Last night had to be one of the coolest nights ever. Since Jason’s the Tech Director and their looking for some new technology for the school, we decided to head down to Cushing with Rosemary, the librarian for Laneville, for the open house of Cushing’s new primary school. Afterwards she had invited us over for watermelon.

We drove the 10 short minutes to Cushing and fawned over their new school and their fancy technology. While they jib jabbed I took some pictures of the school. Particularly these two:

That’s a big dome in the middle of the school and a part of the floor. Neat, huh?

Later, we drove back to Rosemary’s gorgeous 100+ year old farm house right up the road from us. She took us all around her house and told us countless stories of her greats and great-greats, most of which lived right here in Laneville. Huge wooden chests and wardrobes and rocking chairs were said to be at least 100 years old.

Her (great?) grandmother’s dining set. Jason’s favorite pie safe and a solid wooden chopping block.

As we sat at her table eating watermelon and peach cobbler she read to us a beautiful obituary of a young girl out of an ancestory book her second cousin’s husband had written. Pages and pages of birth announcements and obituaries and marriages filled that book. I’d love to sit and read it cover to cover.

 

But my favorite part of the whole night was standing in her front hallway, or dog trot. I couldn’t stop staring at it and wanting to stand in the middle of it. This picture really doesn’t do it justice.

To the left are her great grandparents rocking chairs and up to the right is a 100 year old wardrobe from when her home was a teacher parsonage.

I was giddy the entire time. I couldn’t stop saying, “Wow. That’s amazing.” Because it truly was. I was speechless. She knew so much about her family and had so much physical proof testifying to her home’s age. Though it’s been remodeled a couple of times the bones are still there professing the beauty that is a simple farm house in our town of  Laneville. It brought reality to my eyes of our small town. Though I’ve only been here not even a year I have come to love this place. Yes, living far away from “civilization” is difficult at times, but it’s nights like these that make me never want to leave.