Thank you Mr. Page

I will always think of the Farm as it looks in this picture. As a functionally elegant yet decrepit building that smelled of mice, mildewed paper, termites, creosote and dusty bricks. This is how I remember it. Even today and despite the fact that my Father has over the course of decades of summers rebuilt by his own hand almost every wall, window, roof and riser. This will always be my version of the Farm.  The first time I saw it, I was five and I loved it. I didn't want it to ever change. I loved it the way it was. I have always been hugely sentimental and it was sincere and unpretentious. As well, there were places to discover. Nooks where secrets lived, tiny apothecary bottles left behind tucked between studs, scattered papers with barely legible handwriting practically used to cover walls, then yellowed and faded.

My parents, however, had a very different idea about how their farm should live on. Together they planned and worked (my Mother did the planning and my Father did the working) to transform this place into a wonderful home on a beautiful property. There were acres of woods, streams and gulches, fallow hayfield hills covered in tall grass, meadows of wild strawberry, quiet ponds with toads, snakes and catfish, ancient orchards of apple and pear, ash groves, wild elderberry thickets and fragrant onions  . . . I could go on and on. I would love nothing better than to live here for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, the "here" in this picture doesn't exist any longer. A new version does.

Today, the farm is still beautiful. The house is livable, the grounds are kept and the outbuildings have been rebuilt. A huge barn now sits to the south near where the original once stood. The neighbor borrowed it when the original owner, Mr. Page, died. Despite it's beauty and appeal, when I look at these pictures I ache for the Farm in my picture book memory. The simple, quiet house with the plain wagon-rut drive, the corn crib and fields crossed occasionally by only the rustiest barbed wire. There is something so entirely captivating and glorious about the vibrant style of this simple building.

I'm always sad when I think about how the old Roscoe Page farmstead has been transformed into the Freudenburg Farm. At the same time, I grateful for the foresight of my parents in purchasing this wonderful little oasis.

Thank you Mr. Page for giving my parents the framework to build our family upon. You could not have had the vaguest notion how much they needed it. I would have loved to have met you and listened to your stories about the place I only know as "The Farm."