My grandmother's house isn't the same - how could it be? She is dead and gone these thirty years, but her memories live on. The house she lived in is now owned by someone strange; Aria and Pim, the present owners, showed me around, but still, it isn't the same.
Time marches on and all we have are the memories. Sometimes, I think it is better to let it be - to remember as we wish to remember, rather than trying to go back and see it as it is now. Graffigny-Chemin is a beautiful little village on the edge of the Vosges Mountains. The pace of life is quiet, the way of living hasn't changed much in hundreds of years - villagers farm and raise what they need. The population for years was declining as the young went to the big cities where there was employment. Only recently have new people come to the village, people escaping the clamor of the big city life and people seeking something simpler.
Once my grandmother's family had pasturage to the south of the village and it was sold. Once there were three gables on the roof, now they are no more. The family had their own chickens and horses, but the garden is overgrown. I think it my grandmother would prefer the past to the present.
Was this the house in the postcard? It looks rather like it. Did you get to go in the house at all. I remember granny raised chickens in the house at Chapel Hill until the dogs kept getting too many of them. At one time she might have had 10 dogs who lives in the little sunporch annex off the basement. Do you remember that?
ReplyDeleteThis is only the outbuilding which housed a large stove, and storage. The real house is the largest house in the village.
ReplyDeletethe style of this structure and the style of the front of the housed appear to be Norman. The style is unlike any of the other houses in Graffigny.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever heard of Madame Mim? The village gossip says that a Madam Mim lived in the house. Was she perhaps Granny's sister.
ReplyDeleteThere is an interesting story about her which I will relate later.