Dining Room Table Saw, Part 2

Fairly often when writing my novels I think I'm going to write about one thing and when it's done, I've actually written about something entirely different.
That's apparently what happened with my original Dining Room Table Saw post. I was going to write about my house, but instead wrote about my parent's house.
So I want to tell you now, what I thought I was going to tell you then.
As I've stated dozens of times in this blog, I live in an arts & crafts bungalow that we're fixing up. I love this house so much. It just suits me to a T. It's a near perfect floor plan. Three bedrooms and an office. It has dark hardwood floors, oak in the living room and dining room, long-leaf pine in the kitchen. We painted the exterior pink with white trim and plum accents to match the 20 foot high crepe myrtles that line the street in our front yard.
Locally it is know as "The Jewel House".
But not because it's the jewel that it is.
Like most houses in town, it's named for its original resident, Dr. Jewel.
What we know about it's history is gleaned from public records and the long memories of some of our older neighbors. Dr. Jewel contracted with the Steves Construction Company to build the house in 1921. He moved in here with his first wife. They divorced early in the depression era.
About the same time, he added the office (where I write) in space that had been part of a wrap-around porch. The office was designed to be an office with vintage knotty pine and built-in filing cabinets. Separated from the front bedroom by a pocket door, I speculate that he utilized both rooms and made this the site of his medical practice.
He remarried shortly thereafter. The second wife was a nurse and younger than the doctor. He built a smaller house next door and deeded it to his mother-in-law. That all seems very nice. A really close knit family.
However, when the good doctor died, things got a little curious. The first wife, the second wife and the mother-in-law all sued each other for a share of this house.
I guess that was how it ended up with the Harrises who lived in it from the WWII era until the early 1960s.
When they passed on, it became the property of a young single mom with a child. Her father was a contractor and added the family room and another bedroom and bathroom onto the back.
The young mom lived here a while. After that it was rented for many years to the Sisters of the Incarnate Word as an overflow residence for the Mother House of their order located only a few blocks away.
By the time I first saw it in 1994, it had been a frequent-turnover-rent-house for a couple of decades. It was beige inside and out. The carpeting in the bedrooms was officially called "chocolate". For me, it was the exact color of cockroaches.
But something about the place really drew me to it. I remember sitting out in the car parked next to the curb, looking at the place and saying aloud to my husband. "I think I could be happy here."
And I have been. Sad too. And angry. And joyous. That's what homes are about, I guess. They house all of our emotions, our triumphs, our failures, sometimes for generations.
I know a lot of people like new houses. They want to build something that is exactly like they want it and that has never been touched by anybody but them.
That has never even been a temptation for me. I like being a part of the history of this house. If I manage to live into old age, I'll probably be the person that's resided here the longest. That would be nice. Maybe then my descendents will put up a plaque calling it The Pamela Morsi House. Cool.