with the quality of freshness you are used to). In my case, this includes salmon steaks, dungeness crab, and octopus. You can usually take these items with you on an airplane with no problem (call and ask the airline if you have reservations about these items’ admittance). If you need to use real dry ice (available at most metropolitan grocers), just label the package or whatever “dry ice”. It is best to freeze perishables for about 3-4 days before your trip. Here's an important tool for toting salmon from Seattle to Hannibal:

Technic Ice. This lasts much longer than dry ice, is reusable, and does not leave a mess. Available on eBay for $3.99.

Oh yes, remember that your neighbors would much appreciate a nicely cooked salmon steak, so make sure you bring enough. You probably could care less about sharing with your neighbor(s) within your metropolitan turf. You likely don't even know them, but things are definitely different in a much smaller town.

4) Learn to Bake If You Love Artisian Bread.

5) Frequent Your Small Town Farmer’s Market Whenever You Get a Chance.
Why is it lettuce in the heartland is served yellow and of no other variety than iceberg? Or worse, hydroponically grown and fossil-fuel trucked to the small town local grocer? I mean, I’m in America’s bread-basket! Farmer’s Market to the rescue… I purchase a variety of the fresh stuff for a mere $2.00 per large baggie. Good news – salad dressing at most grocers will be about 1/2 the price of what you’d pay in a large metropolitan area.

This should be enough to get you started. Do these things before you become known as the wild-eyed, lavender freak in your small town.