Old houses were built for another time and another way of life. And back in the day, the overwhelming majority of people died at home in their own beds. Next, they were sent off to the undertaker for embalming, and afterward, they went back “home” for the wake and the visitation.

In my own house, we learned that the owner’s first wife died soon after they moved into their “new” 1925-built home. The wake was held in the spacious living room, in front of the beautiful fireplace. This was not unusual for that time. Sometime in the early years of the 20th Century, wakes and visitation moved out of the home and into funeral parlors.

In the mid-1800s, many two-story homes were actually designed to accommodate the problem of moving a heavy coffin from the second floor (where the bedrooms were located) to the first floor.  Dignity in death is something the Victorians did very well. Because of this, the coffin was carried upstairs to the deceased, rather than the deceased being carried downstairs to the coffin. Logistically, this made things a little more difficult.

To accommodate this occasional need, the staircases in older houses were built with a coffin-width space between the railings on the staircase and the second-floor hallway.  Think of the staircase railing going up the stairs as point A, and the staircase railing on the landing as point B, and the staircase railing along the upper hallway as Point C.  Points A, B and C formed three of four sides of a rectangle (see picture below).

With ropes and a couple strong men, the coffin could easily be lowered over the railing and down to the first floor without trying to navigate the twists and turns and 24 steps of an old staircase.

I’ve included a picture of my own staircase until I can find a better picture of a real 19th Century house. My house has a “make-believe” niche that demonstrates the concept, but it is too narrow to be used for anything as wide as a coffin.  As soon as I can get into an older house, I’ll upload better pictures.

When I tour older houses, I love showing the homeowners this interesting feature of their intricate staircase balustrade. They’re always taken aback and always pleased to learn a little something more of their home’s history!

A view of my staircase from the first floor

The real estate agent must have thought I was off my rocker when she saw me lean my hand against the plaster wall in the empty house, close my eyes and concentrate. After a moment of silence, I opened my eyes and said, “This house has known sadness and pain, but predominantly, it’s a house that’s filled with many happy memories and good times and joy.”

The real estate agent’s eyes grew big and her brow furrowed. After looking at me askance for a moment, she turned her attention toward the hallways and said, “And what a beautiful staircase it has.”

“The listing says it was built in 1920,” I said to the real estate agent. “That’s not right. I’d say 1924 or maybe early ‘25.”

“Those listings are based on tax records and they’re pretty accurate,” she replied. “If it says 1920, it was 1920.”

I poked my husband and whispered, “That’s not right. It’s clearly 1924 or ‘25.”

When we toured the basement, I admired the oversized beams and massive piers. I reached up and stroked the beautiful knot-less lumber.

“It was an individual owner who built this house,” I said as my fingertips caressed the beams. “Someone who knew their lumber built this house. In fact, I’d venture to guess it was someone who was involved in a lumber business or maybe construction.”

Within 30 days, my husband and I were the happy owners of the 2,300-square foot, center-hallway Colonial Revival home. And I went right to work tracking down the home’s prior owners. With the help of one of my neighbors, I found Laura and her brother, Ed. The two siblings - fraternal twins - had been born in the house in 1949 and now lived in a nearby city. I invited them to come out to the house on a Sunday afternoon. In a few days, Ed and Laura were back at the front door of the house - my house - where they’d spent their childhood.

“My grandfather started building this house in 1924 and finished it in March 1925,” Laura told me. “He owned a local lumber yard in downtown Norfolk. When we were kids, he told us that he’d hand selected every piece of lumber that went into this house. He loved this house.”

I poked the hubby again and whispered, “See, I told you.”

We also learned that their grandfather had built the house for his wife. She was ill during the construction and he told her, “Just hang on, and I’ll build you a beautiful house.” His wife passed on a few months after they moved into the house. Her wake was held in the living room, in front of the large fireplace.

The grandfather - the home’s builder - died in the house in the 1960s, leaving the house to his son. Laura and Ed’s parents moved out of the neighborhood in the early 1970s. The house had remained in the same family from 1925 to 1971. In the 1990s, the grand old house was converted to a boarding house, and still has the scars to prove it.

Laura, Ed and I walked upstairs and they reveled in the tour of their family’s home. Tears came to Laura’s eyes as she stood in the hallway by the walnut staircase railing.

“This was such a good house for us to grow up in,” she told me as she brushed a tear from her cheek. “So many happy memories here.”

I turned to my husband and mouthed the words, “I told you so.”

Laura and Ed replicate a pose from the early 1950s

The house as seen in 1949

We’ve broken a record in Norfolk. A bad record. We’re not far from breaking the 1889 record of 70 inches of rain in one year. And hey - we got three weeks to go!

We had more torrential downpours last night. And then more rain in the wee hours.

This morning, I arose at 4:30 to get some writing work done. I went out to my sunporch and heard the plop, plop, plop of a leaky roof splashing raindrops onto my beige carpet. So then I had the husband run around and fetch plastic buckets and containers for the SEVEN places that were dripping water.

I ran upstairs and out to the sunporch ROOF (which is flat) and wearing my jammies, I went out on the roof (barefoot), got down on my hands and knees and bent over the edge of the sunporch roof in the POURING rain and cleaned out the gutters. When the gutters get too full, the water rises up behind the flat-roof’s flashing (bent over into the gutters) and then - thanks to that little miracle we call “gravity - flows merrily into the sunporch ceiling. The low spot on the sunporch ceiling is in the center, so that’s where it drips.

While I was up above - traipsing to and fro on this black rubber roof - my bare feet hit a slick patch of black rubber roofing (at 4:30 am keep in mind) and that sent me slip-sliding across the roof. In that split second, as the roof’s edge came closer and closer, I thought, “Great. This is how it all ends. The architectural historian slides off the flat sunroof of her own 1924-built Colonial Revival at 4:30 in the morning, with green-handled salad tongs in one hand and a blue Mag-light in the other.”

However, I survived that event.

Then hubby came out in the darkness and held the flashlight for me while I cleaned partially decomposed leaf matter and acorns and twigs and squiggly pink worms out of 35 linear feet of gutters in the pouring rain while wearing my jammies.

About 20 minutes later, I came back inside, drenched to the bone, and put on clean jammies and dry socks.

At 10:30 am, another torrential downpour clogged up the gutters again. This time, I went out with my drill motor and my hammer. I was going to fix those *&#^ gutters once and for all. I drilled about 129 half-inch holes in the gutters and then using the hammer, I *beat* the downspout off the gutter. I could *see* the problem - the downspouts were clogged with all manner of debris, but everytime I jammed my hand down into the downspout’s elbow, I only made matters worse, because when I pulled my hand *out* of the downspout, the razor-sharp sheet metal screws removed a little more downspout-clogging organic matter from my right hand.

I saw someone driving by on the street slow down to watch this amazing show. I am quite sure I looked like a mad woman. That’s because I *felt* like a mad woman.

At this point, if I’d had access to 13 sticks of dynamite I would have used all of them to blow those sunporch gutters to aluminum-gutter hell, where they surely belonged.

Again, when I re-entered the bedroom (where you access the sunporch roof) I was soaked through and through. As I walked toward the bathroom to peel off soaked clothes, I muttered, “Those gutters won’t hurt anyone now.”

I washed my hands in the bathroom and they burned from the death of a thousand cuts. Forcing my large hands into the downspouts’ mouth again and again and again left me with a right hand that resembled an uncooked rump roast. I focused on something other than pain and wondered if it’s possible to go into shock from having 83 small slices on one hand.

So I went back to my work and then I realized I need some boxes to ship books to people overseas. I went downstairs to my basement (where we store boxes) and as I descended the steps, I saw one of my boxes gently floating by at the foot of the stairs, like a cardboard gondola (sans gondolier).

My basement has five inches of standing water and a POS sump pump with a lot of ’splaining to do. Remembering the MANY extension cords we’d draped throughout the basement floor (to run fans and humidifiers after the last GREAT FLOOD - two weeks ago), I decide to not step into the potentially electrically charged water.

Instead, I pause and don my husband’s insulated rubber-sole boots and then courageously step off the basement steps and into Lake Colonial Revival. Nothing sparks or zaps and if I have just died instantly from an electric shock, it happened so fast that I have no conscious memory of it, so it’s all good. Perhaps with this one great step, I’ve walked right into eternity and never even knew it. I wonder if this is the case. However, I don’t see Mother anywhere nearby so I figure I’m still among the living and walk over to the sump pump.

Once at the sump pump, I give it a good swift kick in the float and it roars to life. Forty minutes later, we’re down to 1/2″ of water. Using my water-puddle-rapid-movement-device (something I used to call a broom), I sweep a little more recalcitrant water into the sump and then I notice that the formerly dry spots in the basement are wet again. The basement is refilling itself with an endless supply of flood water.

At this point, I call my husband and tell him, “I’m leaving. Don’t know when or if I’m coming back, but I’m leaving. I’m off to find dry ground and a dry house with beige carpet that doesn’t squish when I walk across it and gutters that don’t channel rain water into my office space where I store boxes and boxes of early 20th Century irreplaceable documents. If I come back with an olive branch, you’ll know I was successful. If not, it’s been nice knowing you.”

Long day. And I just got back home. He reported that the basement refilled after I left.

It’s nuts I tell you - just nuts. Our basement hasn’t flooded since 1924. An old man built our house in 1924 and he built it on its own tall hill. And yet - we flooded. Second time in 87 years. And the first time was two weeks ago.

Anyone got a rubber room I can borrow for a few weeks? I might need it…