Who Lived Here?

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Why did their dreams not live on?

What caused their dreams to come to an end? Was it Wisconsin's harsh winters? Did illness take their dreams and dash them? Were they displaced for a governmental project? There could be many reasons.

From the Kickapoo Valley Reserve to Ash Creek Community Forest and back to the boonies in northern Crawford County this question can be asked. Every county in Wisconsin has them.

Most can not be seen when the under brush grows up after the first part of May here in Wisconsin. The foundations of folks hopes and dreams are covered by weeds and foliage and forgotten until winter visits and exposes what could have been.

[FishnDave]

They clearly perished during a sharknado. ;o)

[sagefisher]

The Wisconsin winters are really harsh. That cabin was only two years old.

Larry ---sagefisher---

[James Smith]

I enjoy thinking about those old abandoned homes. As a kid, I would wander the woods of N.H. and come across old homesteads. Quite often I would find a midden pit in the back, and find some very old bottles and jugs that I collected. I also like ancient coins and sometimes wonder who handled this coin? How did they earn it or spend it. These are all part of our histories that I often find more interesting than the macro look at history that are usually distorted.

Jim Smith

[canoenut]

Interesting thread. Wondering about the, one time, proud new owners of these buildings, the first born there (or their conception), marriages, good times and bad and deaths that have taken place there. I have an ongoing photography project photographing abandoned farm houses in two counties in SW Michigan. There are many. As the larger industrial farms expand, they buy (or lease) smaller family owned farms that may be too small to be profitable these days. They, of course, want the acreage and don't care about the houses that go with it and can become hazards and liabilities. So they sit, empty, not maintained, and eventually, gradually, return to the earth. Some are very plain, others decidedly otherwise. but the end is the same for all, a pile of rubble in the cellar hole, if there was a cellar. Documenting their devolution over a period of years makes for a sad but interesting project, after trout season is over.

P

[Steve Molcsan]

This particular sequence is but one of my favorite from all your beautiful photos and essays.
It reminds me of drifting the Salmon river in Idaho , there are many
such home-stead cabins that have seen many harsh winters.

Who's to say their dreams not only lived on but flourished..

My homestead still has some harsh winters left , who knows maybe one day , a photographer might stumble
on its remnents. Think I will carve my name it its foundation right now

.
Thanks for the reflection.

Be safe

[Uncle Jesse]

I guess it's one of those things that happens if you don't die young, but I have thought about where I would be, if I existed, had not that first ancestor picked up his travel materials and left the home and land where they were born and raised and come to America. My last name is Denton. Every Denton I have ever met, and we are widely spread, claimed the Rev. Richard Denton as their first ancestor to come to America. Rev. Denton was a fairly well to do gentleman, a Presbyterian preacher who did not get along well with the Church of England, so he came to America landing first up near the Plymouth colony. There he learned the Puritans were for religious freedom as long as you agreed with them. So he and a group of folks with similar beliefs traveled down to New Amsterdam and negotiated with the Dutch and established a church at Hempstead, which I understand still exists. From there our family has spread to about every state and established families there. I am thankful, the Rev. decided to leave his home in England and brave the New World and his off springs, and their off springs did the uncomfortable, broke new ground, blazed new trails and resulted in me being born an American. Sometimes, being older and having time to consider the cost of being where we are is a good thing. But, it is my belief, whatever your ancestors went through for you to be an American is the best thing that could happen to you on this earth.

[Steve Molcsan]

it is my belief, whatever your ancestors went through for you to be an American is the best thing that could happen to you on this earth. Rev. Denton

Amen brother Denton

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[Uncle Jesse]

I had a FB chat this week with a young cousin I have never met (I remember her parents well, one was my 2nd cousin same great grandfather and the other about my 4th cousin, different great grandfathers). She and her husband are living in my grandparents home. When they brought me home as a baby the house was under construction and they brought me in through the chimney / fireplace opening in the living room, mom was staying with my grandparent while dad vanquished the Japanese in the Philippines and then into Japan deposing of explosive ordnance. It makes me happy there is a young couple starting out in the house which is just shy of 73 years old. Many fond memories in the mile around that house. I would like to go back with a metal detector to find all the stuff I lost as a kid.