Standard Oil Company gas station in 1930, a decade before my arrival in New Harmony.
Don Blair Collection. Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Southern Indiana.
Kenneth and I were unable to negotiate with the owners of the Standard Oil Company gas station; the asking price exceeded the resources at my disposal. The gas station remained for decades, an abomination and a gadfly to my efforts. From that day onward, I opted for the greater reality of the faded old houses and half-ruined Granary.
Setting my sights on what could be achieved in 1946, I bought a Harmonist house three blocks southeast of the Lab on Steammill, so called because the Harmonists had built a steam-powered factory on that street to manufacture shingles and weatherboards for the wooden houses of what historians now refer to as their middle period (12 on town map). The idea of creating a tranquil escape hatch for my family excited and challenged me.
Years earlier, nomadic Indian tribes across the plains had hunted animals and stretched their hides for tepees. Later, European pioneers supplanted them and cut down trees to build log cabins. In my time, I too would forage for building materials to repair and restore a house that would be as protectively mine as were those earlier shelters for my forbears. Notwithstanding my husband’s plea to friends—“If you see Jane with a hammer, for God’s sake, take it away!”—I persisted.
I loaded my tools in the pickup truck of a local contractor, Fred E. “Silo” Cook, who knew where to find old barns and abandoned farmhouses with weathered siding, ripe for my plucking. We pried loose old planks and a stable door; we gathered fieldstones for future garden paths. The joy of a hunter returning home with a bag full of fresh game would not have exceeded mine as we brought the quarry of my first expedition to Number V or “No. V,” my name for the Harmonist house on Steammill.
Interior of my Harmonist house No. V on Steammill, late 1940s.
Blaffer-Owen family photograph.
A word of advice to young couples, wherever you live and whatever your budget for building your first home: don’t let it reflect solely the expertise of an architect or a decorator, however considerable their talents. Abandoned barns and derelict houses may lie beyond your reach, but not urban warehouses filled with seasoned lumber and fixtures from dismembered houses. Paint at least one room of your house with your own hands! Such physical involvement won’t tire you as much as three sets of tennis. Yes, your hands will ache after using a wire brush to clean old barn wood, but you’ll feel pride with the end result and unexpected joy.
I respectfully disagree with the authors of the Declaration of Independence, who gave us the freedom to pursue happiness, because I never find happiness by pursuing it. For me, happiness is an untamed creature that comes unexpectedly from behind and licks a tired elbow after a long day of work. I have heard its sound in the song of a bird that has brought twigs and feathers to a nest.
Harmonist house No. V holds some of my happiest memories. My husband took refuge there from the truck stop noises that assailed the Lab, where his aunt still resided. Our daughters Janie and Carol could play at No. V without disturbing Auntie Aline’s prolonged naps and celebrate their birthdays. In July 1949, while preparing for Carol’s fifth birthday, I asked whom she wanted to invite to her party. Her quick response was indicative of her noble nature and my concept of society, “Mother, please invite everyone who can hear us having a good time.”
Our first Thanksgiving in No. V during 1948 brought an unexpected reason to be thankful. I had hired Ott Conner to fire my furnace. Ott’s former boss, a farmer who placed little faith and no capital in modern farm machinery, had employed Ott to harness a reluctant mule to an ancient corn rake to harrow or harvest the farmer’s corn, a partnership that lasted until the mule decided to make a sudden bid for freedom, taking his entangled muleteer over rough territory with him. The odd accident had left Ott with a permanent limp and the inability to maneuver stairs in a straightforward manner, so he worked for me only irregularly. However intermittent his days in my employ or daunting my cellar stairs, Ott never mentioned his infirmity and always arrived with a cheerful smile.
Preparations were well under way on the eve of Thanksgiving. I had just purchased a bushel of apples and pears from Ollie, one of the Hardy brothers who owned orchards in the Hardy Hills, east of town. I was eager to try the recipes a neighbor on Steammill Street had given me for apple butter and pear honey. I put Janie, age seven, and Carol, age five, to work in the kitchen, white aprons tied around their necks, stirring fruits in iron pots. The delicious aroma of cloves and cinnamon filled the air of the barn-like central room when Ott tapped gently at the front door.
He declined to enter, not from timidity, but because he wanted me to hear his truck’s motor running outside my gate, the heavy breathing of the horsepower that had brought its rider with an urgent message. The messenger was not exactly standing upright in my doorway, for a crooked right leg tilted his long, lean body sideways. But his invitation was whole-bodied, his self-worth intact. “I’m on my way to Carmi for Thanksgiving, Mrs. Jane,” he said. “I’ve got a quart of ice cream and a whole chicken in my truck, and I wish to God you were coming!” I was thankful that humble Ott had extended a firm hand of friendship to me, as I was still considered an outsider by some in town.
While No. V holds good memories, my first Harmonist house also reminds me of my early reckless approach to restoration. My partners in crime were teenage schoolboys: Donald “Donnie” Hatch, the Travelstead brothers, and a smattering of Russells and Brands. They wanted money for bicycles and Scout uniforms. I needed their young muscles and laughter. The walls of No. V were an easy prey for male-hunter instinct as they attacked wallpaper and flaky plaster with crowbars and victorious cries. My own murder weapon was a rotary sander with a seven-inch sandpaper disc, which quickly but inexpertly removed thick layers of paint from overhead beams. Circular marks on finely ground, honey-colored poplar wood are now less visible than in those scarlet-letter days but still remain.
I found an adult carpenter to install in the downstairs bedroom paneling made from wide planks that Silo Cook and I had taken from an old barn. Thin and long-faced Mark, a somber figure as if from Picasso’s Blue Period, arrived one morning more taciturn than usual.
“What’s wrong, Mark?”
After a few minutes of silence, he blurted out accusingly, “You’re teaching my daughter to dance.”
Janie and Carol sitting on the stairs of No. V in their white aprons, 1948.
Blaffer-Owen family photograph.
I was unprepared for this outburst of undisguised rage. I had studied dance as a student at Bryn Mawr with Josephine Petts, who learned the Duncan method of dance. It helped orient me to nature and improved my posture, for sisters Isadora and Elisabeth had taught pupils to walk so the sun could touch their chests. I wanted to pass on what I had learned to anyone who wished to attend my classes in the Ribeyre Gymnasium (13 on town map). More than a dozen girls came, including my carpenter’s daughter.
“But Mark, the girls love their classes. They walk out holding their heads high and shoulders straight; surely you’ve