Ancestral Homes

 No, I am not going to show you pictures of English manor houses or European castles.  These photos are of much humbler abodes and close to home.

Yesterday the temperature rose into the upper 40s, most of the snow was gone, and the sidewalks were mostly clear and dry, so I decided to take a walk.  I headed into the neighboring town of Berea, and I passed a few houses that played a part in my family's history.

First is this house on Lincoln Avenue where my great-grandmother lived.  

Susan Marti emigrated with her family from Switzerland, and they settled in Berea where her father worked in the sandstone quarries.  When she married she lived on a farm in Middleburg Township that belonged to the family of my great-grandfather, Charles Plau.  My great-grandfather died at the age of thirty three, but they had five children in the nine years that they were married.  In 1902, eight years after his death, Susan remarried.  She and her new husband bought this house, and she lived there until her death in 1945.

This is the only photo that I have of my great-grandmother.  She is standing outside her house between my father (to the left) and my uncle (the husband of my mom's sister).

A short walk from Lincoln Avenue took me to Pearl Street where my maternal grandparents lived.  My grandfather, Clarence Plau, was Susan's third child.  Clarence and my grandmother, Lola, lived in this house.

They bought the house sometime in the 1940s, and lived there until Clarence passed away in 1956 and Lola died in 1957.  I have vague memories of this house, and it looks much the same as I remember it.

On my way home, I passed by this old brick house on Prospect St.  My cousin Gail has told me that her great-grandfather, the brother of my great-grandmother Susan, lived there.  Behind the house the hill goes down to the former sandstone quarries where he worked.

The house used to have a front porch, but some years ago it was closed in.  In my opinion, it spoils the historic appearance of the house.