Our House

So, our house has intrigued me from the first day I met it! Anyone who knows me knows I love love love houses and just about everything to do with them. Call me strange, but I talk to my house. I feel it has been neglected for so long it needs some love and assurance. :) Dustin bought our house about 4 years ago as a foreclosure, and it was a mess! Our neighbor told us it was a party house for the Weber State basketball team, so I'm sure you can imagine! Dustin told me he spent a month cleaning our house from floor to ceiling. The picture above was taken at Halloween.

We have done some work to it since I moved in and have really enjoyed our home improvement time together. There is still a lot we want to do, and I will keep you posted as we do more! A lot of people say they would never want to live in an old house, and I thought I was one of them. However, my old house has completely changed my mind! It has such character and such history that I can't help but be in love with it despite its shortcomings. :)

I had some bridal pictures taken on my front porch. :)

I have wanted to dig up some history on my house for a while but didn't quite know how to. The other day I went to the Weber Center in Ogden and asked the assessor how I would go about finding old records on my house. She sent me to the vault (yes, there is actually a real vault with public records!) and a cute little lady helped me. The assessor's office has it recorded that our house was built in 1917, so we looked in the book with that date range.

Getting ready to paint the dining room...

The book was in handwritten cursive, and it was tiny! Thank goodness we have always kept records though, or I would never be able to find anything out! We found our block and looked up the records for it. The first thing we found was a transfer of property for part of the block on June 23, 1913. Lucky for me, there was only one record on the whole block, and we have thought for a while that our house was the oldest on the block, so this confirmed it!

Dustin in his coveralls!! :)

What was interesting as I continued down the page for more information was another transfer, and the property was bought for 500 dollars by a J.P. Corry and his wife, Olive. J.P. Corry then took out the first mortgage recorded on July 14, 1913 for the amount of 1800 dollars with 8% interest! Ouch! So we concluded that the construction actually began in 1913 since you can't take a mortgage out on property. In February of 1914 J.P. Corry then borrowed another 2000 from a man named Dan Pugh. It's crazy that I could find all this information! I really consider myself quite lucky because I've heard how hard it can be.

I now believe that the house was completed in 1914, as on October 22, 1914, our house was sold to a lady named Ella M.A. Greenwell in the amount of 3500 dollars. I figured nobody is going to buy a half-finished house, especially a woman! I thought it was also interesting that her name was the only one that appeared. I am going to have to do some more digging. I want to find out more information about her, as I think she is the original owner of our house. I made it to the year 1936 so far, and Ella was still living there. I am going to go back and get a complete timeline, but I definitely want to know more about Ella.

I called my mom, who is the Internet guru - she can find ANYTHING online - and gave her Ella's name. Five minutes later she called me with a lot more information! Ella's maiden name was Morton, and she was the daughter of Ruther Verna Leavitt and William Anthony Morton. She married David Verne Greenwell, and my mom even found a marraige license, but it will cost me to get it. I'm going to look into it.

Here's the crazy part - while I was on the phone with my mom I was standing in my dining room, and when I said Ella Greenwell out loud, I seriously got chills! It could be that it's just crazy to think that she used to live in my house, but I think her name has not been spoken in my house for years and years, and it was a cool feeling. I would absolutely love to find a picture of her to keep in my house, as she is part of its history.

I am so excited to be finding out bits and pieces of my house's history. I think it's important, and hopefully when we decide to move it will be something that the next owners will treasure.

So there's some history on my house! The rest is still a mystery, but I'm digging it up! I will post more pictures when I get them organized. Sorry so long - I tend to write novels. I hope it wasn't boring! :)