Needless to say, there aren't many photographs of what the family homestead used to look like. Many of the photos have been lost (and the stories are fading). I thought I would share a couple of photos sent to me by my Aunt Sharon (my dad's younger sister). I had asked her if she had any pictures of the old barn, that I remember from my youngest childhood days. She sent what she could find.
My grandparent's house, photographed from the pasture across the road. The old barn is behind the house, on the left.
A better picture of the old barn (and Aunt Sharon's cat, PeeWee).
4 comments:
That's painful about the burning down of your grandparents' place and losing so much of the history. I didn't know your family was from originally from West Virginia. Where in WV?
I know the post is about lost buildings, but I love the juxtaposition of the one cow's head and the other's behind in the first photo!
Hey Susannah --
Our roots are in Pendleton County, West Virginia. My dad managed to track our family back nine generations, to Roger Dyer, whom we believe was the one who came over from England. William Streit Dyer, my great-great-grandfather, was the one who came to Kansas from West Virginia--in the 1860s, I believe.
As for the cows, even the Dyer livestock doesn't know whether they're coming or going. :)
That's so great that your family is able to trace itself back that far. My mother and her brother have been working for years on their geneology--and can't seem to get past a certain generation.
Hey Susannah --
Some clarifications after a brief conversation with my dad earlier today....
William Streit came west later than the 1860s. He penned a document titled "Rules to Live By" in 1861, which included his intention to buy some land and make a life. That date was stuck in my head. But, as one might imagine, his plans were complicated by a little thing called the Civil War. (There are some intersting stories there.) After the war, when his family lost just about everything in West Virginia, he came west, originally to Illinois, then back east to Georgia, before finally arriving in Kansas. The deed to the "home place" is dated 1881, though his arrival in Kansas was presumably some time before that date.
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