This is the second of two blogs about the farmhouse in Nebraska that was my home.

I ended Part 1 of this post with how thrilled I felt as I came to the top of a hill and saw my beautiful old home surrounded by a lovely vineyard – in Nebraska! It felt like an amazing gift!

When I arrived at the farmhouse, Cheri and Bob Mager showed me my old home, which they had lovingly and painstakingly brought on a flatbed on wheels to Wilber from Clatonia. I was pleased to see how much they loved the house that my grandparents had built, where I had been born and raised. We walked through the vineyard to a lovely gazebo, where they told me that the vineyard came into being after their son Brian died. Friends told them that they needed something new and different in their lives. So a vineyard is what they did. After getting it started they knew that it was a place that Brian would have loved. Since then people from all over Nebraska come to the vineyard to be married, to celebrate life. It’s an amazing tribute.

Not long ago, Bob and Cheri decided to renovate the kitchen. Cheri sent me an email: “We are planning to renovate the kitchen. We thought you might want to write a letter to the house, which we will put in the new walls in the kitchen so when future generations live in the house and renovate it, they will find the letter.” So that is just what I did.

I don’t remember exactly what I wrote, but I think it went something like this:

“Dearest Home of my family and of my heart, I am the granddaughter of Charles and Minnie Haupt, who lovingly built you several generations ago. You have been a wonderful home to my grandparents, my parents Wilson and Alma Haupt, and to me and my sister Shirley. I have so many special memories of having lived inside the safety of your walls.”

I don’t remember if I actually listed some of those memories in my letter, but I certainly do have them: Of practicing the piano in our unheated living room in the cold of winter wearing a hat, coat, and boots. Of listening to my parents fantasize with aunts and uncles about moving to California but knowing they’d stay in Nebraska even though it was too cold in winter and too hot in summer. Of feeding neighbors at our kitchen table when they joined my dad to thresh wheat. Of playing with my sister in the sunroom using Montgomery Ward catalog “paper dolls.” Of sitting in front of our floor-model-radio listening to Santa Claus. Of praying on our knees for what felt like hours by our kitchen chairs – even falling asleep until Mother would ask: “Are you listening, Joy? God wants you to be awake.”

I ended my letter to my old home: “May all who live in this beloved home live in peace and joy – as my family did. God bless this home!”

Creator God, we thank you for living in the home of our hearts. Thank you also for the places where we live that keep us safe. We ask that you will bless these places, so that they will truly become our beloved homes. We welcome you there. May all who enter our homes feel your blessing in their lives. Amen.

Joy Carol
www.joycarol.com