The Farm

Sometime in the 1980's I discovered this aerial shot of the farm where I lived until 1963.  My dad lived here and my Grandpa and my great grandpa.  This property was purchased by Amos Arnold father of Johnson Arnold.  Johnson and Beckie Zwig Arnold set up housekeeping here in a small home given to them by Amos and Lora Johnson Arnold. 
It must have been pretty cramped when Johnson and Beckie lived here as they had seven sons and one daughter:  Amos (died at 6 months), Clyde, Michael, David, Henry, Roger, Ernest and Samantha. 
But additions were made over the years.  A cousin, Jerry Shambrook, remembers in the 1940's that the basement was added to the home.  So I would assume the front porch was added then too, as the basement stairs were wide open in this enclosed entry room.  The photo below is the front of the house, it faced all the outbuildings.  You can see the choppy additions/rooms.  The only bedroom downstairs was the room located to the far left (below).  If I remember correctly, the garden and clothesline were located to the west of the bedroom.  This possibly was the main house when first constructed.  It had an attic above the room and a door that lead to nowhere on the north side of the home. 
A story (that I discussed in an earlier article) states the home was moved to this location. 

 

The property is surrounded by "the ditch."  The ditch was a necessity to drain the land that was actually a lake for probably thousands of years.  We drove up a long lane to the reach the house and outbuildings.  On the rare occasion "the ditch" would seclude us to the home. 

The home is to the left of the lane in the very top photo.  Two barns are visible.  There were several storage sheds and two wooden cribs. 

A row of walnut trees sat behind the house and the cattle had a path there to the water trough located at the end of the lane.

A long row of Osage Orange trees lined the lane going to the north with another small bridge.  Actually the property did have three bridges, one was located to the south also. 
An apple orchard is seen in the first photo, the last group of trees in the middle left. 
Another significant building on the property was what we called the "cob shed."  I had sneaked a peak inside on several occasions.  It had two rooms and flowered wall paper on every wall.  Pretty fancy for cobs.  This small building was the home of Beckie Zwig's parents, Carl and Tina Hermann Zwig.  When the building was their home it was located at the end of the north lane.  Later moved very close to the main home when no longer used as a home, it stored cobs for heating purposes.  I wonder where the stoves were located.

I'll update this as I run across more stories and photos.