Roots of the "Working House"

As the story goes, I developed my attachment to place quite early. When I was a toddler, my parents bought an all-but-forgotten, late-1700s brick farmhouse. The house and surrounding property were carved out of a larger farm. The house had been “renovated” in the … 50s? 60s? Whenever it was, it was not a good look for this just-after-the-Revolutionary-War house.

At the time, we lived in a rented house around the corner (by in-the-country standards). On weekends, Dad would head off to the house, striving to restore the property to its 18th-century glory. “Where’s Daddy?” I would reportedly ask. “He’s at the working house,” was Mom’s reply. To my one-and-a-half-year-old mind, this was the necessary distinction between the two houses: the house we lived in and the house we worked on.

Toddler Meredith "helps" at the Working House

Oftentimes, Mom and I would join Dad at the working house. Clearly, I was a huge asset to the restoration process (see photo). At this point, I can’t determine whether my memories of this time are original or recreations based on the photographs documenting our efforts. In either case, work continued on the working house and the distinction between the two houses—the one we lived in and the one we worked on—became all-the-more ingrained.

Until one day, when we went to live in the working house. On that first night, according to family lore, I was completely confused about why we were staying at the working house. I wanted to go home. This was not where we lived, this is where we worked!

But slowly, over time, it not only became where we lived, it became integral to my identity. My sense of place is rooted in the “moo-y gate” that made a creaking sound reminiscent of a cow lowing when it was opened. In the “wooden hill” that we would climb to our bedrooms at night. In the limestone outcrops by the spring-fed creek where we would pretend we were forest creatures and serve banquets featuring moss-broccoli and acorn caps.

Now, nearly four decades later, I can’t bear the thought of that house not being our house. And though I don’t live in the working house, it lives in me. My attachment to that place has been etched as indelibly on my being as my height was etched on the kitchen doorjamb.