Back in the day, we called them cisterns. These were brick-lined wells - above or below grade - designed to collect and store the rain-water from a home’s roof. Even after city water became widely available, people kept their cisterns and its soft, sweet-smelling rain water, which was ideal for washing clothes and rinsing hair.

As the decades rolled by, people abandoned their cisterns and closed them off. Without active use, they became a breeding ground for bugs and also a safety hazard for pets and little children.

With the “green movement” and the soaring cost of municipal water, there also came a resurgence in the idea of rain-water harvesting (as it became known in the late 20th Century).

Here in Norfolk, Virginia, I had intended to dig a well, to satiate my thirsty veggies and flowers. However, my husband (who happens to be the chief deputy city attorney in Norfolk) said, “Let me look up the ordinances on that first.”

Turns out, Norfolk  has an ordinance that forbids sinking a well within 50 feet of any property lines. Since our spacious old house was centered on our 110′ by 110′ lot, that nixed that idea.

My other option was rain water harvesting. Fortunately, the city doesn’t have any ordinances against collecting rain water. (In some states, it is illegal to collect rain water.)

After I set up my first rain barrel, it didn’t take me long to realize that one 60-gallon rain barrel didn’t go very far during one of Tidewater’s hot, dry summers.

The next summer, I added more rain barrels, positioning them under a downspout that produced copious amounts of water. The first year, my little rain barrels sat directly on the dirt, and they didn’t get much use. They were too low, too muddy and the head pressure was abysmal. Later that year, I built a nice wooden stand for my rain barrels.

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(By the way, if you’re in Hampton Roads, I highly recommend “Mike’s Rain Barrels.” Contact Mike at mminor1959@verizon.net or call (757) 761-1553. The best part - he’ll deliver your rain barrels in his Toyota Priuss.)

The stand made it much easier to access my rain barrels, plus, the three feet of height gave them a little bit of head pressure, and improved water flow. And the 3-foot stand made it easy to fasten a hose to the spigot (a simple feat that was nearly impossible when the barrels sat on the ground).

Another 10 blogs could be written about the benefits of rain barrels, but in short - for gardening - rain water is better than chlorinated city water. While chlorination keeps us humans from getting cholera and other nasty bugs, that chlorination will also kill off the microorganisms in the soil that helps plants thrive.

And there’s a financial incentive, too. Experts say that 40% of our summertime water use comes from the outside spigot.

In the process of using these rain barrels throughout the summer, I learned a lot of practical lessons. Below are the top 10 most important things I learned.

1) Height is important. For every foot of height you add to your stand, you’ll gain .43 psi of head pressure. If you could manage a ten-foot stand (not advisable for safety reasons), that’d give you 4.3 psi. From a practical matter, the three-foot stand (pictured above) put the spigot at the perfect height for me. And if you’re working with a raised bed garden (like mine), you’ll need the extra height so that water can flow easily to your thirsty plants.

2) Weight is also important. Water weighs about 8.3 pounds per gallon. Those rain barrels hold 60 gallons. That’s 498 pounds per barrel, and I’ve got three on one stand, so that’s almost 1,500 pounds of weight (when the barrels are full). That’s a tremendous amount of weight and you should plan accordingly when building your stands. This summer, when my barrels run dry, I’ll have to pull them down and add cross-bracing to the stands. You’ll note in the picture that they’ve started to lean hard to the left. Cross bracing would have prevented that.

3) Placement. My three rain barrels are located in my back yard, underneath a busy downspout. Water comes from the main roof (which is slate), flows down to the smaller roof and into my rain barrel. With 10-15 minutes of a good downpour, all three rain barrels are filled up full.

4) Pre-screen your rainwater. These rain barrels have a four-inch floor drain in their top, with a piece of mosquito screen affixed. Too many times to count, I’ve rejoiced as a summer storm pours rain from above, only to find that the four-inch hole became hopelessly choked with the debris from the gutters, and very little of that delightful rainwater actually entered my rain barrels. My solution to this was simple. I took the aluminum-framed screen from an old storm window and stuck it on top of the rain barrel. That solved my problem. The large surface area of the aluminum screen allowed water to flow even after that first pile of gunk came washing down the spout.

5) If you’re building/making your own rain barrel, put the spigot in the right place. When my neighbor saw my rain barrels, he ran out and bought some materials and made his own barrels. Every single one of his five rain barrels has a spigot at the half-way point on the barrel’s side. This means that he’ll only be able to use 50% of the water in the barrel. Not a good design. There are also entire blogs devoted to building your own rain barrel. The barrels shown here are food-grade olive barrels, used to ship olives here from overseas. Learn more here.

6) Don’t get bugged. Mosquitoes are naturally drawn to stagnant water and rain barrels provide the ideal breeding ground. Screens will stop some of that, but not all. One year, I had mosquitoes crawling in through my overflow pipe. Adding several drops of baby oil to each rain barrel will create an oily film in the water, and should stop mosquitoes from laying eggs in your rain barrel.

7) One downside to this rainwater fun is that you’ll now have to keep your gutters cleaned out. If all that precious rainwater is cascading over the front edges of your gutters because the downspouts are blocked, your rain barrels won’t do much for you. And if your house is sheltered by large trees (like mine), this can be a perennial problem.

When the barrel runs dry, remember to turn the spigot off. Sounds simple enough, but somehow, it’s so easy to forget this little detail. Many times, I’ve gone outside to check my rain barrels after a hard rain, only to find that I left the spigot open and all that rainwater went in through the top and out through the spigot.

9) Maintenance. About once a year, I rinse out the rain barrels with city water. The bottom gets a layer of crud in it and the smell is horrific. I’m not sure about the microbiology of all that decaying matter, and maybe it’s just dandy for the garden, but the stench will knock your socks off.

10) Keep water away from the foundation. A surprising amount of water can be discharged through your overflow pipe. Make sure that water is directed away from the house.

11) Your downspout might not quite hit the sweet spot on the rain barrel. A little extra piece of aluminum downspout is probably the simplest solution. I used a piece of Plexiglas, which also does the job nicely.

12) If a drought hits, and you don’t want to use chlorinated water on your lovingly maintained and chlorine-free tomato plants, you can fill one rain barrel with city water and let it sit for several days. The chlorination will dissipate in time and you’ll have chlorine-free water. This isn’t the ideal, but in a pinch, it’s one way to keep your garden chlorine free.

13) Enjoy. I’ve had a lot of fun playing with my rain barrels. And look how my garden grows!

When we were kids, we’d sing this little ditty.

See, see my playmate,
Come out and play with me
And bring your dollies three
Climb up my apple tree
Holler down my rain barrel
Slide down my cellar door
And we’ll be jolly friends
Forever evermore.

Again, I highly recommend Mike’s Rain Barrels.  Contact Mike at mminor1959@verizon.net or call (757) 761-1553. The best part - he’ll deliver your rain barrels in his Toyota Priuss.

To read about Sears Homes, click here.

To buy Rose’s book, click here.

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In one of my favorite movies, Fried Green Tomatoes, there’s a scene where a young woman dies and her attendant immediately arises and covers a large mirror and then stops a nearby clock. I’d always been fascinated by this old tradition/ritual and wondered about its meaning. I assumed that these practices must have a reason , but I had no idea what that reason might be.

And then I was talking with my friend Joyce, who explained the reasons for these “odd” traditions.

Joyce is in her late 70s now, but was raised in the backwoods of Georgia in the 1930s. It was a time and place more reminiscent of Victorian America. When Joyce was a teenager, her little sister Louise died from from whooping cough at the age of three. Joyce remembers “Granny” rocking the child through the night and praying for her, hoping against hope that the little girl would pull through. It wasn’t to be.

Sometime in the wee hours, the little girl looked up at Granny, smiled broadly and then died in her arms. Later that morning, a family member went outside and rang the large bell in the front yard.

“It was almost like Morse code,” Joyce said. “The bell was tolled a certain number of times for different things. When Louise died, they rang the bell a certain number of times and everyone knew what it meant. Almost immediately, people started coming to the house to help.”

Joyce said they sent the little girl’s body to the mortician who embalmed it and returned it to the family, for the wake at home. In preparation for the wake, the mortician brought heavy, deep red draperies into the front room of the old house and hung them over the windows, blocking out all sunlight.

“I’m not sure why they put up those drapes,” she said. “Maybe it was to give a solemnity to the wake.”

During the two days of the wake, the little girl’s beloved dog sat dutifully beside the coffin and emitted a mournful wail. The mourners commented on that lamentable howling, and it left them all with a chill. After the wake, the coffin was moved to the church where a service was held. The child’s body was buried in the church cemetery.

The dog followed the family to the cemetery. Later that day, the dog’s body was found. The little girl’s pet had literally laid down and died.

My friend Joyce knows a lot about the old ways and about these old rituals.

When one of her elderly aunts lay dying, a family member sat quietly by the bedside. When the old woman breathed her last, the family member arose and draped a heavy cloth over the mirror and opened the clock’s glass face and stopped the clock.

“I saw someone do that in a movie,” I told Joyce. “What’s that about?”

“The cloth over the mirror is for the protection of the departed,” she said. “It’s believed that the spirits of our loved ones may glance into a mirror and become frightened when they see no one looking back.”

That had a resonance of truth, as I’d heard stories about people with near-death experiences saying they couldn’t see any reflection when they looked in a mirror. Wonder how they knew about that back in the 1930s?

“And the clock was stopped for a much more practical reason,” she said. “The clock was stopped so that the mortician would know the time of death.”

There was also a requirement - never to be breached - that a loved one sit with the body until burial. I’d imagine this was a throwback to olden days before medical equipment when the dead occasionally came back to life (much to the surprise of the watcher).

It was all fascinating.

As Tevye sings in Fiddler on the Roof, “because of our traditions, we’ve kept our balance for many years.”

Traditions should be remembered and honored, because oftimes, they were created for very practical reasons.

To read a similar article, click here.

To learn about Sears Homes, click here.

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The story of Addie’s life is proving to be a popular one, so even though Addie is “an old fashioned girl,” she’s now on Facebook.

To find Addie, search for “Addie Hoyt Fargo” in Lake Mills.

To learn more about Addie, click here.

To learn about Addie’s house, click here.

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Mary Rutherford’s Obit:

At her residence in the village of LM, Mrs. E J Fargo died at 11:30 pm MOnday, March 4th 1895 of typhoid fever after a sickness of two weeks. Mrs. Fargo was the scond daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James Rutherford and had reached the age fo 38 years.

She was married in 1875 to Mr. E. J. Fargo, with two daughter, Elsie and Mattie survive her.

The funeral took place on Wednesday the 6th.

From the family residence on Washington Street.

Reverend E. B. Longsberry officiating and was attended by a large number of neighbors and friends who united with the many relative in their expression of sorrow and grief. Mrs. Fargo’s affectionate nature, and kindly lovable disposition and warm attachment for friends were well known. and the tender attachment existing between her and her children reveals the true mother heart, and her loss to them must be beyond repair.

Will last, make more poignant the pangs that now rack the heart of the bereaved husband and loving father. As in his grief, he views the wreck-strewn death has wrought in home’s sacred circle.

“No more they’ll look in those love lit eyes.
No more they’ll feel the mother’s touch
Nor feel the breath of her loving sigh,
nor hear the voice they loved so much,

but daily, nightly, realize there’s gloom at home when mother dies.”

The floral decorations furnished by the women’s club and other kind friends were profuse, bueaitfful and appropriate and their sweet fragrance, which liek the breath of heaven, fills the air, seen as a loving tie between the visible and invisble. Or as the sweet perfume of angelic sighs, linking mortals to the skies.

The women’s club met on Tuesday afternoon at 3 pm and out of respect to the memory of our friend and comrage, Mrs. Mary R Fargo so recently passed away and adjournament was immediately taken.

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Enoch Fargo’s Obituary

Enoch J. Fargo, the second son of Mr. and Mrs. Enoch B. Fargo, was born in Lake Mills, March 14, 1850, and died in Tarpon Springs, Florida, January 31, 1921, where he in company with his wife, was spending the winter.

Mrs. Fargo accompanied by the body, arrived here Thursday evening and the funeral services were held at the home of Mrs. Frank B. Fargo, Friday afternoon at two o’clock. Dr. John Faville officiating in the presence of relatives and friends from here and several other cities.

Mr. Fargo’s first wife was Miss Mary Rutherford. Three children were the result of this union. Mrs. C. D. McCammon of the town of Lake Mills, Miss. Mattie Fargo, Los Angeles, California, and Myrtle, who died at the age of nine years. Mrs. Fargo died in March 1895. His second wife, Miss Addie Hoyt, passed away in June 1901, and third wife, Miss Mattie Hoyt mourns the death of her husband.

Mr. Fargo was deeply interested in the enlargement of the school grounds, in the building of the middle bilding and he and his brother, Frank, were the next to the largest contributors in the building of the present Methodist church.

Mr. Fargo’s fine residence was often the place of social gatherings and he and Mrs. Fargo were given to hospitality.

The second of two brothers has passed away and it may be truly said that no other two men have wrought as much for the upbuilding of Lake Mills. They are entitled to their full share of praise.

The bearers at the funeral were neighbors and intimate friends in a social and business way and were as follows:  S. A. Reed, O. B. Coombe, F. M. Griswold, N. H. Falk, E. C. Dodge and C. S. Heimstreet.

The guests from out of town included Mr. and Mrs. C. T. Fargo, Mr. and Mrs. Ray Hellen, Miss Tillie Grimm, Mr. and Mrs. H. B. Fargo, Mr. Fred Perkins, Deerfield, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Fargo, Ripon; Mr. and Mrs. Wegner, Oakland; Mrs. Schellenberg, Beloit; William and Miss Bessie Harbeck, Milwaukee; Fred C. Mansfiled, Johnson Creek; Mr. and Mrs. A. R. Hoard, and Mr and Mrs Carl Becker, Fort Atkinson; Mayor Herman Wertheimer, Mr. Siebert, Mr. and Mrs. Rhoda, and Mr. and Mrs. Will Schultz, Watertown.

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To read about Sears Homes, click here.

To buy Rose’s book, click here.

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In the last month, the story of Addie Hoyt Fargo has been read by more than 6,000 people, and with that enlarged audience, came some ugly emails and comments. In contrast, there’ve been many more supportive and lovely emails.  On Sunday, a woman who’s been following Addie’s story contacted me and urged me to push on.

Her story, her insights, and her comments touched me to tears. It was one of the most powerful notes I have ever received in my long career. With her permission, her story is below. Names have been changed.

Several years ago, my only daughter, Emily (age 16) was killed in a car crash. That day I lost my only daughter and my best friend, in one swoop. She knew me better than anyone before, and anyone since. It’s not just a mother’s heart that would tell you that Emily was a special bright young lady. Her teachers, her peers and the community as a whole felt that way too, and they also felt the loss of this remarkable, insightful and precious young woman.

In dealing with my grief then, and even now, my greatest fear was that people would forget her.

And what if my Emily had married someone like Enoch? What if she found herself alone, with no family and no support system and no one to help her? What if there was no one she could call upon when her world was falling apart? What if she died at the hands of a cold hearted, narcissistic, megalomaniac who was bold enough to murder his young wife, rich enough to buy off people and powerful enough to get to away with murder? More specifically, get away with her murder?

What if her soul couldn’t rest because nobody cared enough to reach beyond their own lives and their own busy-ness and their own problems and uncover the truth? What if her remarkable life was reduced to a few gossipy stories, excitedly whispered in the shadows of a small town?

What if the story of her accomplishments, her successes and the stories of her charity, graciousness, gentleness and goodness, were forgotten, and all that remained was this heart-wrenching legend of a tormented soul, trapped in the nightmarish memory of her own murder, aimlessly wandering the hallways of an old house, unable to find her way to the light of God’s love?

And then what if someday, someone discovered Addie’s photos, and started digging into the whole story, and started sharing that story with others, exposing that shadowy gossip to the light of day, so that the soul could finally find rest?

And what a glorious thing it would be, that the story of a 29-year-old woman’s life could be resurrected so many years later, so that she was not forgotten’ after her death, and so that her real life story could told, thoroughly and truthfully.

We live, we die. Those who knew us die, and we might be reduced to pictures in a photo album. For someone to take such interest in our being,who never met us face to face, that can only be described as a gift of Love.

I DO believe in spirits. I believe that our life continues on after the body has “breathed its last.”

I read about you tossing those old photo albums and then retrieving them from the trash. I believe Addie is with you, saying “Rose, take this journey. Keep going forward. Don’t give up, and see this journey to the end.”

Rose, please please take this journey Addie gave you. You are meeting wonderful new people, affecting others lives, and enriching your own.

And most importantly, you’re “setting the record straight” about someone else’s remarkable, insightful and precious little girl.

To learn more about Addie, click here.

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Here in Norfolk, we have 16 little bungalows (dubbed, “The Ethel”) that were originally built at another location, and then moved here by George P. Hudson on April 14, 1922.*

Several months ago, we learned that 3,000 miles away (in Dupont, Washington), there are dozens of identical bungalows, built by Dupont for the dynamite factory. Thanks to Lee and Joh from the Dupont Historical Museum in Dupont, Washington,  we now that the little houses were built in Fall 1909.

And then old-house lover and researcher Mark Hardin found another neighborhood of these “Ethel Bungalows” in a little village just outside of Butte, Montana. (It was Mark who found the houses in Dupont, too.) More recently, an Ethel was spotted by Rachel Shoemaker in Oklahoma.

So, our Ethel Bunaglow in Norfolk (which came from somewhere else) is a spot-on match to the company houses in Dupont, Washington,  and Butte, Montana. And there’s also one (and maybe hundreds more) in Muskogee, Oklahoma.

Fellow old-house lover Mark Mckillop took a trip to Dupont, Washington and photographed more than 100 of the houses in that tiny village , and then sent me the photos. His photographs prove (as we suspected) that the Ethel Bungalows in Dupont are indeed identical to the Ethel Bungalows here in Norfolk.

To read more about what we’ve learned thus far, read Part Five of this ongoing (and fascinating) story.

Despite what we’ve learned, many unanswered questions remain. Are these “Ethels” kit homes from Aladdin? Are they pattern book houses? If not, where did DuPont get this design? Why are these houses popping up in several of Dupont’s neighborhoods? And where did the houses in Norfolk come from?

If you’ve any information to contribute, please post a note in the comment’s section below!

* Thanks to Norfolk historian David Spriggs for finding that date, and also finding the name of the man who moved them! To learn more about what David learned, click here.

Next are the photos of our Ethels, which art in Norfolk. As you’ll see from the photos below, they really are a good match to the houses in Dupont, Washington.

To contact Rose, please leave a comment below.

To learn more about the kit homes in Norfolk, click here.

To learn more about Sears Homes, click here.

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Magnolia. The very word elicits a memory of a spreading shade tree, a sweet scent carried on a summer’s breeze and a southern gentility.

Magnolia is a great word, and it’s also the name that was given to Sears most beautiful and magnificent kit home.

There are only seven known Magnolias in the country. SEVEN! And the one in Alabama is for sale!

The Magnolia was their biggest and best kit home, with more than 2,900 square feet, four bedrooms, a den and 2.5 bathrooms!  Click here to see the detailed floorplan.

What is a Sears Home? These were kit homes, sold from the Sears Roebuck catalog from 1908-1940. The houses arrived by train, in 12,000-piece kits. Each house came with detailed blueprints and a 75-page instruction book. Sears promised that a “man of average abilities” could have the house finished within 90 days! Sears offered 370 designs, but the Sears Magnolia was by far, the biggest.

To learn more about the house for sale in Piedmont, Alabama, click here.

To learn more about the Sears Magnolia, click here.

To buy Rose’s book, click here.

To read about the Sears Homes in Atlanta, Georgia, click here.

To buy Rose’s books, click here.

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There’s a pernicious rumor circulating on the web that the house featured in the movie, “The Notebook,” is a Sears Magnolia.

That’s not correct. The house featured in “The Notebook” is not a Sears House.

And yes, I am sure!  100% abso-looterly certain!

Take a good look at the house featured in the movie (click here, and scroll down to the white house) and compare it to a real Sears Magnolia (pictured below).

These two houses (the real Sears Magnolia and the house shown in “The Notebook”) are actually radically different.

Don’t look at the whole. Look at the details!! Just because they’re both a two-story white house with a hip roof and big columns, that’s not enough.

For instance, take a moment and study the roof line. The porch roof over the real Magnolia is a very low hip roof. The porch roof over The Notebook House is a massive gabled roof with a half-round window within its gable. The Magnolia has a little hipped dormer. The Notebook house does not.

Also, the proportions are wrong. The Sears Magnolia is 2,940 square feet. The Notebook house is probably double that.

These details really do matter.

There are so many delightful things about being so deeply immersed in this avocation of Sears Homes, but trying to teach people how to pay attention to architectural details before deciding that a similar looking house is a Sears House is pretty unfun. There are about 70,000 Sears homes in the country. Judging from my mail, about 3.4 million people THINK they have a Sears House!

The real Sears Magnolia (catalog), and a picture of the Magnolia in Benson, North Carolina (below).

To learn more about how to identify a Sears Home, click here.

To learn more about Sears Homes, click here.

To buy Rose’s book, click here.

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Since Addie’s story appeared on a popular genealogy blog, the readership at my website has gone way up, and in five days, I’ve had more than 7,000 new visitors, which is a lot. The great majority of the comments and emails I’ve received from the new readers were supportive, but some of them were just filled with vitriol and hatred. Really bad stuff.

I’ve now learned that two of the nastiest comments came from two someones who subscribe to the Crab Theory, better known as Schadenfreude.  (By the way,  you know who you are, and I do too, and we’ll be praying that the light of God’s love will shine into your dark, troubled soul and bring you peace.)

But let’s get back to those beautiful emails!

One of the best (and most well thought out) comments came from Susan Waggoner of New York.

A friend in Lake Mills sent me the link to the Sears site, because she knows I’m a history and architecture buff. I was sad to read that Addie died so young. But even before I learned of all the suspicions surrounding that, I thought it was an odd death because I’d thought of diphtheria as a killer of children and the elderly.

After reading everything else Addie-related here, I looked up diphtheria. For someone of Addie’s age, the mortality rate was only between 5 and 10%! Moreover, diphtheria has a short incubation period, then rapid onset that peaks quickly, so any prolonged “mystery illness” would have been unrelated. I didn’t see any mention in the obits about a diphtheria epidemic going on concurrently, and if there wasn’t, how would she have gotten it, since the Fargos hardly lived in squalid, third world circumstances.

I wish I knew more about Martha (”Maddie”).  If Addie was 29, Martha would have been 28. A woman 28 and unmarried in that era didn’t have a lot of options, other than office work, and these people seem too upper class for that. She might have been quite jealous of Addie and eager — or desperate — to take her place. Perhaps it was she who gave Addie a not-so-gentle shove into eternity.

If EJ Fargo was already having an affair with Martha, what would his motive be for something as high-risk as killing Addie? There were lots of what were referred to as “odd women” — i.e., spinsters (”odd” as in odds and evens, not peculiar) — in that era, and it was seen as something of a masculine duty to take on a wife’s unmarried sister or close female relative.

Lots of men in the Victorian era (including Freud and Dickens) had their wives’ sisters living with them. No one batted an eye, so the arrangement could have gone on indefinitely on whatever terms it was. If, however, Martha killed Addie, EJ would probably have pressured the doctor to falsify the death certificate in order to avoid scandal and be left with at least one wife.

Another consideration with Martha — arsenic would have been more of a woman’s method than a man’s. Men don’t have the patience for it. And a wealthy man like EJ buying it would have raised eyebrows, whereas women, even well-off ones, would buy it to control kitchen rodents.

Susan, your comment above is the VERY reason I started blogging about Addie in the first place! One, I wanted to share her story so that this beautiful, intelligent and interesting 29-year-old woman wouldn’t be forgotten, and two, I was hoping the smart women in the world would take an interest in this story and provide fresh insight and new information. I know a lot about old houses, but not so much about arsenic, diphtheria and high society in the late 1800s.

So first, thank you for your wonderful note! And all the facts that you’ve stated above are concurrent with what I’ve learned.

Secondly, I’ve also wondered if Maddie was complicit in Addie’s death. Maddie’s life was not an easy one, to say the least. If you click here, you’ll see the talk I gave in Lake Mills, where I discuss Maddie’s past in some detail.

Here’s the short version.

“Maddie” (Martha Harbeck Hoyt Fargo) was born August 12, 1873 to 19-year-old Marie Harbeck of Lake Mills, Wisconsin. Marie was the daughter of William and Elizabeth (Betsy) Harbeck. From what we can glean from old records, Marie was not married at the time of Maddie’s birth, which in 1873 would have been quite remarkable (okay, scandalous).

In 1879, Marie (mother of Maddie) married Henry Hoyt and moved out of her parent’s home in Lake Mills. Marie Harbeck and Henry Hoyt had four children together (born from 1881-1891). According to census records, Marie’s first child (young Maddie Harbeck) remained behind with her grandparents. For a little girl growing up in small-town 1870s America, this must have been devastating.

In the eyes of Victorian society, this child was “illegitimate” (a term I personally disdain), and that must have been hard, but that pain must have been multiplied when her mother remarried, created a new family, and then left Maddie behind with the grandparents.

It was in later years that Maddie took on the name “Hoyt,” but in fact, she was not blood kin to the Hoyts. Further, Henry Hoyt (Maddie’s step-father) and Addie Hoyt (my aunt) are not related. So the four children of Henry Hoyt were not related to the children of Homer Hoyt (father of Addie and Anna), and Maddie was not blood kin to either Henry Hoyt or Homer Hoyt.

What is truly incredible is Maddie’s grandmother’s (Elizabeth Harbeck’s) maiden name:  Fargo.

There’s an old story that Maddie Harbeck and Addie Hoyt were cousins, but (as mentioned above), that’s not true. However, it’s certainly possible that Elizabeth Fargo Harbeck and Enoch J. Fargo were related and perhaps even cousins. That’s conjecture. I don’t really know.

Back to Maddie:  Her early years could not have been easy ones. The 1900 census shows 28-year-old Maddie living with her mother and step-father (Henry Hoyt) at their home in Lake Mills. It’s then that Maddie’s name appears as “Hoyt,” and her relationship to “head of household” is listed as “step-daughter.”

Sometime before Addie’s death (June 1901), Maddie allegedly moved into the Fargo Mansion. I don’t have any written documentation on that, but it’s part of the old story.

For about three months, I’ve studied and even memorized these old pictures from Addie’s two photo albums, but just four days ago I glimpsed something that I had missed before.

Addie trusted Maddie.

There are about 30 photos in these albums, depicting Addie’s life in Lake Mills. The only human beings shown in this album are Addie, Enoch, and Addie’s two step-children (Elsie and Mattie), and…

Maddie.

I just don’t think Addie would have gone to the trouble and expense of including a photo of Maddie in her photo album - a photo album she sent home to her family in Denver - unless Maddie was someone important in her life. I think Maddie was a friend to Addie.

And I think that there’s a fair chance that your theory about Maddie is correct, which is very sad.

If you were Maddie, and your own mother had walked out of your life when you were six years old, and this wealthy older gent shows up and promises the moon and the stars to you when you’re in your late 20s, unmarried, living an unsatisfying, lonely life, there’s a chance you’d do anything and everything to become part of his life, to have a home of your own, and to have one chance at the “happy ever after” you’ve seen pass by too many times to count.

It’s a theory.

Maddie and Enoch were married February 17, 1902, a scant eight months after Addie’s death (June 19, 1901). Victorian (Edwardian?) mourning rituals required a mourning period of 12 months. It would have caused quite a stir for a marriage to take place during the mourning period.

Enoch died in 1921 in Tarpon, Florida. Originally, I’d believed that Maddie was living in California at the time, but I’ve discovered new evidence that suggests she was in Lake Mills at the time of Enoch’s death. I’m still trying to sort that out. I do know that Maddie remained in Lake Mills until her death in 1964.

I wish I knew more about Maddie, but that’s everything I’ve got.

In addition to Susan’s email (quoted above), I’ve received many others - as powerful and beautiful and insightful  - and I’ll write about those in a few days. 

To learn about Sears Homes, click here.

To learn more about Addie, click here.

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Ever hear of schadenfreude? For years, I’d always called it, “The Crab Theory.”

Schadenfreude is a German word that means delighting in the misfortune of others. I had never heard of this word until I was doing some research for my book The Ugly Woman’s Guide to Internet Dating: What I Learned From 70 First Dates.

Put one crab in a five-gallon bucket and Mr. Crab will do everything in his power to scale its smooth wall and crawl out of that bucket. Put two or more crabs in a bucket and when one starts to climb up, the others will grab him and pull him back down into the bucket. Unfortunately, humans sometime exhibit the same tendencies as crabs.

In my own life, I’ve struggled mightily with envy, and I’m sorry to say that too many times, I had a decided leaning toward the crab/schadenfreude side.

And then one day, I read a story in the Christian Science Sentinel about a woman who’d spent a lifetime cultivating the habit of gratitude. She said that her mother had taught her to feel sincerely joyous and grateful for the good things that happened in other people’s lives, and to take it as a personal promise from God that, if it happened for them, it could happen for her, too.

The Buddhist have a word for this: Mudita. It’s the practice of finding joy in other people’s success and happiness.

The morning news is frequently awash in salacious and scurrilous scandals involving celebrities and their ilk. Yet we’re all “clay vessels,” and we’re all cracked pots and fallible, and we’re all prone to foibles and missteps and mistakes and even lapses in good judgment. Who among us hasn’t lost our temper and said something we deeply regret? Who among us hasn’t surrendered to temptation when we could have done better? My point is, maybe the real need is to stop focusing on other people’s sins and take a better look at our own shortcomings and work on improving those.

Maybe we need to stop cultivating the habit of schadenfreude and work on mudita.

To read more, click here.

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Not only was Addie strikingly beautiful, but she was also a snappy dresser.  When I was cleaning out my late father’s apartment, I found this photo album, and many of the pictures showed intricate detail of Addie’s stunning wardrobe! The photos provide an amazing keyhole peek at Addie’s wardrobe and life - more than 11 decades ago!

Addie’s older sister (Anna) was born the year after the Civil War ended, and she lived to be 99 years old. Addie was born six years later (1872) and died at the age of 29.  She lived at the Fargo Mansion (her home with Enoch) until her death in 1901.

To see more pictures of Addie’s home life, click here.

If you enjoy the photos, please leave a comment below.

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To learn more about the Fargo Mansion, click here.

To learn more about Addie, click here.

If you’ve any information to add about Addie’s beautiful clothes and/or styles of the day, please leave a comment!

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