If these walls could talk... they do!

 When you renovate an old house, you usually are really surprised at what you find. Sometimes it's even what you find INSIDE the walls that makes for great stories.  We planned out the renovation so that we tried to preserve as much of the plaster and lathe as possible, and only removed what we absolutely needed to.  The kitchen was a complete re-do, so hundreds of pounds of plaster had to go.  When we started to remove a section of the outside wall, we found two really cool items inside the wall. 

 One was a yardstick from the local company Chas. David. Which, through the years has now become David and Sons. We also found a rolled up American flag with 48 stars on it. You wonder who thought to put these in the walls, and why? 

We also found a doctor's return to work note, dated 1927, when we moved an old cabinet out of the kitchen. 

When we got it, the house was a duplex, with a staircase on the porch to go to the second floor. On the wall of the plaster, someone had written 1929 with their finger in paint, we assume when they were creating the duplex. And we found an old punch card for newspaper delivery from 1949.

I wanted to leave our mark on the house inside the walls too.. so after much thought, I left this note.... 

Coincidence? Or Meant To Be?

 So shortly after we decided to turn the house into a Bed and Breakfast, we met a wonderful lady in town. (Several wonderful ladies actually, but we will focus on this one) We invited her to come see what we were doing, and we had a great afternoon showing her around. 

Back then it was "and here we are going to have this and this and this.." as we pointed out each area covered in dust, building materials and grime. "Can you see it?" we would laugh. The answers ranged from "Um, not exactly.. to Mm hmm, and how long do you think this will take?" 

But this lady could see the visions we had and was excited to spread the word about what we were doing.  About a week later, she called and said "Hey, I was talking to my friend Mary about what you guys were doing with the house. Mary asked what house it was, so I pulled up a picture and showed her. You aren't going to believe this! Mary is the great granddaughter of the owner! Her grandmother is the Katherine that you are naming the house after!"

We were completely stunned. What kind of crazy coincidence is this? Mary lives 2 hours away near Door County, and we would have never been able to trace the house to her without our dear friend.

Mary came to visit a few weeks after that, and told us stories about her grandmother. She gave us these two pictures that I framed and put in the entryway for everyone to see.

These are Katherine and her husband. (they look a bit off center because of my poor photo taking skills) 

Recently, Mary called me all excited because she finally found the newspaper article from 1910 about Katherine and Franklin's wedding date. It was written in the German newspaper, so I will have it on the wall with the translation. They were married here in the house on November 5, 1910.  We feel so connected to the family, that it had to have been fate that brought us to this house and gave us the life we love.