Life Changes and Good Stories

Since Wednesday I have been in Tyler, TX visiting a good friend and her husband. What initially started out with an agenda by my friend and I to “have lots of coffee talk conversations and/or to lay by the pool” has suddenly been taken captive by the reality of life -- my friends have been house hunting for quite some time and stumbled upon a house in the last several days since I’ve been here that has the most potential for the money they’re willing to spend and they needed to make a fast decision. So, because my friend’s in-laws are in real estate, Mom and Dad flew in (Literally – Dad recently bought an old 1940 war plane and flew it from Austin to here!! Very cool.) And since it has been a whirlwind of discussion as well as an education in house purchasing.

The other day after the Parents arrived we went to see the house again. It’s an old house supposedly built in the mid-40s with an unusual exterior of cinderblock. When my friends and I walked through it the previous day, the ninety-year old owner was not at home and we found ourselves trying to piece together the story of this woman’s life – lots of antiques obviously from other parts of the world; no pictures of family or children anywhere; an unusual mixture of slab and pier and beam flooring.

Upon the second viewing of the house we were introduced to Clara Broush Bogard (not sure of spelling), who immediately told us all her friends called her C.B. She was the spryest, most youthful ninety-year old you’ve ever met! After making our way through the house again we began to ask her questions about her home. Turns out she and her husband (both in the Civil Air Patrol) moved into the house in ’47 but when they moved in they decided to change the entrance of the house. So, they lifted up the house (yes, actually lifted it up) and turned the house 90 degrees. They then proceed to add on about another 900 square feet of the house…hence the newer slab flooring. The coolest thing was the story of the cinderblock exterior. Apparently after the war building supplies were scarce. So, Mrs. Clara’s husband individually made all of the cinderblocks from scratch and bricked their house!

We were all totally entranced with Mrs. Bogard’s stories of her life. While you wouldn't have believed for a moment that she was 90, she felt that she could no longer properly take care of herself so she informed us that she was moving herself into an assisted living center and was in the process of eliminating everything that had been home to her for the last 60 years. While she was delighted I think that my friends took such an interest in her life and home, my heart really ached for her. Maybe it’s my own recent events that caused my to identify at some level…and yet, I can’t imagine what it must be like to sell off everything at 90 years old with no children to pass down my stories and precious treasures and willingly move myself into a community of people I have no shared experiences. A place where for all apparent purposes is probably one of the last places to dwell before leaving this earth. It makes me think of my grandparents who also were forced to such measures before they went home to be with Jesus…

Just before we left Mrs. Bogard’s house the other day, she told my friends that she really wanted them to get the house. The following morning my friends made an offer just as a competing offer came in bidding for the same house. Mrs. Bogard sold the house to my friends. It’s my suspicion that after getting to know them that she felt that she was able to leave a piece of her home and her story to some kids who would take care of her story as much as there own desire to create a new home and memories…