It was called Virginia’s own Ghost Town.

Penniman, Virginia, sat on the land now occupied by Cheatham Annex (near Williamsburg) and started - quite literally - as a Boom Town.

In late 1916, DuPont selected the site as their 37th munitions plant, probably because of its location:  It bordered the broad York River and it was safely away from population centers. When you’re manufacturing explosives and a mistake occurs, things go BOOM.  (Google “DuPont Munitions Plant Explosions” to find a dozen pre-WW1 examples.)

Penniman was named in honor of an American Chemist, Russell S. Penniman, who figured out how to build a better munition. Alfred Nobel’s original-recipe dynamite used nitroglycerine, but Penniman invented an ammonia-based dynamite, which was much safer than nitroglycerine.

According to an article that appeared in the Virginia Gazette, the wages paid at “DuPont Plant #37″ were so high that laborers poured in from all over the area.

“Local farmers found laborers almost impossible to hire, and certainly not at the old low wages. With thousands of men and women manufacturing shells at Penniman and living wherever they could, Williamsburg boomed. Rental space, whether for offices or for living, was impossible to find at any price. The mass exodus of workers was so great, area farmers were left wondering how they’d get their crops planted” (Meyers, Terry. “The Silence of the Graves.” Virginia Gazette June 3, 1998).

“In time,” writes Martha McCartney, author James City County; Keystone of the Commonwealth, “the [DuPont plant at Penniman] employed 10,000 people and the community bordering the plant had a population of 10,000 to 20,000″ (McCartney, Martha W.  James City County; Keystone of the Commonwealth. James City County, Virginia, Donning Company Publishing, 1997).

In August 1918, local papers reported that the United States Navy would take over the 12,500 acre facility. It would now be called, “The Naval Mine Depot.”  On  November 11th 1918, the “War to End All Wars” was over. It was President Woodrow Wilson who’d coined that phrase. Now that the earth had endured the last war that would ever be fought, it was time to dismantle Penniman.

But then something happened on the way to de-construction: The flu epidemic.

According to Meyers, the hospital at Penniman was overwhelmed with fatalities from Spanish Influenza, with bodies being shipped back to their waiting families in North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee and other southern states. Many Penniman employees had traversed great distances to find work at DuPont Plant #37, and when they died, DuPont paid a “death benefit” which helped with the costs of shipping the bodies back home, wherever that may be.  Meyers writes:

On October 12, the Daily Press reported that undertakers were being kept busy by the toll at Penniman: “the baggage cars are always full of caskets.” And on October 13 came a report that “a local [Williamsburg] undertaker had to requisition a truck to haul bodies from Penniman this morning…There is a scarcity of coffins here, the dealers having had in hand only a small stock prior to the grip epidemic  (Meyers, Terry. “The Silence of the Graves.” Virginia Gazette June 3, 1998).

By late 1920, the Spanish Flu had taken (by conservative estimates) more than 50 million lives. Penniman was now in the hands of the Navy. And it was time to get rid of the 250 houses that had been built at the DuPont Munitions Plant.

December 5, 1921, a little piece appeared in the Virginian Pilot, describing several houses being floated down to Tanner’s Creek (now the Lafayette River in Norfolk). It said the houses had been erected by the government near Yorktown. That’s not factually correct. It was DuPont that actually built these houses, just as they had done at other munitions plants in Old Hickory, TN and Hopewell, VA and Carney Point, NJ and Ramsay, MT.

The houses shown on the barges (pictures below) came from DuPont Plant #37 in Penniman, Virginia.

Now, after a great deal of research, we’ve learned that DuPont offered several models, and we’ve found these models at the DuPont cities listed in the prior paragraph. Most recently, we were able to get our hands on a picture of the houses - as they stood - in Penniman in the late 1910s. So now we have placed the houses at Penniman, and then floating on a barge, and then in place in four different Norfolk neighborhoods.

And it all started with DuPont Plant #37, site of Virginia’s very own Ghost Town.

And now for Rose’s wish list: I wish that we could find more/better photos of Penniman.

Thanks to Mark Hardin (Hopewell) and David Spriggs (Norfolk) who did most of the research for this story.

To read part II of this story, click here.

To read more about Old Hickory, click here.

To read about the Sears Homes of Norfolk, click here.

To read more about the houses that came to Norfolk from Penniman, click here.

To learn about the murder of Addie Hoyt, click here.

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My great, great Aunt (Addie Hoyt)  was exhumed on November 3, 2011, and since then, I’ve received many, many questions from many people. In fact, more than 30,000 people have visited this blog since July 1st, just to read more about Addie.

Most of the folks who’ve been following this story have read that we found Addie buried in a shallow grave.  As one writer said, “When I saw that photo of Addie’s open grave, it was shocking and sad. There could not have been much soil on top of the coffin.”

Many people have expressed that very same sentiment.

When Doctors Peterson and Anapol arrived at Addie’s grave site on Thursday morning (November 3rd, the day of the exhumation), one of the first things they did was to measure the depth of the grave, and that’s where the 34″ measurement came from. But there’s also “the  rest of the story.”

None of us were expecting to find Addie in such a shallow grave. When the exhumation was in the planning stages, it had been decided to use the backhoe to 48″ and then turn off the heavy equipment and start the hand-digging. Based on conversations with two funeral directors and one long-time grave digger, it was expected that we’d find Addie at 6-8 feet.

We were wrong.

In fact, if you figure that Addie’s coffin was 16-18″ tall, that means that there was no more than 18″ of dirt on top of her coffin. Someone else asked about soil erosion, but if you look at the massive headstones throughout Rock Lake Cemetery (where Addie was buried), you’ll notice that the current placement of these headstones show no evidence of any soil erosion at the site.

And there’s another fact  about Addie’s exhumation that is utterly chilling.  When the good doctors arrived, they measured the open grave but by that time, some of Addie’s remains had been accidentally scooped up (by the backhoe) and dumped into the dump truck. In fact, that’s where a piece of Addie’s skull was found; in the dump truck.

Again - no one expected to find the remains so close to the surface.

Did Enoch murder Addie? Mary Wilson (Enoch’s granddaughter) says that yes, he did.  And given the rest of the information we have about Addie’s death, Ms. Wilson’s accounting of the facts looks quite accurate.

We do know that this “bereaved husband” didn’t care enough about his 29-year-old dead wife to arrange for a proper burial. He couldn’t be bothered to give her a legal burial. He couldn’t be bothered to follow the state law and get a burial permit. He couldn’t be bothered  to dig a proper grave. He couldn’t be bothered to give her a proper wake or funeral service.

Ah, but old Enoch did take the time to pry her wedding jewelry off her cold, dead  fingers before he dropped her into a shallow grave in the wee hours of June 19th.

These few facts - independent of Mary Wilson’s accounting of events - tell us a lot about Enoch James Fargo.

And none of it is good.

To learn more about Addie, click here.

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Three months ago, I was in Lake Mills, Wisconsin making the last-minute arrangements for my Aunt Addie’s exhumation. In June 1901, she was murdered by her 52-year-old husband, Enoch James Fargo. The number one question I’m asked again and again is, “Are you glad you did it, even though the autopsy results were inconclusive?”

In a word, yes.

Without the exhumation, we never would have known that Addie was buried in an extremely shallow grave. We would never have known that she was buried in her black, lace-up dress boots. Those are two important facts, and two more details that corroborate Mary Wilson’s story that Enoch murdered Addie.

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To learn more about Addie, click here.

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“We’ve found her remains,” the grave digger said, gesturing toward the cordoned-off area that included Addie’s grave site.

“What?”

My mono-syllabic response was not so much a genuine inquiry as it was a statement of surprise. The backhoe had just started digging. The plan was that the backhoe would go down to a depth of 48 inches, and then the hand-digging would commence. Based on conversations I’d had with two long-time funeral directors, we were expecting to find Addie’s remains at 6-8 feet. We’d come prepared, too. We had buckets and ladders and ropes and shovels, and most importantly, several volunteer diggers.

As soon as I’d spoken, I became aware that the roar of backhoe had ceased. In fact, now that I thought about this, I realized the backhoe had only been running for a few minutes.

It was 37 degrees that morning at Rock Lake Cemetery in Lake Mills, Wisconsin, and the sky was a solemn, solid gray with thick cloud cover. A steady wind drove the damp cold air deep into my southern bones. Born and raised in Southeastern Virginia, I was not accustomed to this bitter cold. Underneath my borrowed, bulky winter coat, I was wearing two thick undershirts, and two heavy flannels buttoned up to the neck. On top of the four shirts, I had a light-weight windbreaker, and the heavy coat represented the sixth layer of fabric.

And yet, despite all those layers of warm, comfortable clothing, a funny thing happened when the grave digger told me that they’d found her remains.

I began to shake uncontrollably and my knees went weak.

In an effort to steady myself, I put my arm around my friend Randy, and leaned hard into his tall, sturdy frame. This was the very reason I’d asked Randy to come. He was tall and steady and kind and he was an old soul. And I was far from home and frightened and tired and nervous as a cat. This whole affair - the legal proceedings and financial expenses and logistical headaches - had all been very stressful.

I’d asked Randy to attend the exhumation and to provide moral and spiritual support. He’d graciously accepted.

With my arm around his waist, I grabbed a handful of his black wool dress coat and closed my fist tight. If I fainted and fell to the ground, I wanted to go down slowly and with a modicum of grace. Randy already had his arm around my waist and I felt him pull me tighter and closer. I was comforted by this tangible expression of compassion. Randy Otto wasn’t going to let me fall down on his watch.  I held fast to Randy. My legs still felt inadequate to the task of holding me up.

It was a very emotional moment.

They’d found Addie’s remains.

For months, I’d wondered how I’d react at this moment. For months, I’d wondered if my great, great Aunt Addie was even in that grave. The fact that Addie’s husband (Enoch Fargo) never obtained a burial permit for Addie (a specific violation of Wisconsin state law) left me wondering if she was buried in the grave that bore her name, or if her body had been disposed of in some more sinister fashion. It seemed like everyone in Lake Mills knew the 110-year-old story - that Enoch murdered his second wife, Addie - but many folks in Lake Mills had different ideas on how he’d killed her, and a handful of people wondered if Addie had been buried elsewhere.

The discovery of remains was good news. But if she was in the grave, why hadn’t Enoch obtained a burial permit for her? How did he bury her without a burial permit?  Such an act was blatantly illegal in 1901. Enoch’s own uncle (Robert Fargo) was the cemetery’s sexton in 1901. Obtaining a burial permit from Uncle Bob would have been simple. Or maybe Enoch was so arrogant as to think that the laws did not apply to someone as powerful as himself? But if that’s the case, why was Addie’s death certificate falsified, to show that a burial permit had been obtained (even including a fictitious permit number)?

The answers to those questions would have to wait for now. Today, I was relieved that they’d found remains in Addie’s grave.

The grave digger asked if I’d like to look at the now-open grave. I said that I would. Randy and I walked together toward the grave site, navigating around the cheap orange plastic fence that had been required by the city (and paid for by me). We entered the fenced area and walked over to the grave. My first impression was that the grave was barely knee-deep.

Why is the grave so shallow, I wondered as I cautiously leaned over the hole to get a better look.  In Fall 2009, my husband was building a magnificent pergola in the back yard when we found a dead dog buried at about three feet of depth. The image of that little dog buried in the yard popped into my mind. Wouldn’t you bury a human being a little deeper than a family pet?

But I had a thousand other thoughts racing through my mind at that moment. That’s probably not a completely accurate statement. It was more like a million thoughts dashing and darting around in my head, jockeying for position at the forefront.

As I peered into the rich, dark Wisconsin soil, the grave digger held up a rust-colored twig, about 3/8″ thick and 7-8″ long.

Why are they showing me a piece of tree root, I thought to myself.

“What is that?” I asked, feeling truly sorry for these guys who’d just gone to all this trouble of turning off the backhoe, and stopping the excavation, all because they’d found one little twig in the hole.

“That’s a bone,” Mr. Grave Digger responded.

“A bone? Are you sure? Are you sure that’s not a stick?”

Thanks to the distraction the little stick provided, I noticed I’d stopped shaking and shivering.

“Yes, it’s a bone,” he replied. He seemed very confident about this.

Given that I’m a writer and Mr. Grave Digger was, well, a full-time grave digger, I decided I’d better trust his proclamation.

By now, David Olsen had sashayed over next to me, and was also peering into the grave. I leaned towards David and quietly asked, “David, do you really think that’s a bone?”

David Olsen was the funeral director who was there to “assist the family” (that’d be me and Addie), and he’d also volunteered to drive Addie’s remains to Milwaukee for autopsy. David Olsen was also the very specific answer to my many, many prayers, where I implored God to send me some “really big angels.” In addition to being at least 6′5″, David was one of the kindest, most compassionate people I’ve ever encountered. Much like Randy, David was another “old soul,” and a real class act.

David leaned his massive frame down toward me and softly said, “Yes, Rose that’s definitely a bone. Old bones are porous, and they take on the color of the soil around them. It’s rust-colored because of the dirt around it.”

That made a lot of sense.

I glanced at my watch. During the prolonged period of six-layer dressing earlier in the day, I’d gone to great pains to keep it uncovered and free. It was now a little past 9:00 a.m.

“The two experts,” (as they came to known by our group) were due to show up at any moment.

In late August 2011, someone in Lake Mills suggested that I contact Dr. Brian Peterson, Milwaukee Medical Examiner and ask if he’d be willing to do the autopsy on Addie Hoyt. Dr. Peterson and I had our first phone conversation on September 7th. He was intrigued by Addie’s story, and said that it was a pretty unusual case and he very generously offered to donate his services for the autopsy. I was elated. Dr. Peterson suggested I contact Dr. Anapol, a professor of anthropology from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. I did, and Dr. Anapol was also interested in the case.

A few weeks later, I was delightfully surprised to learn that both men were planning to attend the exhumation, and from there, the good news just kept coming. Dr. Anapol would be bringing strong, able-bodied students from UWM, who’d be ready, willing and able to jump down into the old grave and start digging.

The morning of the exhumation, I’d ‘awakened at 2:30 a.m.  At 6:00 a.m. I had begun the long, arduous process of dressing for the cold. I started pulling shirts out of my suitcase and putting them on, one by one. It took a few tries to figure out the exact order of the layering process.  At 6:45 a.m., I was done. I could no longer bend my arms at the elbows, but at least I’d be warm.

I left the Fargo Mansion Inn (where I’d been staying) and started the one-mile drive to the cemetery. I left a little earlier than I really needed to. I drove extra slow.

I’d visited Addie’s grave site too many times to count, so I knew just where to park. I walked to her headstone and said a little prayer for her, and for me. Speaking out loud, I told Addie, “We’re going to do this right, Addie. You may not have been honored at the end of your earthly life, but you’re going to be honored in death. I promise you that.”

In addition to the heavenly thoughts, I was facing some earthly problems. I was cold. Really, really cold.  I started wondering how in the world I would be able to stand outside in the frozen tundra of southern Wisconsin for several hours. It was not even 7:25 a.m., and I was already thinking about what it feels like to die from hypothermia. I’d read years ago that people get very sleepy right before they freeze to death. I was feeling very sleepy all of a sudden. How ironic that would be, I thought, if the grave diggers came for the exhumation and found my frozen, lifeless form, snuggled up against Addie’s granite headstone, eyes wide open in ceaseless wonderment with snowy-white icicles hanging from my long eyelashes.

When it was time to lie down and die from hypothermia, I made a mental note to remain on Addie’s side of the tombstone. Enoch’s name was inscribed on other side. I didn’t want to be anywhere near him when death came calling.

When I stopped pondering my imminent demise from hypothermia, my thoughts turned back to The Big Dig (as my family affectionately described it). I now vacillated back and forth between, “Thank God, this day has finally come and this will soon be over,” to “I must be out of my mind to be standing here in Lake Mills, waiting to dig up a long-dead relative that I never even met.”

My husband and I had just purchased a new home in Norfolk, Virginia, and it was our dream house. Why wasn’t I back home in Virginia, sitting in my back yard and gazing out upon Lake Whitehurst, watching the Hooded Mergansers and Double Crested Cormorants swim to and fro? What was I doing here in Lake Mills, standing under these depressing gray skies in an old cemetery?

My thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of an approaching car. It was about 7:30 a.m., and it was Reverend Bill McBride, arriving just as promised. He was dressed in his religious attire, which I very much appreciated. We’d had a long visit the day before in his office, and I had asked him to perform a blessing of the ground, for both my benefit, and Addie’s. In that blessing, I’d also requested that we pray for the safety of the workers, and that in all in attendance be guided by Divine intelligence and guarded by God’s love.

Reverend McBride, who knew the details of Addie’s tragic death, prayed that she would be guided into the light of God’s love, escorted by God’s own angels, and covered in God’s mercy and grace. He prayed that Addie’s soul would find “heavenly rest and perfect peace.”

At the end of his prayers, we prayed together for a moment.

That brief, ten-minute service was one of the most beautiful, hallowed and sacred moments of my time on this earth. Imagine, standing at the grave site of a murdered relative on a quiet winter’s morning when the sun has barely crested the horizon, with a Christly, holy man like Reverend McBride by your side, and praying for God’s blessing before you open the grave to remove a long-dead body. It was remarkable and above all, it was holy.

When our service was over, I wiped a few tears from my eyes and thanked him. He said he had to leave for a bit, but that he’d return in two hours for the actual exhumation. I walked him to his car, thanked him again and said goodbye.

Just as Reverend McBride was getting ready to go, I saw a little Honda navigating the labyrinthine roadways of Rock Lake cemetery. It was  my dear friend Heather. She’d come to keep me company, and wait with me.

Dear Heather lived almost an hour away, just outside of Milwaukee. A few days earlier, when she’d generously asked if there was anything she could do for me, I asked her to get up on Thursday morning, well before sunrise, and drive 50 miles to Rock Lake Cemetery in Lake Mills and hold my hand.

She readily agreed. Another earthly angel.

A little bit later, the cemetery sexton arrived and joined us at Addie’s graveside. He told us that the grave diggers - the guys with the backhoe - should be arriving any minute.

As Heather and I stood there, huddled together for warmth, a city official parked his car and quickly walked toward the grave. The first words out of his mouth were, “I hear this thing has been called off. I got a call at 9:00 o’clock last night that we’re not doing this today.”

The sexton said, “Are you joking?”

The sexton said it, but it’s what I was thinking, too. While we awaited his response, I felt my heart sink down to my knees. I could hardly breathe for a moment, but I tried to retain my composure.

We’d come too far to have this thing go off the rails now.  Way too far.

To be continued.

To learn more about Addie, click here.

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When I first started this Sears House gig, I lived in Alton, IL (near St. Louis) and some of my first discoveries were in the St. Louis area. Below are the Sears Homes I’ve found in the Kirkwood area (part of St. Louis). If you enjoy the link, please share it with friends!

What is a Sears Home? These were true kits containing 12,000 pieces of house. Each kit came with a 75-page instruction book that told you how to put all those pieces and parts together. The houses were sold out of the pages of the Sears Roebuck catalog, and the houses in St. Louis were shipped from Cairo, Illinois. Sears offered these houses from 1908-1940 and there were 370 different designs. Today, the only way to find these homes in literally one by one.

These photos were scanned from slides, taken in 2002 and 2003, so they’re a little faded.

Enjoy the photos! And if you want to learn how to identify kit homes, click here.

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To learn more about Sears Homes, click here.

To buy Rose’s book, click here.

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In February 2012, it will have been 10 years since I published my book, The Houses That Sears Built. Writing that book was a labor of love, but it was also an incredibly intense experience.  By Christmas 2001, I had nearly finished the manuscript.

For our Christmas vacation that year, our family (my husband and three daughters) had planned to fly to Portsmouth, Virginia to visit our families. (We were living in the St. Louis area at the time.)

About three weeks before the holidays, I decided to cancel my plans and stay home and finish up the manuscript. I was on a roll, and after two years, it was time to put my nose to the grindstone and get it done. But one of those “little voices” told me that this was an important trip, and that I needed to stick with the plan and spend Christmas in Portsmouth.

On Christmas Eve, we had dinner with my mother.  We were so happy to see her, and spend time with her. And I had a surprise. I’d just had a big article published in a national magazine.  She was so proud of me, and asked me to read the article out loud to her, which I did. My dear mother looked at me and just beamed.

“My beautiful daughter,” she said with a big smile. “My beautiful famous daughter. I’m so proud of you.”

And at that moment, I almost slipped and told her my secret: My new book was going to be dedicated to her, Betty B. Fuller. The inscription would read, All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother. I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always clung to me.

It was a quote from Abraham Lincoln and it described exactly how I felt.

Throughout my life, my mother’s prayers had been such a blessing and support. She was always my #1 cheerleader and my dearest friend.

That night, when we left her house, I told her that we’d be back in just a few hours - on Christmas morning!  She hugged me tight and started swaying side to side a little bit, while whispering in my ear, “My beautiful daughter. I love you so much.”

The next morning, she didn’t answer the door and she didn’t answer the phone. I used my key to get into the house and that’s when we found her - still in bed - ashen and barely breathing.  She never regained consciousness, and died a short time later.

Twelve days later, I returned home, hardly able to think about that book of mine. Suddenly, it seemed so completely unimportant.  However, I eventually pulled myself together enough to finish it and take the manuscript to the printer.

That was February 2002. Later that month, my husband of 24 years told me that he now understood Paul in the Bible, and that like Paul, he realized he was not the marrying kind. He asked for a divorce. And so ended a relationship that had begun in 1968. I’d met Tom when I was in third grade.

I moved out of the family home, and into a low-rent singles’ apartment and tried desperately to start a new life.

The Houses That Sears Built - was more than just a book. It became my raison d’être, literally.  The book - and the career that came with it  - gave me a sense of purpose and pride and unspeakable joy. Less than 60 days after its publication, I was interviewed for a feature article in the New York Times. That was a wonderful break.

Next, I was invited to appear in a new show being developed for PBS, tentatively titled, The History Detectives. From there, I ended up on A&E’s Biography, CBS Sunday Morning News and more. In July 2004, my book made it to Jeopardy!

By Summer 2006, I’d done more than 500 interviews and had appeared in almost every national newspaper in America, including, Christian Science Monitor, Dallas Morning News, Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post. In June 2006, my story appeared in the Wall Street Journal - front page - and above the fold! That was the coup of my career.

And in Summer 2006, I met Wayne Ringer. Six months later, we were married.

I’ve always believed in God’s timing, and the timing of this book’s publication and the start of my new life could not have possibly been any better.

And it was FUN. I traveled all over the country and was a featured speaker at countless venues and seminars and preservation conferences and I was treated like a queen. I really liked being treated like a queen!

The book - and the career that followed - restored my soul and healed my shattered self-esteem. Divorce is tough.

In 2004, I traveled to a small town in the Midwest, and stayed at a Marriott Hotel. The organizers of the event had made all the arrangements for me, and that was always much appreciated. When I checked in at the desk, the clerk looked up from her computer screen, smiled at me and said, “You’re Rosemary Thornton?”

I said, “Yes,” and she reached her hand across the counter and said, “Can I shake your hand? I’ve always wanted to meet a real author.”

It was (and still is) one of the best memories of my career.

And it all started with one little self-published tome on Sears Kit Homes.  Ten years ago, this month.

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To learn more about kit homes, click here.

To see the kit homes of Norfolk, click here.

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How many Sears Homes does Norfolk have? A whole bunch. In fact, Norfolk has more than 75 kit homes from a variety of kit-home companies, including Aladdin, Sears, Lewis Manufacturing, Harris Brothers and Gordon Van Tine.

When I first started hunting for kit homes in Norfolk, I was expecting to find a couple dozen - at the most. I was surprised (and delighted) to find so many of them, and in diverse group of neighborhoods, such as West Ghent, Ingleside, Larchmont, Ocean View, Park Place, Colonial Place, Riverview, Lafayette Winona and more.

Born and raised in Portsmouth, I’ll always be a “Portsmouth Girl.” In 1995, our little family left Hampton Roads and moved to the St. Louis area, where we lived for 11 years.  In 2006, I moved back to the area, met and married a nice guy who worked for the city of Norfolk, and that’s when Norfolk became my new home.

I’m still learning how to navigate the labyrinthine streets, and still making new discoveries. Who knew Norfolk could be so much fun? 

To read about the Sears Homes I found in Newport News, click here.

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As mentioned, there are more than 80 kit homes in Norfolk. The above are just a few of them.

Please share this link with friends!

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

To see pictures of kit homes in Colonial Place, click here.

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It’s called, “East End,” and it’s a badly blighted, crime-ridden part of the otherwise lovely, history laden city of Newport News (Virginia). Despite the fact that I’m a native of Tidewater, I never knew this neighborhood existed, until I stumbled upon it while looking for a particular house in Hampton!

After my fortuitous stumble into East End, I discovered a Sears kit home I had never seen before. After 12 years of playing with kit homes, that doesn’t happen too often these days. And yet here it was, in Newport News, which is next door to Norfolk (where I live). To learn more about these early 20th Century kit homes, click here.

The next day I returned to East End to get a better photo of this Sears House, and I found several more kit homes. I returned a couple days later and spent 90 minutes driving to and fro in this neighborhood. It’s my hope and prayer that this research might encourage the important people in Newport News to think about what can be done to preserve and protect this truly remarkable collection of kit homes.

As I told my husband, this is the type of discovery I’d expect to make in a Chicago suburb (where there’s an abundance of kit homes). Here in Virginia, I’ve never seen anything quite like this. And due to the straitened economic circumstances of this neighborhood, some of these houses are in largely original condition. (In addition to the Sears kit homes, I also found several houses from Aladdin, which also sold entire kit houses through mail order. In fact, I found more Aladdin kit homes than Sears!)

The research and writing of this blog consumed many, many hours of my life. Please share this link with others, who may have any interest in our cultural and architectural history.

Enjoy the many photos and please leave a comment below.

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I’m confident that there are many more kit homes in this small part of Newport News, and I hope to return one day (with a driver), and do a little more searching. It’s hard to focus on houses when there are so many people milling about in the street.  :(  Plus, while I was in this area, I saw TWO drivers blow past stop signs, without even pausing to glance at traffic. Scary. And then sometime last night, some poor soul was shot repeatedly in this very area.

Please leave a comment below, and please share this link with friends, via Facebook, twitter or even plain old email!

To learn more about the kit homes of Hampton Roads, click here.

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In honor of Addie’s 140th birthday (January 22), I’m asking that the readers of this blog make a donation to PADA of Jefferson County, an advocacy group for victims of domestic abuse. There’s a Paypal button on the PADA website, which makes donating a few dollars simple and fast. Any amount would be appreciated, even if it’s just a couple dollars.

Perhaps if there’d been a resource like PADA in 1901, Addie would have lived to be an old woman. Maybe she would have accomplished great things with her life, and had a chance to leave her mark on the world. Maybe - just maybe -  she would have championed Women’s Rights, or even used her inheritance from Enoch to start a shelter for abused women in Lake Mills.

But Addie did not survive her marriage to Enoch. By the age of 29, she was dead, allegedly murdered by her own husband.

Women’s lives are most at risk when they’re attempting to leave their husband or romantic partner. Many years ago, one of my dear friends was escorting a woman friend to her car after work. This woman had recently left her abusive husband after years of trying to get away. They had just stepped out into the parking lot, when the enraged “soon-to-be-ex” showed up, and quickly pulled a gun from his jacket pocket and shot his wife in the face, killing her instantly.

I wonder if Addie was attempting to leave the Fargo Mansion that summer’s night in June 1901, when things got out of hand. I wonder if Enoch was tired of her involvement with the D.A.R., or maybe he was tired of her many out-of-town trips. I wish I knew. And I won’t stop searching until I find out what happened to Addie that night - good or bad.

From time to time, anonymous writers tell me that there’s no way someone as powerful and rich and prominent as Enoch would have slapped or struck his sweet young wife. I say those people are misinformed. That’s one factor.  And here’s another:  It was a different world in 1901.

One hundred years ago, if a woman “got out of line,” it was her husband’s prerogative - perhaps even his duty - to smack her around a little bit. Women were considered to be emotionally on par with children, and it was up to the man to “keep her in line.”

Addie’s life ended when she was 29, and her husband’s alleged involvement in her murder, and the falsification of her death certificate were not investigated at the time of her death. Sadly, justice came a little late for Addie, but fortunately, Addie is no longer in the shallow grave where Enoch placed her 110 years ago. To read more about the exhumation and autopsy, click here.

There’s a lot more evidence that makes it clear, Addie did not die of diphtheria.  To read more about that, click here.

Join me - this week - in honoring Addie’s memory by making a donation in her name to PADA.

Addie and I thank you.

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To learn more about Addie, click here.

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In 2004, Dale Wolicki invited me and Rebecca to visit him in Michigan. One of our stops was Bay City, where we saw all manner of Aladdin kit homes, including “The Oxford.” Our wonderful tour guide (Dale), told us that the photograph of the Oxford model (shown in the 1931 catalog) was the very same Oxford that had been built in Bay City. It was the “original model,” and the only Oxford in Bay City.

Sears was the most-well known of the kit home companies, but Aladdin was bigger.  Aladdin was the first kit home company, starting business in 1906. Sears started two years later, in 1908. Aladdin outlasted all the others, remaining in business until 1981. Sears sold about 70,000 kit homes. Aladdin sold more than 75,000.

To learn more about Aladdin, click here.

I’ve only seen two Oxfords in my travels. The first was in Bay City, MI and the second was in Lorain, Ohio. And apparently, there’s a third one in Schenectady, NY (according to the testimony below).

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Click here to read more about breakfast nooks.

To read more about the cover of this Aladdin catalog, click here.

To learn more about Sears Homes, click here.

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