The Old Jacobson Home Place

The old Jacobson home place. Though meticulously built by Matthew Jacobson ages ago for his young and growing family, the house seemed to lose it's will to hold itself together after Matthew and his wife passed away in their old age.


The old house was left to the family, but all of the children had moved on to various bustling cities with their own young and growing families, where they were very contented to remain. No one wanted to sell their place of birth and upbringing, but no one was willing to care for it properly, either.




To the family's credit, some of the major damage to the home was dutifully repaired, namely, the dormer that had been destroyed by a falling branch of an ancient oak tree.



The exterior of the house was also given a fresh coat of cheerful yellow paint, Mother Jacobson's favorite color.















While the outside of the house maintained at least a portion of it's original charm and dignity, the interior was quite another matter.


A few years after both Matthew and his wife died, their children leased out the home to a lively family of twelve, who put their own stamp on the Jacobson home place. They were much less meticulous than Matthew had been, particularly in the area of painting.







No one knew exactly how, but that entire family of twelve completely vacated the house in the middle of one mild winter night, taking with them some of the home's finest features, including the wooden doors Matthew had made by hand and the beloved old cook stove Mother Jacobson had used to lovingly prepare thousands of meals.









Stripped almost bare, no vestiges of the beautiful and cheerful interior that reflected Mother Jacobson herself remained.






The house was never put up for lease again after that unsettling experience, nor was it sold. It was simply "kept" by the Jacobson children and grandchildren, wistfully visited a few times here and there for "old time's sake".


Eventually, though, the Jacobson home seemed to be all but forgotten. It was abandoned and left in it's shameful state to face alone the cold and cruel consequences of time.