2958 Friday Family Photo

Isn't this the most magnificent woodwork? It is called "pumpkin pine" and was used throughout my grandparents' home in Franklin Grove, IL. It is the heart wood from old growth white pine, so is extinct, I think. When I was a little girl, it had darkened, or may have even been stained dark, but my mother refinished every square inch in the house in the late 1960s. In fact, because she did it all by hand, she developed carpal tunnel and had surgery on her wrists. At one time there was a huge left over board in the garage--boards that width just don't exist anymore for pine.
My grandparents were lured back to Illinois from Kansas around 1908 with this farm (my interpretation) to help her father, then in his 80s. She was the only survivor of their four children, her oldest brother having recently died of blood poisoning from an injury on his farm near Ashton. The farm house was pieced together from a small house ca. 1850s, and a larger early 1900's style. Grandma completely remodeled it, adding this gracious dining room with a bedroom and balcony above it where she had hanging plants and flowers.

The photo was taken in July 1987 at an impromptu family picnic with a bunch of cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents and siblings from both sides of my family, some meeting for the first time and probably last time. For over a decade, Mother had used the house as a retreat center for church groups and family reunions, but by 1987, my niece was renting it from her and that very happy period of Mom's life was over.

Mother is the little one on the left--all the furniture you see--the oak dining room table and chairs, and the birch kitchen chairs--was refinished and recaned by her in the 1960s. Next to her is my father's cousin Sharon, her daughter Christie, then my sister and me. I think we had about 20 people at the picnic--played badminton, croquet and enjoyed the beautiful scenery, which might just look like soy beans, corn, towering pine trees and acres of blue sky to the rest of you, but looks like home to me.

HT to my niece Amy, who gave me this photo, languishing in the attic of the farm house for years.