Possible "American Bungalow" magazine submission?

My obsession with home research started shortly after the renovation of our 1920 home. On a beautiful spring afternoon, we were enjoying “beverages” on the front porch when a car pulled up to the curb. The people in the car were smiling and pointing up at the second story porch. We went down to the car to say hello. A sweet older couple beamed as they explained that they had lived in our house in 1950. Their adult son, who was also in the car, was born while they lived in the house. We invited them in and were thrilled to share in their memories of living in our home. Our favorite of their many stories was how they would roll the Victrola out on to the upper porch and play the music of “South Pacific”. Of course we went right out and bought the Soundtrack on CD. Sing it with me: “Bali Ha’i…” or perhaps the better known “I’m gonna’ wash that man right out of my hair…”

Meeting these people brought us closer to our home and neighborhood we love so much. We began to wonder who else had lived in our house. So we headed down to the library to review the City Directories. Sure, I probably could have located this information on the Internet, but that’s no fun. I wanted to research my home the old fashioned way – in the annals and archives of our county and city records buildings. I wanted to turn the yellowed pages, touch the delicate documents and see the flowing handwriting of the record-keepers of the past. In fact, I was having so much fun locally that on a recent pleasure trip to our nation’s Capitol, we stopped in at the National Archives to fuel my new addiction.

Through the city directories at the local library, we were able to trace the residents of our home back to 1938. But then we came to a stumbling block of disappointment. Why did the listings for our house end at 1938 but all of our neighbor’s homes were there clear back to the 1920’s? Was our house really built in the 1920’s? Was it built after our neighbors’ homes? Did we really own a 1920’s home?

We then decided to go to our City Hall to review the tax records. A city employee led us back to a small, cramped records room where he began delicately removing the hand-written tax record ledgers of the 1920’s. He too was unable to locate our address but he had an idea. He asked if we had our lot number, which we did. Mystery solved. Prior to 1938, our house had a different street number!

Armed with our plat number, we headed back to the library city directories. Sure enough, the city directory got us back to the 1920’s. Eventually, we also went to the city real estate archives room and then the census records of the National Archives.

The experience of this hands-on research has forever connected us with our home and our neighborhood. We now know more than we ever expected about both. The owner of a plumbing and heating company lived here first. His wife was the owner of a “Tea Room” for a short time in the early 1930’s. We know they lived here until the early 1940’s when they moved closer to their plumbing and heating company in the city of Atlanta. On a recent drive in downtown Atlanta, we tried to locate the building where their business once operated, but found Centennial Olympic Park in its place.

Our next goal is selfish. We want to see if we can locate any of the people who lived in our home to see if they have photos or other stories they would be willing to share. Wish us luck!