The tax man cometh

So there it was. Right across the street from my grandmother's house. A tax auction sign. "This property will be auctioned by the county..."

As much as it is a sign of something gone wrong, it's also an opportunity. Depending on who sees the opportunity, things can evolve into yet another something that goes wrong - sometimes terribly wrong. Just think for a moment if your neighbor lost the ability to maintain their home. Let's say the property went vacant for a time. Vandals took advantage of it. Maybe some unseemly persons start frequenting the property.

Now keep in mind it could get even worse. What if someone decided your neighbor's house needed to be bulldozed so they could stack junk cars on the land. Or use it for some other unsightly commercial purpose. Maybe pen some pigs and chickens on the land (now there's a stink you just can't get out of your nose).

I know, most of these things are not likely to take place where you live, as you probably have zoning laws. But in the remote parts of Greene County New York, this was all within the realm of the possible as zoning laws are not only rare, but usually easily circumvented. Laws on the books are one thing. A town's limited resources being brought to bare on enforcing them is quite another.

So, back to that sign - it was opportunity knocking, and a bit of fear drove that opportunity to become a necessity. I needed to buy that property at the tax auction in order to avoid having anyone else purchase it and do horrible things that my Grandmother would then have to live with for the rest of her life.

After all, she'd lived all this time within eyesight of the first home she'd ever had away from her parents. She'd been able to watch as another family used her little cabin as a summer bungalow for their retreats from the sweltering life of city dwellers. She'd watched with the loving (longing?) eye of nostalgia as her once beloved little home, her little Post Office/home, became a derelict and almost forgotten relic. She had even implored her husband, son, son-in-law, and later her grandsons, to mow the overgrown lawn and nail shut a blown open door or window over the years. It was somehow still hers.

Could I make it mine?

Could I help her, in some way, reclaim a piece of her past?

Next up? My auction experience described in the next installment... stay tuned.

Such a tiny space

As WW II raged on in Europe, and so many young American soldiers were away from home, there were as many again young people here at home trying to make ends meet. Mrs. Simpson was one such young lady. She had her hands full - her husband was the US Postmaster for a rural office, and while he was away at war, she had to run the shop. She also had a newborn to contend with - her son.

This would all be fine, and not too much out of the ordinary, if it weren't for the issue of space. How to raise a young boy, live everyday life, and run a business out of a 24' x 17' cabin?

That's right. 24 feet wide, and 17 feet deep. If you divide this space into 4 even quadrants, you have roughly 12' x 8.5' rooms - that's about the average size of a office or cubicle for a professional in your average corporate work environment. One of these meager rooms was Mrs. Simpson's bedroom. Another her living room. A third was divided again in half to make a bathroom and very small kitchen. The fourth, a full 25% of her living space, was turned into the US Post Office for the hamlet of Sunside in upstate NY.

Such a tiny space, and yet she lived quite content for several years, raising her son and running the postal service. She did every bit of the work, and yet her husband's name was on the door. But I'm not here to write about the well documented inequalities of the genders at that time. I'm here to write about my retreat... that very same cabin that Mrs. Simpson lived in on Annie Bush's land... well that's my cabin today.

How I came to own it and discover its rich history, will have to wait for future installments...

Which way to the Post Office

In the early 1940's, a woman could not be a United States Postmaster. They could work there, and they could do everything a Postmaster would do, but on paper it had to be a man's name. So when Annie, who had run the Sunside, NY Post Office for years and years, became too old to uphold the station that her husband had been appointed by our government, she looked to Lester W. Simpson to take over that role.

The Sunside post office was being run out of Annie's house (shown as it looks today).

The house is a collection of rooms that was a simple federal style two story house that was added on to several times over the years. Originally built in the 1870's, the house had collected a larger kitchen, additional bedrooms, and an enclosure over the stacked stone well to allow water to be hand pumped at the kitchen sink year round without fear of freezing. The front room of this house in the oldest section was set up with an entrance area, a gated separator "fence" and a desk for Annie to run the postal business.

Since Annie's house was no place for a post office, it made sense to move it. What didn't make sense is that it moved into the tiny cabin that Annie rented on her property to Lester and his new wife. Barely 400 square feet, the cabin was carved into 4 rooms, and one of them was reserved for the new post office. So, with one bedroom, one sitting room, one "postal" room, and the last room divided again into a bathroom and kitchen, this was life for the new Postmaster and his lovely bride.

Soon, another woman would serve the role that her husband had on paper, as WWII disrupted life for the Simpson's... but that will wait for the next installment.

Maiden Voyage

I find myself entering the 21st century. A Luddite and a (very) late adopter of most cool things, I am now entering the world of blogging.

I've always wanted to be a writer, and so this will most likely not only come naturally, but likely be a way for me to pursue yet another of my passions.

I shall endeavor not to bore those who choose to read my ramblings. I will strive to stick to some common topics. The latter shall be much harder than the former, trust me there.

I have chosen to write about my cabin in the woods. This is a bit of a misnomer, as the cabin is not really a cabin - it's more of a bungalow - and it is hardly in the woods since it sits on a county road in upstate New York. However, I will take poetic license and it shall now be known as the cabin in the woods.

The story of this cabin starts in the 1940's... more in the next installment.... for now, that will have to peak your interest.