Years ago, when we first moved to Georgetown, my Aunt Sha would comment that now that we had a house we should go get the curb stones from the old Howard place. I sort of knew what she was talking about. Thomas and Helen Melvina (Pickens) Howard came to Texas in the early 1870s and they bought what has come to be known as The Old Home Place. I still have lots of work to do on the origins of the family, as they have been elusive to this point, but once they reached this spot, they settled down and stayed for three generations and, as I recall, the 4th generation still owned it. The curbstones had lined the walkway and flower beds around the house. They had been carved by my great-great-grandfather Thomas Howard, who was a stonemason and is said to have worked on the foundations of the Texas State Capitol building. I wonder if there are any records of that anywhere?
Their original homestead was on the current Railroad Street here in Georgetown, across from The Caring Place, on the grounds of an apartment complex. The site of the original house and outbuildings has been left as green space on the corner of Railroad and 19th.
I think my aunt had finally sold the property in the early 2000s and we had kind of forgotten about the curb stones. But then one day my oft-mentioned Aunt Billye called and said she had stopped at the construction site of those apartments and had explained who she was and asked if it would be alright if we came and got some of the stones. We weren’t sure how we’d manage it, just her and Sean and I, but we rented a flatbed truck from Home Depot and drove over there. We were walking around that corner where the old house had been and Billye was pointing out the locations of things as she remembered them and we were trying to find the stones and figure out how to extract them, when a guy who had been working on another area of the property came rumbling over in a Bobcat. We explained who we were and what we were trying to do and he was really interested to find out more about the old homestead. Apparently, as they had been cleaning stuff up in that area, they had found all these intriguing things, like the old well or cistern, old chicken wire and barbed wire fencing, and the old curb stones. So we had a nice visit with him reminiscing about the old homestead and then he got in his Bobcat and started lifting up stones for us! He was one of those guys that can use a Bobcat like a precision instrument and he carefully scraped dirt off of some of them and dug under others and lifted them out of the ground so we could pick them up and get them to the truck.
They are not small things. The smallest curb stones are about 12 x 6 x 6 inches and the largest complete stone we were able to find is about 36 x 6 x 12 inches . We also found partial stones that are in between those sizes. And they are HEAVY. They must be limestone and I assume they must have come from one of the local quarries, but they are dense. I’ve hauled around limestone rocks before for gardening projects and they weren’t anything like these. Our helpful friend carried the big one over to our truck on the Bobcat because none of us could carry it that far.
And the really cool thing is you can still see the tool marks. These aren’t fancy dressed stones. They are almost utilitarian. I don’t know if Thomas worked professionally as a stonemason, other than the time he is said to have worked on the capitol. All other sources have him as a farmer. I guess I’ll have to do some more digging into his professional life, huh?
This series of photos is from the Old Home Place, around 1942, judging from how old Aunt Billye is. She’s the tiny one in diapers. And the toddler is my mama, Kay. The older couple are my great grandparents, Jack and Mary (Howard) Adams, The younger couple are Jack Howard and Tut (Edwina Sandberg) Adams, parents of Kay and Billye. The two other men are Jack and Mary’s sons Elzah (in the white shirt) and Earl (in the long sleeve shirt) Adams. I love this series of pics, starting with the random group shot of everyone not yet organized. I can’t imagine trying to wrangle this group. Maybe this was Easter? It was early in the war anyway, before the three boys got sent off in various directions. You can see the curb stones in many of the shots, particularly the ones of Tut and Mary and the little girls, but also lining the driveway behind them and along the flower beds.
So that’s the story of those gray stones around the front flower bed at our house. If anything happens to Sean and I, I hope some Howard descendant will come get them before they have to sell off our house!
P.S. Also, I got the WORST case of poison ivy from picking up those stones. Didn’t even think about it at the time and I’m sure all the obvious poison ivy had been mowed down by that time, but the roots were still in the ground and when we disturbed them the poison-y stuff got all over the stones and subsequently all over me. Luckily I was wearing gloves, but it still got all over my arms and across my belly because of the way I was carrying them. I think I eventually had to get a cortisone shot. Yikes. Worth it though!
P.P.S. I’m experimenting with slideshows, so don’t miss the series of pictures in the two at the end of the post! You can click the little arrows on either side of the photos to advance.
Chasing Swedes 