Whiteley Creek Homestead

We all have dreams. Over the years, I have concluded that, no matter what generation, we are more alike than not. We dream of where we'd like to live, the house we'd like to build, the interior furnishings, and the layout of our gardens and farm buildings. My parents, I recently tangibly discovered, were no different. While sorting through their personal belongings upon their deaths (my mother on April 22, 2011 at age 93 and my father on January 26, 2005 at age 94), an assortment of house plans from various sources surfaced. The before and after house plans shown below from The Business of Farming J.F. Anderson Lumber Co. Copyright 1945,  show how a "typical L-shaped farmhouse lends itself ideally to modernization inside and out."  The farmhouse style is practically identical to the one I love so much at the Rollag Farm Show! (See yesterday's post.)        

In 1946, my parents purchased acreage ten miles southeast of Brainerd that increased to its present 160 acres through acquisition of adjoining land. The original property included an early 1900s house that had a kitchen, living room, and one bedroom. A family that was rapidly increasing in size, to eventually total twelve children, required the addition of two bedrooms and a "backroom" for a chest freezer to store garden produce and meat, a wringer washing machine, a wood stove to heat water in a copper boiler for laundry, a cupboard to set a water pail and dipper for drinking and cooking use, and a combination wood bin/wash basin unit. My father and mother may have referenced some of the house plans, that had so carefully been filed away in the top shelf of my father's bedroom closet, for their house's additions. I am not sure.  

In the same publication as the farmhouse renovation article is a farmstead layout. I envision my father, who generated a supplemental income through farming, gleaning ideas for his farm. His dream.