WARNING: LONG STORY
When I was a child, “Aunt Em” lived next door to my Great Aunt Mary in Three Rivers. She was a retired teacher, a “spinster” in the vernacular of the day, probably a bit eccentric. She had designed her own home and filled it with antiques. When we were allowed to visit her, we sat on the edge of the “davenport”, under strict instructions from Mom: “DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING!”.
Aunt Em’s house was the cutest house I’d ever seen, complete with a stained glass window over the front door. The window was a wonder to me, one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. Houses in orange groves where we lived didn’t have special touches like that.
When Trail Guy and I began house hunting in Three Rivers, I wished we could find and buy Aunt Em’s house. I couldn’t figure out where it went, and besides, riverfront property was way out of our price range. A few years after landing at our place, Mom and I went for a walk. She expressed a desire to see Aunt Mary’s old house, and as we were lingering in the road in front of it, someone came outside of the house on what used to be Aunt Em’s property.
It now had a giant fancy new house where Aunt Em’s house had been. The owner was gracious and offered to show us the house. She had an album of photos of their “remodel” project. All I cared about was the location of the stained glass window, and she said she wasn’t sure, but it might be under their deck.
WHAT??? Have you no sense of beauty??
Many years passed, and this spring I learned that the owners had aged out of the property. A casual friend was living there in order to get the house ready for the people’s daughter to sell. I asked if she would look under the deck to see if there was a stained glass window. She said she’d been all over and under the house, and the only stained glass window was hanging from the deck roof. She said it was fragile, but I wanted to come see it anyway. She started to give me directions to the house, which then made us both laugh.
THAT’S IT!! It might have been 55 years or more since I’d seen it, but I knew that window.
My friend asked the owners’ daughter if I could buy it; the daughter said I could have it! HAVE it?! Wow.
We got it in the car with great manipulative skills (my friend is a bit of a genius), and I brought it home to stash in the painting workshop until I figured out what to do with it.
The frame was wobbly, some of the glass missing, many pieces cracked, and it was bigger than I expected.
Trail Guy and I walked around the house, trying to figure out if there was a place for it. The only possible spot was in front of the big window in the laundry room, overlooking the herb garden.
Another friend recommended a talented furniture maker and cabinet builder, who sometimes hangs around next door. When I saw his truck, I trotted over to tell him the story. He was charmed by it all, and agreed to repair and reinforce the window.
We found old wood for the frame in our garage (Trail Guy is a Saver), which had little flecks of paint on it that matched the window. He loaded everything in his utility truck (much less tricky than in MomsCar), and began the work.
It involved many decisions, and I was surprised by two things: how very careful and thorough the carpenter was, and by how little I cared about all those decisions. Often I told him that I trusted him to make the right choices, and that I was so happy to have the window that the all those decisions were irrelevant to me.
He had to make a pattern for 2 missing pieces. There used to be a stained glass workshop in Visalia, but it is long gone, so I went for structure rather than matching stained glass and had clear window glass custom cut, also in Visalia. (At the time I was making multiple trips down the hill for all the cellphone hassles.)
He called me to come see it and make a final decision. My first glimpse almost brought a tear to my eye, overwhelmed by the beauty, nostalgia, and gratitude for finding and then being given the window.
This is too long. I’ll tell you the rest next time.
