Memos from Quarantine #49: Remembering Grampy Skinny and Grammy Witch

Sometimes you get the deer. Sometimes the deer gets you.

 On Monday – Memorial Day – I was sitting in my living room, reading a book, and I looked out my back window and saw within yards of my house the most elegant deer. Now why this deer wanted to be anywhere near the roaring lions at the zoo across the road is a fair question. But I didn't ask; I just enjoyed and quietly took a picture.

 Three days later, I'm driving on the Maine Turnpike late at night, returning from dinner in Portland, when suddenly I catch a glimpse of a large deer trying to sprint across the highway ahead of me. Now why this deer was crossing the highway with cars speeding by in excess of 70 mph is a fair question. But I didn't have time to ask. I swerved as best I could, avoiding a full head-on collision. But I did strike it with the driver's side corner of my RAV 4, and I felt the deer slam into my door. Didn't end well for the deer, and my car took a bit of a beating as well. Again, I took a picture.

So, I'm feeling a little extra grateful to be here and sharing with you this morning. In large part because I survived what easily could have been a deadly crash. But even more: I enjoyed the most extraordinary visit here this week at the old farmhouse at the edge of the hundred-acre wood.

Let's re-cap a bit: My house was built by Revolutionary War soldier Noah Greeley in 1780. In the 1800s, it was home to Civil War soldier James Fellows, and I understand it was used as a training ground for local troops. It later became a stage coach stop and inn. Then, in the early 20th century, University of Virginia basketball coach Pop Lannigan acquired the property to be his family's summer home. A generation later, he gifted it all to his daughter Helen, who moved here with her first husband, novelist Erskine Caldwell. His most famous books – Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre – were refined in the very room where I'm writing to you now. Helen and Erskine welcomed three children into the world here: Erskine, Dabney and Janet. This property remained their family homestead for the remainder of the 20th century and into the 21st.

All of that as a preface for this: On Memorial Day, Dabney's daughter Kiah and granddaughter Emily visited me, took a tour of the house and shared with me the gift of their memories growing up here.

It's one thing to know intellectually that you live in a storied home. It's quite another when past residents visit and regale you with their stories. To me, Erskine Caldwell and Helen Caldwell Cushman are legends – particularly because I knew Helen when she would visit local schools and spin scary yarns as the so-called Green Witch. But to Kiah and Emily, these legends are Grampy Skinny and Grammy Witch.

So, now I know that, yes, I've set up my office in the library where Grampy Skinny finished his most famous works. Directly upstairs from me is the "ghost room" where Kiah's dad once spotted an apparition in his mirror while practicing violin, and where her young cousins saw mysterious lights floating around them. Down the hall, in the ell leading to the barn, is the staircase where drunken "peg leg" was pushed to his death and supposedly became a fulltime ghostly resident. Just beyond the staircase is the dance hall – or "pool room," as the family calls it, as it always housed a pool table and a player piano. This is where Grammy Witch hosted her legendary Halloween parties and barn dances. The walls are a living guest book signed by scores of happy party goers. Whatever I end up doing with this space, my first priority is to preserve these walls and names.

There's so much more. The three of us, we sat and talked for 90 minutes. I detailed my dreams to restore and conserve the property. Ideally, I'd love to get it on the National Register of Historic Places. I made it clear to Kiah and Emily: This is still their homestead; I'm just the caretaker. They are welcome to return any time they like. They took with them some old family paintings that had been left behind in the barn.

But they left me with an extraordinary gift, which is the photo atop this article. That's the Lannigan family on the front lawn of this property, home in the background, circa 1912. This was the year Titanic sank and Fenway Park opened. Sitting in the foreground on the right is young Helen – decades before she became Grammy Witch. Look at that family and their fashions. Take in that elegant wrap-around porch and the balcony above it. Imagine the lives that were led and the memories that were made here.

This is what inspires me. It’s a daunting task to even think about sanding and staining all these floors, painting the exterior and interior walls, rehabbing the barn and landscaping the property. But knowing what it was, I see better what it can be. And what an awesome opportunity it is to help get it there.

And, hey: Tomorrow two more Caldwell cousins are visiting. I cannot wait to receive the gift of their memories.