Monday, December 22, 2008

That's My World!

It's been very cold here the past few days. Not that different from elsewhere in our country. Perhaps because it will be my first Christmas without my Mother, I've been thinking about some of the stories that she used to tell. She and her triplet sisters were born in North Dakota. The parents and older siblings were living in a sod house. They were born in November in the midst of a blizzard. What a present on a blizzardly day those triplets must have been.

Last spring I took these pitures of a sod house near Eustis. There were no signs by the sod house, so I don't know if this is the original location of the sod house, or if it was moved to this location.


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More information about building and living in sod houses can be found here and here


For a trip around the world through you computer visit That's My World!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

great post, very informative. happy holidays.

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Kayleen: That would have been a strange place to live in a blizzard. Triplets must have been extra hard in those days.

Unknown said...

I wonder sometimes if we've lost that gritty realism and roll up the sleeves and hands on mentality of our previous generations. That being said, I wish I were more hands on myself.

Anonymous said...

Sod houses are such a good idea and people can also plant their favourite flowers up there too. :)
I hope the green revolution takes off strong, where people will begin to respect the earth and their surroundings more.

Anonymous said...

How interesting! Thanks for sharing the story and the pics. I've never seen a sod house before.

Reader Wil said...

Well that is very interesting. I didn't know these houses existed in the USA. We used to have them in some of the northern provinces of the Netherlands. There are a few left in an open air museum. They are very simple and by far not as wonderful as the mansion built in the 19th century on the site you mentioned in your post.

Anonymous said...

Amazing what those pioneers managed, isn't it? I don't know which is scarier, living in a sod house through ND winters, or giving birth to triplets at home.

SaraG said...

Very cool pictures and post!!
Take care and thanks so much for sharing.
Merry Christmas to you and your family from ours!!

The Good Life in Virginia said...

wonderful post...yes we fail to realize what previous generations went through to get us to where we are today...
god bless and happy holidays from botetourt county virginia.

Corner Gardener Sue said...

I'm sorry for the loss of your mother. Both of my husband's parents have been gone a number of years. We still miss them and think of them at times. We bought their house from the estate 10 years ago, after his dad died. Just last week, as I was going downstairs, I knocked on the paneling, and thought, I need to ask (his parents) what's under here.

Please excuse me for making the comment so long.

I couldn't tell from what you said. Was your mother one of the triplets or one of the older siblings? What a different life they had! Things have changed so much just in our lifetimes!

Merry Christmas!

kayleen said...

Sue, my mother was one of the triplets. They were born Nov. 11, 1911 (11/11/11) The last place she lived the address started 1111, something I didn't realize until I did address labels for her.