Saying Goodbye To An Old Family Home And The Land Around It

489 Mcnaughten Rd. February 2005



The Last Winter, 2004.



As the rocks tumbled down the staircase bathed in flames, the ranking firefighters laughed and cheered each other on. The young cadets sat sprawled in their awkward uniforms across the yard watching the old frame house burn to the ground. Their exercise was over, no longer were they putting the fire out room by room. The flames were free to climb the walls and the beams, and turn the house into a billow of smoke that headed into the cold winter sky.

A small crowd had gathered to watch the old house burn, it was after all, a landmark for many. A beautiful small white farm house and a large board & batten white barn. The house, located on Mcnaughten Rd, 1 Mile between Main St. & Broad St. on the east side of Columbus, was a two up two down center staircase house built around 1850, and had been added on too in the late 1950's with a nice modern addition designed by architect Ted Van Fossen, who studied with Frank Lloyd Wright. (Van Fossen would become famous for his Rush Creek Village in Worthington Ohio.) This was one of four family homes we had on Mcnaughten Road where my grandparents had settled in 1909.


489 Mcnaughten Rd, the road is on the right, highlighted by a white picket fence.



While the house burned I drifted in and out of my own memories of the house, through the flames I could see my aunt, with her ever present smile, wearing an apron, bringing me delicious warm cookies out of the oven, for which the 5 year old me, would promptly and discreetly remove the walnut on top, sticking it in my pocket so that she would think I ate it! or, Christmas day 1964, racing slot cars on my cousin's new Strombecker race track, the coolest toy one could have! The countless days spent after school, playing Pool, Risk, Monopoly, Kick The Can, or Pretending we were in the Beach Boys singing and playing tennis racquet guitars, to their album's Surfing USA & Shut Down.
Within those walls, chapters of our lives were written.

My dad shot a pigeon in this barn in 1932, and took across the street to my grandmother, who cooked it up for dinner. This barn is going to be reconstructed in Gahanna Ohio as part of an Arts Complex.




Smith & Postlewaite Cousins, 1948.











The house was charming, and beautiful, the land it sat upon, was rich in wildlife and history. There were remnants of a path that headed west behind the barn and house. As you walked back through a small, gently rolling hills , you passed a pond, with its cattails, frogs, and dragonflies. Zig - zaging along the southern property line south of the pond were the remains of an old split rail fence from the 1800's. Up a short hill from the pond, the trail led to a gate, upon opening the gate you were suddenly in another world, Huge tall trees, all reaching for the sun, with thick narly vines hanging down. Birds singing loudly, dashing from branch to branch, laying claim to their forest territory. For them there was no other concern. There was little sun in woods. Only tiny rays of sunlight could beam through the tall trees. Wherever the sun was touched the ground, little plants and wild flowers grew, answering the suns call to take root and grow. One summer afternoon, when I was a boy of 10, I took a walk through these woods with my aunt. An avid gardiner, she proceeded to name seemingly every bird, tree and flower we came upon. I was in awe of her knowledge.

As the old path descended and curved into a small soggy valley, where a creek had once flowed from the melting glacier 10.000 years ago, you became completely surrounded by the forrest and it animals, immersed in nature you were in a timeless place. Ascending up the hill from the old creek bed, you entered a stand of ancient Oak trees, probably 150 to 200 years old. These tall trees stood proudly for their age, their thick old branches towering over the land, partially enclosing an old pond bullet by my cousins. Here we would go out in small boats, or have camp outs and picnics.

Along the banks of the pond thick green mosses grew. Daffodils planted by my aunt, grew out of the moss. As a boy I would put my bare feet on the moss and let them sink into the soft moss which was so full of life.

When this land was sold, I went back and revisited the old path. I realized that this was actually a remnant of a road from the 1800's or perhaps earlier, that probably went from Big Walnut Creek to Blacklick Creek where their was a salt lick that the indians used.

For one last time, I took my shoes off, and set my feet on the the thick moss, surounded by the same daffodils that had been there some 60 years, my feet sank into the soft moss. There is no carpet finer than nature's. I walked around the land, took some photos, knowing I would never see any of this land again. I also took photos of the house and barn, knowing someday it might be torn down.

That last winter that the old house and barn were still standing, I walked through them, took photos, knocked the plaster off the walls of the house so I could see the original tree trunk beams held together by wooden pins. I Made a "cold call" to some descendants of the family that built the house, they came out and took photos and talked of names from another time, which echoed through the house and barn, where they once lived.

On that cold sunny February day that the firefighters burned the house. I watched every inch of it wisp away into the sky. As the flames consumed the very last walls of the house, a firefighter, threw another rock up the staircase, as he stepped back, he stopped and read the poem that I had tacked to the house:

I have no voice
My voice is what you see.

However, look through my wavy windows,
Let yourself go
and imagine,
Somehwere around 1854
The carpenters, the families, the wagons, gathered around to build me.

Th family's that lived here: The lamp's, Hanson's, Enlow's, Noe's. Mcnaughten's, Dysart's, Pine's, Raine's, Ware's, Smith's, Postlewaites, and many more.

The countless sunrises over the beautiful gentle valley acrss the street.
Snowy cold winter's, beautiful spring showers, which made my garden's sing with colors and smells.

Hot summers, rich fall colors, the seasons seemed to go on forever.

Birth, death, happiness, sadness, and all that is in between.

I have seen all that is life.

Now my time has come.

When you drive by and see no trace of me,

Remember me for a moment.

For I loved being here on Mcnaughten Rd for the last 150 some years.


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