What Makes a House a Home

This is a difficult time of the year for me—always. Only a little more than 3 weeks of school remain (and that’s counting the weekends; without them, maybe just around 18 days or so). These will be the hardest ones. The kids have “checked out” already—and I have motivated students, those who want to go to college and thus who know the ropes already. They know they can’t give up just yet, but it’s hard…so hard!

My daughter Lauren and I have been talking about houses tonight. I’ve said many times lately that if I were by myself right now, I’d opt for a tiny home.

—Well, perhaps not “tiny” as some people think of it, but definitely very, very small…one room, maybe, with a galley-type kitchen and a little bathroom tucked under stairs that led up to a loft where a guest might sleep. One guest; two at the most.

And no lawn, please.

So it was with amusement that Lauren called me out on that and reminded me I’d just been griping about not really having enough room in this house for everybody to get their STUFF spread out properly. I reminded her that my key words were “if I were by myself.”

This has been a topic of great conversation for a year or two, which makes my having the Scales house (ca. 1892) kind of comical.

Scales House, ca. 1892, picture about 1910

I don’t know about all of you, but I remember several “homes” through the years. There was the first place I lived, in Collinsville:

Collinsville, MS Carol Alawine & little sis

Then there was this one:

Marion, MS, Alawine sibs about 1956

This structure in Marion is now owned by my first cousin Malcolm Threatt (the former mayor of Marion); but when I was very little, I lived there. It was the first place I have clear memories of. The core of the house, by the way, is probably antebellum.

Later, there was 14^th Street in Meridian…and, again, I have only Google pictures of that; the building is no longer there. Still later, Collinsville; and—for a year and a half—Madden, Mississippi. I wish I had at least a photo of that house near the Thaggard Hospital, but I don’t, and the house (which was actually the original hospital, many years earlier) is long gone now.

I’ve lived in Starkville three times (it's where I am now) and also the Memphis area for 5 ½ years. So I’ve been “mobile,” as they say, myself.

We like to think we move around more than our ancestors did, but that’s not always true. The Alewines/Alawines came from South Carolina; then they were in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Andrew J. Alawine, my great-grandfather, was in Attala County, Mississippi, around the time of the Civil War; but, afterwards, he lived in Alabama; then the village of Lauderdale, then Pine Springs, and, finally, just over the line in Kemper County.

Bill D. Skinner, my great-great-grandfather on another side, was in Clarke County, then Lauderdale, then Kemper, where his son Roland built this house, which was home for a number of families later on through the years.

"Carpenter Gothic" home built by Roland G. Skinner ca. 1885

Rosa Claughton was born in Dallas County, Alabama, but moved to Lauderdale County, Mississippi, and died in Kemper.

These people were all born after about the 1840’s, and their wanderings spanned only about 50 or 55 years at the most. Consider, if you will, how difficult a move had to have been, when you had to do it in wagons.

[Obviously, there couldn’t have been the amount of STUFF that we think is essential these days. Perhaps that’s why in some of us there’s a really elemental urge to go simple and toss the unnecessary junk.]

Some of our ancestors didn’t move around too much, though. The Tolberts and Culbertsons—once they arrived in Mississippi—stayed pretty much in Neshoba and Kemper Counties, where you may still find a good many of their descendants. Same with the Lukes: They were here since the first half of the 19^th century, pretty much in the same places. Some of the Theads of South Mississippi and Alabama migrated to Lauderdale County, but a good many of them were still in Clarke County and—over the line—Choctaw County for many years.

The family that built my old house in Macon lived there for only 10 years before the head of the household died unexpectedly; then his wife left Noxubee County. Through the years afterwards, a number of families lived there before we arrived. The rooms echo now—not eerily but sadly, as if with the far-distant recollection of footsteps.

Many years ago my younger brother Jack and I roamed around with our father Bob in the woods near Alawine Springs, in Kemper County. Daddy’s health wasn’t good by then, and maybe he just wanted to go back in his mind to see things he recalled from youth. I asked him one time if he envisioned lots of brothers and sisters running around those roads and slopes, laughing, getting water from the spring, and so on. I was Romantically inclined in those days, nostalgic...“naïve” would be a good word. He gave me a fairly sharp look and said, no, he couldn’t; it hadn’t been like that. There had been no woods in those days, just fields, and there was precious little running around, laughing, and playing. —Not that the family hadn’t had enjoyable times; their music gift is well known, and even I—a Johnny-come-lately, sort of—remember gatherings where there was pure enjoyment.

But what I envisioned as “home” wasn’t his memory at all. And what I think of, myself, as “home” doesn’t seem to be what comes to my daughters’ minds, either.

So I’m guessing that our ancestors, traveling around pretty often, some of them, with all their possessions in wagons probably learned to define the word “home” more as “where family is,” as perhaps we all do, in time. Anyway, I’m including here some photos of other old home places. I’ve posted them before, though not all at once. If you have any to share, let me hear from you.

Eliza Culbertson Tolbert...notice side of old house (picture of Wm. Henry at same place, below)

Rosa Claughton Luke, Marion, MS old house, ca. 1955

Same Marion house, Alawines

Probable log home of James Thead from about 1840 (gone now)

Home of John Hamilton Thead, Theadville, MS, photo 1988

Home of Emma Thead Shepherd, photo 1988

Tolbert Home, Neshoba County, about 1920

Wm. Henry Tolbert, looking at camera, Tolbert home about 1920-22

Old Tolbert home, Edinburg, MS