Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Damstrom house: by circling round, we find ourselves back at our beginning

Damstrom House seen from the distance.
Another view of the Damstrom house.  I've been calling this the "Damstrom House" because it was the Damstrom family that we saw sitting on the porch.  But having looked at this house from all directions, having circled around it, and examined it closely, I've begun to think I've seen this house before. I believe we've circled all the way back to the beginning of the story I've been telling. We've circled right back to that first picture in the first post, the one of Lillie's grave. Isn't that the same house?  the one in the distance?  there behind Lillie's grave? December 1893, years before the Damstroms came to Olivia.

When I think on it, it seems to me that, like people, houses have lives of their own. They live and grow and change - sometimes just little by little, sometimes by a lot. The people who live in them come and go. And we name those houses by their people, sometimes the first people, sometimes the last, sometimes the ones in the middle.

I like Mr. Cavin's comment on the last post - that maybe the Paulsons liked to take pictures of houses because houses stand still. They don't shift around and make for blurry photographs. But I also think maybe the Paulsons took so many pictures of this house because it was one they maybe lived in or helped build. So they took pictures of it because it was a member of the family. They went back and visited and took pictures to show their mom or their grandmother how the flowers had grown; and maybe how the new folks were treating it right.

One final note: Stewart Brand (in How Buildings Learn) says that houses don't stand still, that they shouldn't. They change with their families.  So here is a link to one last picture of the house. In 1918, my ever favorite book, "Svenskarne i Texas" (Swedes in Texas), included a picture of the home of the Damstroms in Olivia at that time. I can't give you a direct link to the page but look on page #73.  Is this our same house? or has the family moved. If it is the same house, it looks like our house has grown, just a bit. (If you would like to see this book in the original Swedish you can find it in Google Books HERE. This has only the first volume, not the family histories.)


Identifiers:
Negative: Paulson053



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2 comments:

  1. Doug PaulsonOctober 27, 2012 at 4:47 PM

    Bet - on the pictures of homes, I think it was fairly common for the time. Look up the sod busters in OK and NB who took pictures of their sod homes and brought all the furnishings (including pianos) outside to "pose" with the house. guess if they could send a picture back to home, it's kind of look what we have statement, since they had so little when they arrived. However, the "contractor" connection is probably very valid for Paul Paulson.

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  2. Mr. CavinNovember 10, 2012 at 6:57 PM

    This is a great post (sorry it took me so long to see it)! I'm skeptical that the Paulson place from Svenskarne i Texas, and the house pictured above, are the same structure. Sure it's possible, I guess--with the addition of a large new room, just to the right of the front door, that took over part of the porch; and the addition a railed balcony along the top of the house where those weird gutters were before. But it's the fact that the chimney's been moved that gives me pause. Why would they ever move the chimney?

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