By RONDA GRAFF

Every day, I drive past an old dilapidated house that looks like a stiff breeze could blow it over. Despite some of the hurricane-force winds we’ve had lately, it is still standing albeit with no front door, most windows are broken out and the roof looks likely to keep out only half the rain. 

Most days, the house is just one of the many things I pass alongside the road without a second thought. But occasionally, it catches my eye and I start to wonder the same thing I think about when I see other forgotten, beyond-repair homes:

Who was the last family to live in that house? 

How many birthdays and Christmases were celebrated in the living room? 

Did the final person walking out of the front door know that no one else would ever open that door again? 

How many memories and stories are contained in those four walls that are lost to history?

A house is more than the bricks and mortar, the roof and windows, the boards and drywall. It is a place that provides shelter. It is a place that contains the setting for so many moments throughout a person’s life. It is where people gather to celebrate and to console.

So when I see a house which has fallen into disrepair and has been abandoned, thoughts turn to everything that happened in that home.

Maybe it was erected before electricity was available to everyone and the parents wandered around at night with candles to check on their children. 

Perhaps the house was constructed without plumbing and an outhouse can still be found in the backyard. 

Some of them may have been built before modern HVAC was common so the autumn months were spent collecting firewood to heat the house throughout the winter. And then there were likely hot, humid summer evenings spent sleeping with the windows wide open or even on the front porch.

And speaking of porches, there is nothing more inviting than a porch that spans the entire front of a home. If there is even a portion of the porch still standing on an abandoned house, I can picture grandma and grandpa sitting in their rocking chairs, sipping on iced tea, gazing across the horizon as the sun sets, and telling each other about their day.

Each of these old abandoned houses, which are becoming more and more prevalent in our rural communities, has a story about when it was built, how many families have lived there, or who has come and gone over the years. And unfortunately, many of those stories are being lost as people pass away, move from their hometown or simply don’t share the history of their home.

I am fortunate to live in a house which has a storied history - the Poor Farm for Red Willow County, which served the less fortunate in the early 1900s. It had 11 bedrooms, which each could contain two sets of bunk-beds for four people, so 44 people could live in the house. Over the years, walls have been removed to enlarge some of the bedrooms; plumbing was added for indoor restrooms; and it was reconfigured from communal living into apartments and then into a single-family home as it is today. And I’ve been saying it for the past two decades, but I really want to collect the stories of the house, but more importantly the people who have lived in my century-old house. Some day…

While it is not easy to maintain these old houses, they contain the history of our communities and the people who have lived here. It can be sad to see an old abandoned farm house as you are driving down a country road with so many stories and so many memories that have come to an end, but not every house is salvageable. 

And not everyone wants to live in a century- or decade-old house and eventually when the home’s usefulness or stability comes to an end. 

Thankfully there are new houses being built to address our community’s needs. The housing issue is part of every community discussion and Amanda Engell at the McCook Economic Development Corp. wrote a great column about housing a few months ago to explain how the issue is being addressed so check it out. Hopefully she’ll write an update soon about the progress being made to salvage the old St. Catherine’s Hospital and other new housing projects. 

While it is a bit melancholy to see an old abandoned house, it gives a chance to reflect on the history of our community and the people who came before us. 

And we are blessed to have new houses going up. Soon, these homes will host birthday parties and Christmas celebrations. Babies will come home to their new bedrooms and grandparents will visit their newest grandchild. And these modern houses will soon contain new stories and new memories of their own.