Daffodils blooming along LeQuire Road in Townsend, TN at the site of
what was once a home.  

Abandoned Houses & Related Prose 
by Guest Author Wade Peebles

Photography and blog entry by Dana Koogler

Thoughts on Houses versus Homes by Wade Peebles

Wednesday March 10, 2021

Photo Gallery of Abandoned Houses here 

   You don't have to read my blog for too long to figure out that I really like history and abandoned places.   I've long been intrigued by the story behind who was there to start with. Where did they go? Why did they leave?  What will become of a place once it stands empty?   I remember my first abandoned house.  It was the Driver homeplace just up from my grandparents house in Barren Ridge.   I'd go hiking with Granddaddy to some of his childhood haunts.  We'd have to walk right past that house which was a sturdy looking, stout place though very weather worn.

I asked him about it and he explained to me that the Driver's kids had grown up and moved out and started their own families.  The elderly couple continued to live there and eventually grew old and passed on.  The house had fallen into disrepair. 

No one was currently interested in living in the house.  I was three or four years old which means it was 52 or 53 years ago that it stood in this condition.  When I was a kid in grade school or middle school someone moved into the area, bought the house, and began fixing it up.  It was fun watching the house come back to life.   It made my heart glad to look across and see the house painted again and activity going on there. I loved these people's son Tommy who was my age. 

We played together and rode horses and explored the woods.  We went swimming.

It was like a happy ending story for me to know the house did not die out.

It is occupied to this day far as I know.   Thus began my fascination which continues to this very day.  I'll probably always like old places.

     Months ago I read a piece of prose by an author, Mr. Wade Peebles of Georgia.

I expressed my admiration for his work and asked him if he'd be interested in allowing me to include it on a piece about abandoned houses in the future? He agreed readily.  He is a very talented man and wrote a piece that is particularly poignant.  It caused me to think about it in a different way.   Some houses are just houses.  Some are true homes and never destined for any other family to occupy them.  It is like putting a period at the end of a sentence when there is nothing left to say.  I thank you, Wade for graciously agreeing to allow your work to be featured.  It is beyond beautiful to me.  It is very thought provoking.   

  I hope anyone reading this will enjoy it as much as I did. 

 CLOSING ON A HOME ..... Some houses are that, houses --and change hands with ease, without regret, and invite strangers to become intimates. There are some houses that are truly homes, and are not meant to become the property of another, like a widow who was loved, lived and ended with that one man, one family, one place, with an end time, for all time.

Those homes are not suited for newer things and people, they were not built for modern life, never destined to be peopled with strange faces, not fated for a face-lift, not made for new fixtures, plumbing, fittings, roof, or the nicer things in the life of a home. When time and our Heavenly Father take the last life from those homes, they are closed, not sealed, just closed, the windows shut, the things cleared away, the keepsakes given to new but familiar hands, the pieces of the lives that abided there are awarded as needed or wanted, handed over to be handed down.

When it is finished, a sad hand turns that old familiar knob, and with profound emotion, pulls the door shut on the many volumes that were written in the minds of those who made that house a home. Those homes live on, often for a long time, all alone, as a testament...grieve not for them, do not cry as they too go slowly to their graves, the grave of the soil beneath their foundation, as they too are mortal ..... wade

by Wade Peebles--

 

Abandoned house in Monroe County, Tennessee on a sunny Saturday.   I caught it when the daffodils were dressing it up. 

Above:  The Alonzo and Clearsa Akins homeplace sits at the top of Barum Creek Falls.  the old Mudhole Community 

Above: The Evans Homeplace in June with all the lovely daylilies in bloom. I added an appropriate Oswald Chambers quote that seemed to fit.  This gorgeous old house is across the road from my friends Sharon McGee and John Ungerer's home.   The neighbors up the road are the descendants of this family! 

Above and below: Old home place of whom Paul Gamble says belonged to Wanda McCarter Bivens once upon a time. A friend of his.  

Below: across the barn I photographed the old barn which logically would belong with this house being right across the road.  

There is a spring house or shed that is consumed by ivy sitting next to the house. I might go try to photograph it someday, but I'd do it when it is bitter cold.  It is a good place for snakes and bees! 

Above: old Dugan Smith homeplace now restored and owned by Kelly Paul and his family!  Alpine, TN

Above: an abandoned house in Cumberland County, TN along the Old Mail Road

I found the Edna St. Vincent Millay verse to be quite apt.  

The Vaughn-Webb house in Reliance appears abandoned and may have been briefly, but is now an air b n b rental!  It is one of those victorian era gingerbread houses!

Above: side view of the Vaughn-Webb house front porch. It is charming in every possible way. 

Above:  front steps of the Vaughn-Webb house. I had the best time photographing this.  I never got close enough before. Once I knew it was ok. I wore it out!

Above: One reason I love old abandoned places is how the flowers planted there persist long after the human inhabitants are gone.  Above is a flower at the Vaughn-Webb house that is an heirloom cultivar.. Phlox paniculata.. "Bright Eyes". one of my grandmother's favorites!

Above:  The Hiwassee River bridge in July 2020.  This is just down the road from the Vaughn-Webb house.  

Above: Officer Farm-- main residence as it stands today.  

(click the link above for the full blog entry about the farm and cemetery and its story)

Monterey, Tennessee.  Private property: visited with the blessing of Mr. Walt Officer who is a descendant who lives nearby.  

    Below is a video of some very old timey music from the movie Songcatcher...

sung by the talented Iris Dement.  She plays Rose Gentry while her fiddle playing husband .. Parley Gentry is played by Muse Watson.. of Harriman, Tennessee. 

I have learned to sing this ballad which is very old and in the drone singing style of ancient times from the Old World. I sing it for my family.  My grandchildren have come to expect it.   It seems appropriate for the tone of this blog entry.  Old ways and old times and remnants of those times that are vanishing.