Hey there! Long time no post! Remember when I used to write these on the regular? I really should get back in the habit of doing that.
I’ve been literally sitting on these pictures for years. They were shot 03/29/2014 and have sat on my hard drive unedited, sitting and staring at me. I’ve looked at them several times and was generally unhappy with them for some hard to describe reason. I was so enthralled with the place the day I took them that I don’t think I did a very good capturing it photographically. But there is just something to them….it’s hard to describe for me. I do like them, but just didn’t know how they would come across to anyone else.
What I see are the bare bones of a once thriving and beautiful farm. This home was a showplace with three grand porches, a very fancy decorative fence with a couple of wrought iron gates, and a beautiful slate roof. The interior walls, from what I could see, were beautiful beadboard with substantial fireplace mantles. Not only that there was an outhouse, I think what was a cistern for catching rainwater by the house, and multiple buildings for storage and housing animals and farm equipment. One building still had some old and rusting farm equipment inside. I was by myself that day. Just me, a pair of rubber boots, my camera bag, and a warm, wet, beautiful spring day in Mississippi out for adventure. My husband had gotten me permission to explore the property and I had had to wait until after turkey season to go look at the property. I know nothing about this house. All I know is that it was built by someone in the Cunningham family, it’s old enough to be a probable antebellum with the architectural lines and the slate roof, and looks like the opening paragraph of a gothic novel. As far as I could tell there wasn’t any electrical wiring or even the hint of electricity ever being in the home. It was like walking into a time capsule of pre-war Mississippi.
Hard to believe it was 5 years ago I took these pictures; I would love to see what it looks like now. Do you ever look at a home, at a piece of property, and wonder what has happened there? What is its story? What dreams were built into the walls. Did the man or woman that built the home ever believe that it would come to this state? How many years has it sat here? If you know anything about it, please pass it along. I hate to see something so significant fade into the background until its just another set of foundations hidden in the trees, forgotten, its tale untold to anyone.
Thanks as always for reading.
