Doing My 'Home' work

My Mom, after retiring, moved back to live in the house that my grandmother grew up in.

The house has been in the family since it was built in 1839 and when Mom moved in the house she wanted to update a few things.

Growing up I had heard stories of my family that built the house and about life there in the 1800's, but it never really hit 'home' til my Mom began work on the house.

The house had one closet that was original to the house and over the years changes were made such as adding a kitchen to the house and raising the roof on the second story.

If you go in the cellar you can see where they chopped down trees to use as the foundation, the logs still have the bark on them. Also upstairs there are little doors to attic storage areas where you can see the original log cabin style to the house.

The house was built by Thomas Young Greenlee and he is in the picture above standing under one of the oak trees in the front yard. Thomas & his wife had seven children (4 boys & 3 girls)

One story I often heard was about how Union Troops camped on the front lawn during the Civil War and they left behind some of their things when they left.

When Mom was redoing some of the ceiling in the dogtrot downstairs she noticed something

stuck in between the joists in the ceiling & pulled it out.

What she found was the Union sword left behind when Stoneman's Troops camped on the lawn during their raids in the spring of 1865.

In third grade, they learn about the Civil War. I was talking to my oldest son's teacher & told her about how we found the sword from the Civil War hidden in the ceiling at my Mom's house.

The teacher was very excited about our find and asked if I could bring it in for the class to see.

This year my youngest son is in the third grade & his teacher remembers me bringing in the sword a few years back & asked if I could do it again for her class.

I have been going through old photos to bring of Thomas Greenlee & his family, some newspaper articles about the Stoneman Raids and accounts of it from books so I can

tell them the history of the sword & the family who lived then.

It has been a great learning experience for me and when I go up and visit Mom

now it is almost like stepping back in time.