If these walls could talk

I’ve been thinking a lot about the life cycle of a house.

How one person’s vision becomes a building that shelters generations to come; how the house fills itself with owners who swoon over its layout, great natural light, the neighborhood. Sometimes they stay for just a few years, sometimes for a few decades before it empties again. People are born and die within the walls, they marry and separate, they grieve and they celebrate. They paint and repaint, swap out tile, hem and haw over what to do about that awkward half-wall situation. 

The home—the people who belong to one another—always move on, but the house remains.

Before our house will become our haven, it was someone else’s. In fact, as a rental, many many people have lived within its walls. 

Image from Forsyth County Library

I decided to dig up what I could on the first owner of our house, who built it for his family 120 years ago. Meet George L. Keehln, pictured above as a young boy with his sister, Mary Hortensia Keehln (Brower). George (born 1862) and Mary were the children of the local postmaster of Salem. Their great-grandfather immigrated to America from Germany, and their grandfather was a prominent Moravian physician. The Moravian people are among America’s earliest Protestants, and apparently they were pretty diligent note-takers. Lucky for me, I’ve found some interesting info on George and his family online. Unlucky for me, the local Moravian Archives are closed at the moment, so I can’t dig quite as deep as I’d hoped.

I do know George was raised with at least four other siblings: two of his original six siblings sadly died as babies—one at birth and one around age 1. At some point George married a woman named Arabella Dorothea Manning, but the house is only in George’s name and unfortunately I can’t find much on Arabella (not surprising given the times). In 1892, George started running Salem’s printing press, Crist & Keehln, and I’m guessing he and someone named Crist printed important local documents such as the Farmer’s Almanac, the Town of Salem survey, and the Salem Female Academy catalog.

A printing press circa 1900; Alamy Stock Photos

In 1900, George hired a crew to build our home in the growing neighborhood of Washington Park. Don’t you wonder how that process worked? I’m guessing they went by word-of-mouth references and proof of other homes in the neighborhood. George’s business was successful, he had one 10-year-old son, also named George, and the city was majorly growing thanks to the son of a tobacco farmer named RJ Reynolds and his cigarette business.

Guess how old George was in 1900? 38. 

I’m 38.

I imagine when he bought the land, he stood on that elevated plot overlooking downtown and thought about his literal and metaphorical place in life. The street above his is lined with even larger, more ornately designed homes. And while George’s house is certainly a less-elaborate, farmhouse-style Victorian, I believe it was a source of pride for him.

Andrew and I had the same feeling standing on George’s front porch, atop floor boards in need of sanding behind railing that needs replacing. There’s something about that perspective that just feels gratifying.

I imagine it’s like finally reaching the top branch of a tree after years of climbing.

George’s town of Salem (the Moravians HQ) didn’t officially merge with the town of Winston (tobacco factory HQ) until 1913, the same year that Reynolds introduced Camels, aka the country’s most popular cigarette ever. By the 1920’s, Winston-Salem was actually the largest city between Atlanta and Washington. And although I can’t prove a direct connection between the city’s growth and George’s business, I’d imagine a healthy local economy helps everyone.

Tobacco district in 1920’s; Photo courtesy of Wake Forest Innovation Quarter

In 1922, George sold the rights of the printing press and on December 3, 1926, he died in his rocking chair in front of his fireplace. He was 64. The average life expectancy in 1926 was 55.5 years old, so 64 was certainly considered a long life. Dying in the comfort of your own home at an old age was a gift. It still is.

The more we learn about the past, the more connected we feel to the great experiment that is human life.

We feel a great sense of responsibility to preserve what we can of George and Arabella’s dream home while also ensuring it will live on well beyond our lifetime.