A Very Blustery Day And We Found A Very Old Picture

Sunday started out with some sunshine, and some clouds. Temperatures had dropped significantly and a bone-chilling wind stood up from the water. But of course, I could not sit entirely still all day long, so I started to cut up some wood I had stored behind the garage. But pretty soon I ran out of gas and while I had to go across the border, I also stopped by the IGA in Lubec to get some supplies for supper. The afternoon was snailing along with an ever increasing wind outside. We occupied ourselves with some computing and some reading. While that was going on Bea found that she had been accepted as a user for a closed Facebook group whose purpose it is to dig out old photographs and exchanging memories of Campobello Island. Looking at all those old pictures she suddenly saw one taken from the water towards our area. All the big buildings by the water are long gone, but our house is towering on top of the hill overlooking the Passamaquoddy Bay. And pretty sure, there, in the center of the picture way up on the top of the hill, was our house. Commenters, including a former owner, had also pointed out the house. Now, the house was built in 1903 and the picture looks like it was taken around 1905 or there around. These were the days when the young Roosevelt Family would come to the island to enjoy a full summer of fun and relaxation. At the time, the house had no front porch and was sitting all by itself in a field without a road. We kinda knew that it had been a small farmstead. During one of the first years after we moved here we had located some big concrete corner stones in the behind the house, obviously once serving as foundation for a small barn.  The history of our house is quite interesting as several upgrades were done over the decades, the porch and a later addition for a bathroom being the most notable ones from the outside. But upgrades happened also inside the house. A few decades after the house was built, 2 large historic hotels were dismantled with building materials being recycled into private residences.    Quite elaborately moulded door and window trim ended up in our house, a nice staircase was mounted and a stained glass window was added to adorn the hallway above the staircase. But most interesting was our discovery of some small screw/nail holes in our interior doors and the shadowy outline of a “5” on one of the bedroom doors. Of course, these were former room doors from one of the old hotels. It’s been fun to renovate this old building and it is even more fun living in it. Of course, we changed the outside looks by replacing the old porch with a wrap-around porch and a balcony out front. Other than that the house still hasn’t changed much. Our new wood stove sits exactly at the same place a wood stove was heating the house right after completion in 1903.