The 5 W's at Foxcroft

For the last several weeks I've been dealing with the 5 W's at Foxcroft they are:

1. WORK
Of course this is the first "W" it's all we know around here. I stained the boards in the pergola. I'm using the same old lumpy stain (Oxford Brown) that I've been putting on the house. I've also now painted the capitals above the columns in the same color as the bargeboards and rafter tails. Next will be painting the columns "Lambswool" same as the house window trim.


2. WISTERIA
For Mother's Day we bought Lisa two wisteria plants. 17 years ago we planted Hardy Chinese Wisteria at our previous house, but right when it got big enough to bloom, it became shaded by the corkscrew willow that we also planted. We put our "Kentucky Blue Wisteria" along the back two columns of the pergola. I hope it grows quickly.


3. WHIMSEY
We had a planting on the driveway blow down in big winds. As I started to cut it up I got thinking about using the branches to make a trellis along the back corner around the fish pool. First I did the part on the west side of the pool. I told Lisa what I was making was "whimsey."


Then I started on the south side. The neighbors behind us had a huge limb blow down out of a maple tree, so I sawed parts off it and used them too. Then I trimmed a little from our lilacs. Pretty soon I was going down into the ravine and getting scrub from down there:


Since this is a trellis we have fall clematis on it that we planted a year ago. I've also planted some fancy morning glories, and am training up the weed morning glories too. We also have some wild grape started on it as well.

When in the ravine I found some really nice virginia creeper. I cut a piece to wrap around and make a window:


This all lead to the next "W":

4. WEIRDNESS
I was confronted by another neighbor (not one who's property is adjacent to the trellis) that said I was building a fence in violation of the City's fence ordinance. And to top it off, what I was building was ugly and a fire hazard. I was quite taken aback by this but said I'd check with the owner next door and look at the fence ordinance. The house next door is currently for sale and has been empty now for over a year. The owners said they had no problem with what I was doing, and the city building inspector visited and said what I had was a trellis and not subject to the fence ordinance. The icing on the cake came several days ago when the leader of the City Garden Club visited to see if we'd be on their tour. She loved the trellis and said the current issue of "Horticulture" magazine had one just like it.

5. WILD TURKEY
Not the drinking kind, the actual large bird type. I saw what I thought were bags of garbage on the railroad tracks when going over the Melrose Bridge on my bike. When I went back to look I realized they were turkeys. There were two male toms in full display with about 6 hens feeding along the tracks. My guess is that they are getting all the spilled corn that falls off the railroad cars. Here is a pic I took of them.


Then Sunday I was walking my mower down the driveway to mow the bottom of the front yard. I saw something move in the hostas between our house and yet another neighbor's yard. (we share boundaries with 5 houses) When I looked back I realized it was a turkey that must have been sleeping/roosting under the hostas. It ambled back into Matt's yard for a snack under his bird feeder. I went and got a picture of this one too:

Bess' 1930-35 Diary

I don't think I've done this before and posted a whole page of one of Bess' 5 year diaries, but today's are too good as a group:

May 12th

1930
Mon 60
Alone all day + got home at 11. Read “It’s a Great War” Hazel, D +N over.
Got 3 new tires + tubes (19.75 each)

1931
Tue 60
Dug 2 pail dandelions – sewed + heard A’s 4 White Sox 2 game – Harry mowed lawn – Mildred here in evening till 11.

1932
Thur 84
Lindburgh baby found dead.
Seeded new lawn, fixed wire on back porch, set out plants. H to Chi Omega house for dinner. Home at 8:30

1933
Fri 70
Hard rains off + on all day. No fires - Over town to Hands and for yeast. H made puzzle + cake for Hildegarde’s birthday. Isabelle came for her about 5:30 – She worked on tulip quilt + heard Coon Sanders as May Frolic - Robin

1934
Sat 50
Planted dahlias – Made Hildegarde’s cake + H and I delivered it in the rain, - H to Court of Awards. I heard ball game + read – furnace + grate fires. Steak fry here because of rain. Hilly – Jerry – Dr. Frankel + Herb Smith. H and I got Waucoma auxiliary flowers – a cat asleep in car

Notes:

1930: "It's a Great War" Mary Lee, Houghton Mifflin, 1929, 574 pages. According to the American Book Exchange: "The author of this novel, based on her own experiences, was a young American who spent two years in France as a civilian employee of the United States Army - first with a base hospital unit in Bordeaux, then with the Air Service in Paris, and finally as Y.M.C.A. canteen worker in the zone of advance and with the Army of Occupation in Germany."

Bess' husband, Walter, volunteered for WWI at age 39. Because he was a physician he was taken and worked in France as a surgeon. After the armistice, but before his enlistment was finished, he was sent to Serbia to fight a typhoid outbreak. He contracted pneumonia and died. Bess was 36 when he died in 1920, Helen was 7 years old. Bess never re-married.

1931: The "A's" would be the Philadelphia Athletics. That year Connie Mack's team went 102-52 winning the American League pennant. They defeated Gabby Street's St. Louis Cardinals 4-2 in the World Series. The Chicago White Sox finished 7th in the 8 team AL that year. Bess was a die hard Cubs fan, but listened to any game she could.

1932: Even though Charles A. Lindburgh Jr. had been kidnapped on March 1, 1932 the body wasn't discovered until May 12th. Eventually Bruno Hauptmann would be found guilty and executed. To this day controversy surrounds the case.

The "new lawn" would be in the extra half lot that Bess had just bought from her neighbor, realator Lee Koser. She paid $60.00 for the lot. In 1928 Bess had paid Koser $1,000.00 for the two lots on which Foxcroft had been built. (The house was built for $11,000.00) With no building occurring after the stock market crash and onset of the depression, I'm sure Koser was happy to sell land at any price. The majority of the extra land became Bess' sizable kitchen garden. Helen sold the lot to another neighbor in 1981.

1933: "No fires" would refer to the furnace and the fireplace meaning it was warm that day. "Hand's" is the name of a jewelry store in Iowa City, which is still in business in the same location as it was in 1933. "Hildegarde" was one of Helen's college best friends.

Apparently "Coon-Sanders" was the Coon-Sanders Original Nighthawks Jazz Orchestra founded by drummer Carlton Coon and pianist Joe Sanders. Their "Maytag Frolics" were popular hits. Bess probably heard them on her radio.


1934: Most of 1934's entries make sense after reading the previous years. A "grate fire" would be in the living room fireplace, Given the high being 50 degrees that day it was probably chilly in the morning. The "steak fry" seems to have been Hildegarde's birthday celebration. "Jerry" would become her future husband. Given the size of Foxcroft it was often the site of gatherings, especially of Helen's college classmates. "Waucoma" was the name of the small Iowa town where Helen was born and that she and Bess had moved from in 1928 after building Foxcroft. "Cat asleep in the car" was likely Buff, a cat that Helen still talked about prior to her death in 2004.

2nd Annual Bungalow Blog Tour

Hello folks,

Welcome to Foxcroft, a late 1920's bungalow set in University Heights, Iowa. I'm Mike, your host. I live here with my family.

A little about us:

We are the second family to live in our home. We owned the house for a year before beginning to restore it. We had the incredible opportunity in that time to get to know the daughter of the builder during her final year she lived here as our life tenant. Helen passed away in December of 2004 at age 93. She was 18 when she moved in with her widowed mother in September of 1928.

Helen and her mother, Bess, 1929.

We started work to make it our home in 2005. We have had the privilege of keeping much of the historical documents that came with the house: daily journals of both Bess and Helen, and amazing photo albums, including pictures of the house under construction:


And original interior photos


The big project we embarked upon was taking the entirely unfinished second floor...

1929


2005 (before we started working on it)

...and putting in three bedrooms, a bathroom, laundry room and sitting room. We also added a gable to the rear of the house. Here is the interior of the new gable this morning.


We used salvage materials (the bookcases, door, picture rail and casing above) as well as the original blueprints to match trim, etc.

Perhaps the single best day of our renovation was here:

A Little Off the Top, Please

Lately my big projects have been outside. Bess and Helen by themselves built a cement fish pool in 1933.


More photos of their work are here: Digging the pool.

The pool was completely filled in some time in the 1960's. Over the past couple years We excavated and and now have it working again. We added a small waterfall:


Last summer we also built a pergola and patio of mostly salvaged materials. Here it is as used for our youngest daughter's birthday party in September:


A particularly interesting part was lifting up the very heavy cement columns. My partner in crime during this adventure is a fellow teacher and the lead builder of our upstairs. Our two families have been friends for over 25 years:


Here is a walkthrough of the entire pergola project:

• Jurassic Bungalow
  
• Rembrances of Salvages Past
  
• Going Vertical
  
• Hubris (or "The OTHER 90% of the Time)
  
• Why We Needed a Scarf in August
  
• In the Catbird Seat
  
• Beefier
  

We sincerely hope you've enjoyed your visit here, but sure to leave a comment or question if there's anything more you'd like to know. Feel free to poke around and snoop in the closets, etc.

If you wandered here not due to the online house tour, be sure to check out the other stops:

Next House on the Blog Tour: Stuccohouse
Previous House on the Blog Tour: 1916 Portland Bungalow

The Same... But Different

Here is a photo of Bess vacuuming out the pond circa 1934:

Side note: we found that Electolux vacuum when we cleaned out the attic in 2005.

Here is a picture of me, vacuuming out the pond last week:

Neither my shop vac nor my outfit is as stylish as the original!

I used some cement patch to go around the edge of the patch I put in last year, and then painted the whole pond over the weekend.

Pool paint comes in one color at the S-W store: ocean blue. Here is the same angle as the two pics above:



And another view:



Now I need six more dry days (they don't have to be consecutive) and we can fill it with water. Then we'll let it sit a while and put the fish back in.

Spring Arrives

It was warm enough last night that we had band practice outdoors. The pergola is just big enough for the five of us:



We got a thumbs up from Jill across the street who was out walking her kids in the stroller, and another thumbs up from a car who came to pick up a flyer for the house behind us which is for sale, again.

Here is the near back yard with the cilla in full bloom:


And the side yard where the cilla has completely taken over:


Cilla or Siberian Squill is a wild flower that is a small bulb. It is a very early bloomer, right after the snowdrops and the crocuses. Cilla spreads naturally, and was here already when we came. After the blooms are gone (in about a week) the leaves look like very thick grass. When you walk in it after the blooms are spent it is very squishy. By May the leaves are gone too.

Five Years Later

It's hard to believe that five years have passed since I started chronicling our journey of restoring and moving into our new home. The time has seemed to pass in a blink of the eye, and yet it seems also to have been a lifetime ago. The highs have been monumental and the lows have been thankfully few and far between.

So here's to at least five more, I didn't realize the legacy we received in Bess' and Helen's writings and photos, when we acquired Foxcroft, but we will strive to continue, and to keep digging through it!

With any luck our term as the stewards of this home will be long, and at some distant point in the future some other steward will come across these words much as we continue to learn from the past.

Edge of the World?

In working on our town's 75th anniversary I came across a photo in the University of Iowa's digital library collection. It is from the Fred Kent collection and is entitled "Koser addition, Iowa City, Iowa, Nov. 15, 1929"



This photo would pre-date municipal incorporation by 6 years. The picture was taken by Mr. Kent climbing onto the top of the newly constructed Iowa football stadium's west grandstand and shooting to the west.

Foxcroft is visible in the right side of the photo along with the storybook house next door that is shown below:



Go here to see the photo in full 600 DPI glory to scroll around and look at details:

Frederick W. Kent Collection of Photographs, 1866-2000, at the University of Iowa Digital Library

(Be sure to click on the image itself when you get there to see the full image)

To give an idea of change since 1929 here is a google earth image of the same area, the letter "A" is our house, the red dot is the football stadium where the photo was taken.



In another kind of spooky "thinking about the past" conincidence, yesterday Lisa and I were enjoying our spring break by visiting an antique store in Kalona, about 15 miles south of Iowa City. As we were walking around we found a large (4" in diameter) photo button of Helen Fox, which I immediately recognized as her college graduation picture. We knew that many things had gone out of the house while Mick and Helen were still alive, but it was rather unsettling to find that!

Calling in "The Man"

It had been quiet, too quiet on the home repair front. I was working in the basement two Saturdays ago and needed to use the facilities. (Normally this is WAY more disclosure than you'd get in a normal post here, but it is essential to the plot development.) We have a toilet in the basement that gets used MAYBE once a month, so I went in there and I suddenly realized there was water dripping on my head...

The first floor bathroom is right above the basement one, and youngest daughter was taking a shower. I went up and since she had finished I started looking around for the source of the leak. My first guess was that the pan and surround of the shower needed to be recaulked because it looked pretty bad. I spent time removing the old caulk and putting in new on Sunday, and figured we'd try it out on Tuesday. The shower was put in some time in the 1980's and replaced the sunken bathtub that was original to the house. Sadly all I have to show of the original is the blueprint:



Well, we turned on the water Tuesday and there was still a leak downstairs so I knew it must be the pipes up to the shower. Last Friday being my day off I emptied the shelves in the bathroom closet and removed them. I then took out the two panels that lead to the shower pipes:



I could see where the frame and wallboard had been wet in the past and could also see why there were such drips given the size of the hole in the floor:



I turned on the water and saw it was leaking way at the top where the filler tube for the shower head went into the copper pipe. I realized I could remove the filler tube and probably just put new teflon tape on it and stop the leaking. So I removed the shower head and flange so I could get at the filler:



I got out the pipe wrench and very gently applied pressure, I was surprised at how easily it turned and the next thing I knew it was in my hands. The only problem was all the threads were still in the copper elbow. The entire pipe had just crumbled away:



Now I was stuck. I had no way to get the threads out of the elbow. I was afraid I was going to have to call in a real plumber, since I am not competent at sweating in new copper. (I thought we'd have to saw off the old pipe and sweat on new.) As I considered, I wondered if it wouldn't be better to just do it all in PEX since that is what all the new plumbing on second floor is. Either way I saw this as getting much more pricy than I wanted.

Fortunately we had a family dinner Friday night and my younger brother Tom came over. He asked what was up in the bathroom after being in there and I told him of my mishap that morning with the pipe.

Now Tom is a tool salesman and much better at most home repair than I am. He said he'd come over with his extractor set and try to see if we couldn't get the threads out.

Saturday morning he showed up with tools and went to work, finding the right extractor and tapping it into place:



Here is a view from inside the panel:



We couldn't get the thread loose so a judicious application of his torch was in order to heat and expand the joint a little. After a minute of heating Tom went back to cranking it out:



And it came loose:



Right after we finished cleaning up, Pete came by for me to troubleshoot some of his school web pages. In exchange for my help he agreed to go to the hardware store (he was on his way there next) and pick up a new filler tube. When he brought it back I taped it up:



And put the shower head back on:



So I'm happy to say I got the "the man" to come out and I didn't have to pay for a plumber. And yes, the shower works just fine.

Diamond Jubilee

One of the more entertaining aspects of maintaining our municipal website is that I've started a section celebrating town history. Since 2010 is our Diamond (75th) Jubilee, we're trying to celebrate in many ways. Of course everything I have put up so far is from Bess' photo albums. Here are a few shots:

My very favorite picture, Foxcroft totally eclipsed by the house next door, which was built by the real estate developer of University Heights. Both homes were completed in 1928. Mr. Koser, the storybook style home owner, was the first mayor after University Heights incorporated. Bess served on the first city council:



Back of Foxcroft under construction:


View from the front porch, 1928, University Hospitals and the Fieldhouse are in the distance:


View from the front porch, 1934, The UI football stadium was built in 1929:


I have lots more to share. Larger versions of all these pictures can be found here:

University Heights PLACES

Get Your Bess Fix Here

I mentioned in my last post that my neighbor, Julie, was writing a great blog. She continues to weave an intriguing tale, and makes my posting easier too. Julie has managed to plow through January to June 1935-39 in Bess' diary. I have never been able to get through more than a couple pages at a time. I admire her perseverance! Use the links below to read what Bess had to say about the Wilsons.

• The Neighbor's Perspective
  
• More From the Neighbor's Diary
  

All those entries made me realize that I don't think I've ever posted a picture of either Helen or Bess. Here is one of the two of them in front of Foxcroft, 1929, which would have been one year after they moved in.


This photo was taken after Helen had spent the summer in France on a UI study tour. She was 19 in this picture, Bess would have been about 47. The dress Helen is wearing is one she made with fabric she brought back from Paris.

I'm Not Even The Most Interesting Blog...

...On Our Street Any More!

It was bound to happen. After nearly five years of writing Foxcroft, I knew the level of stories that I'd be able to turn out would start to slide, that the quality would diminish, and that perhaps this little project would fade away.

But what I wasn't prepared for was that I would be totally eclipsed by one of my neighbors!

Julie and her husband (referred to in her blog as the "Spousal Unit or 'SU' for short,") have lived two doors down the street from us for several years now. I had rarely run into her, more typically SU and I would be out shoveling snow at the same time. We never really did more than exchange pleasantries. I knocked on their door during the campaign, and Julie and I got talking. She told me about her mystery.

And at this point you need to hear her story in her own words...

Dear Mrs. Wilson

Before you go, let me just say that the connections between her place and ours are intricate and run deep. Once you read the above post click on the link at the top that says "how the mystery began" you'll be hooked too!

And Julie, in a little shocker, just for you: I realized last night, while walking the dog, that ECW Jr. and my stepmother were high school classmates...

So Much Literary History in So Few Words...

From Bess' Diary Feb. 1, 1941

February 1, 1941
Sat. 48
Read “Always the Land” by Paul Engle* pretty good writing. Saw Iowa 46 Millikin** 27. Walked over + the Strothers (?) brought me home. BJ and 2 guests kept me awake until 2.


Paul Engle

NOTES:
*Paul Engle, Cedar Rapids, IA native is best known as a poet, but “Always the Land” is fiction. He was a Rhodes Scholar and winner of the “Yale Series of Younger Poets Award in 1932. He is also very well known as the second director of the world renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Foxcroft neighbor, Wilbur Schramm, was the first director of the workshop, and at the time of this diary entry Schramm was about to take a leave of absence in order to work in the U.S. Office of War Information. Engle was Schramm’s early star student, and Engle’s “Worn Earth,” which won the Yale prize mentioned above was Engle’s masters' thesis. The University of Iowa was the first American college to accept creative works as thesis and dissertation requirements. Engle became acting director during Schramm’s absence and subsequently permanent director until 1966. Under Engle such writers as Flanner O’Conner, Robert Bly, and Donald Justice were students. The many famous writers who served as visiting faculty under Engle included Nelson Algren, Philip Roth, and Kurt Vonnegut.

I kept the autographed copy of “Always the Land,” along with many other books and papers, at the urging of Bess’ neice who inherited the contents of Foxcroft. It is displayed prominently on the “Iowa shelf” in the living room bookcase.


**Millikin College (now University) is located in Decatur, Illinois. Their nickname is the "Big Blue".

I have no idea who the "Strothers" are (or if I've spelled their name right) I'm not sure who "BJ" is either, there are a few other references to her, including one about her going to a "freshman party." At this time Helen was teaching in Milwaukee, so perhaps Bess took in a boarder?

70 Years Ago at Foxcroft

From Bess' Diary:

January 25, 1940, Thurs.
-2
Vacuum cleaned, sent Milky Way (? Unreadable?)
Didn’t go to Mrs. Harshbarger’s tea but did walk for mail.
Kept furnace and grate going, fed birds, worked on spread
Radio – read a lot. Eric Wilson married today

Notes:

"Mrs. Harshbarger is Gretchen Harshbarger one of Bess' best friends. In 1940 Gretchen and her mother published Flower Family Album .

She was also the garden editor for Household Magazine and American Homes and president of the Garden Writers' Association of America and the American Hemerocallis Society. Harshbarger received numerous national and local awards for her contributions to horticulture. In Iowa City she is remembered for her leadership in founding Project GREEN (Grow to Reach Environmental Excellence Now), a group devoted to beautifying public spaces.

In her Jan. 21, 1940 entry Bess reported "To Mrs. Harshbarger's 2-4 to see her unpack 600 bulbs, she gave me dozens of them, home and planted all I had earth for, dug more from hotbed and left it to warm till morning."

"Eric Wilson" was a neighbor two doors away to the east. An Iowa City native, Wilson was an outstanding track athlete at the University, winning Big 10 and NCAA titles in the 220 meter dash. Despite having broken the world record in the 400 meter dash in an Olympic qualifying meet prior to the 1924 Paris Olympics, he did not place in the event, having notably lost in the preliminary heats to Eric Liddell, who's achievement was documented in the movie Chariots of Fire.

By 1940 Mr. Wilson was working as the director of sports information for the University of Iowa.

Communication: 19th-21st Centuries

I must say it is satisfying, in that ying/yang balance of life sort of way, to direct a University Heights citizen to the municipal website by talking to them on a candlestick telephone.



In my new life as a city councilor I am the chair of the "e-government" committee. I am also the complete staff of the e-government department. This means I am now in charge of our municipal website. The image below links to the site:



I have done some minimal re-arranging of the site, and created a method for citizens to subscribe to updates, but nothing too fancy. I am firmly in favor of boring but functional.

You may also notice a link to a public meeting next week to gather input for revisions to the comprehensive plan. Things should be very interesting for the forseeable future.

Post Holiday Update

Greetings. it's time to update on what happened, house-wise, over vacation. The answer is "not much." We spent most of vacation visiting my dad who spent four weeks, Dec. 3rd through 31st, in UI hospitals. He was dismissed to rehabilitation in Cedar Rapids on New Year's Eve, and continues to make good progress.

I did manage to surprise Lisa with her Christmas gift. Some time probably in the 1940's Helen made a needlepoint picture of Foxcroft, which she promptly then attached to a folding camp stool. Wouldn't you do exactly the same? We bought the stool at the house sale, 5 years ago this coming March. I took it to our favorite framer, (and A&C maven) Kathleen Rash, at the Art Mission. Here is what she did with it:


Here is a close up of Helen's needlework:


The house also got a gift this year. The phone niche in the dining room once again has a candlestick phone in it:


I put the decorative grill back below the phone niche, I'd found it when we emptied out the attic, put it in the basement and forgot about it. The label on the top of the grill contains Foxcroft's original 4 digit number 4452. Anne, Helen's cousin who was her resident caretaker here, still has that phone number.

My much appreciated house related gift this year was a new pair of overalls, which I will probably wear out next summer as I continue to paint.

I Can't See a Thing!

I just got this email from my internet service provider:

Dear Personal Web Space User,

Due to multiple server issues, your personal web space has been created anew on a new server. Due to the nature of this issue, your personal web space could not be restored from a backup. Unfortunately, you will have to reload your web pages so you can share them.

What this means is none of the images I put into my posts from 2005 until last summer are now visible. I guess I'll have to sort through all my multiple files of pictures to reload them and relink them through blogger.

I guess I needed another project?

Some Trim Cuts I CAN do successfully!

In my last post I neglected to mention or display the trim cuts I can do successfully. Here is the new bump out before I started trimming it:


The baseboard was left over from when I did the upstairs 3 years ago, I had stashed two pieces away in the office closet. Here is the exterior miter:


The piece behind the room door to the right fit nicely, however on the closet door side, There was only 1/2 an inch between the wall and the backband, so I had to mark a line, saw down 1/4 of an inch, then chisel out so the baseboard would fit snugly to the wall:


And here it is in place:


The base shoe was saved from when we had to work on the dining room wall.


I hit the edge of the baseboard miter with a little stain and it looks great.