Visiting the Original Family Homestead
So this weekend the family and I actually got off the farm. That’s right, we got the corn picked and delivered and skedaddled out of town before the phone had a chance to ring, or anyone could stop by looking for more.
And guess what? It was glorious.
As you can imagine we don’t pack up and skip town often during our busiest time of the year, but this was a special trip, a family reunion for my husband’s paternal side at the original family homestead.
No, that is not a shed.
The small building with 1 door and 3 windows the hubs and I are standing in front of was the original home to my in-laws ancestors. After immigrating for Ireland the plan was to get further west, but funds dried up before the couple could reach their planned destination, so they made their home in this house around 1827, living small way before it was a trendy.
After some moving around the couple settled in to raise a rather large family in the farmhouse next door. The house while larger than the first must of still been quite cozy for a family of 12. During the reunion, I learned that some of the older kids were actually “farmed out” to other area farmers who didn’t have children, and it turns out the practice was pretty common in the 1800’s.
The house was charming, but I really wanted to check out the barns, they were freshly painted and barely showed their age, which is saying something for a structure well over 150 years old. The milking parlor was still intact, and we figured they milked 20 cows at one point. It is so fun poking around old barns.
We had a great time, and were back to our farm before we knew it. The whole experience was fun and I am glad the kids got to see the original homestead, I have since been thinking about more genealogy travel in the future 🙂
That is really awesome! What a special thing to do with the kids.
It really was! We had such a good time, and it is great for the kids to see family history first hand!