First House

Having lived in furnished parsonages all my married life and having a Parsonage Committee who took care of all our personal needs I was unprepared for home ownership and all that entailed. But here was David on the Bishop’s Cabinet in Richmond, Va. And we were homeless.

We soon found a home (our first house) and it was perfect for us.  There was 5 bedrooms, two baths, a full basement with one wall of built-in book shelves, two fireplaces, and a beautiful lawn with a large, blooming magnolia tree.  As I remember it there was also a playhouse for the grandchildren in the back yard.  There was lots of work to do on the house.  I took a first floor bedroom for my office and David took the basement with built-in book shelves for his office. We kept two bedrooms for ourselves and guests and turned the fifth one into a bath complete with soaking tub.  All was painted “Mermaid’s Tears” green.
Though we had no furniture I had inherited many family pieces and I began to collect antiques while living in Vienna ,Va. (thanks to my friend Mary Ann Inghram, an antique dealer). Also Neel’s adventures while doing archaeological digs in Turkey graced us with some beautiful oriental rugs.  All 

this, with a few buys and we had a lovely home. My favorite part of the house was the wildflower garden in the back. See my article “Secret Garden” for details. We lived happily in that house for 15 years but our health was declining. Steve and Sally both had job opportunities in Richmond and decided to move here. That settled things for us. We visited several Nursing homes in the Richmond area and then decided on Brandermill Woods. It was snowing and misty in early February2010, I was sure we would not be moving on that day but first thing on that morning here came the moving truck. With too much furniture for our little cottage we crowded everything into the truck and began a new way of life and a new adventure.