Old houses need love, too — and our Disaster ReBuilders are delivering it

DISASTER REBUILDERS

Chris enjoyed a 20-year career as a newspaper journalist before joining The Fuller Center in 2011. He handles social media, website, video, photography, writing, publications and media relations as a 1-person communications department. He was a multi-award-winning humor columnist for the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer for 25 years and has published several books.

Old houses need love, too — and our Disaster ReBuilders are delivering it in North Carolina

Yesterday was one of those days when I was grasping at straws amid a flurry of little personal setbacks that are each fairly minor but rather overwhelming when they all pile up at once. I was frustrated and about one “your car warranty is about to expire” scam call away from losing it.

So, I left my office at The Fuller Center for Housing’s headquarters in Americus, Georgia, a little early and headed back to my home an hour away in Perry, Georgia. Along the way, I decided to take a quick detour and visit my hometown.

I grew up in a little town called Oglethorpe (named after Georgia founder James Edward Oglethorpe) located between the city in which I now work and the city in which I now live. In the 1800s, Oglethorpe was one of the most populated cities in Georgia with about 20,000 residents in the middle of the century. It was the end of the rail line, and massive hotels hosted throngs of guests with orchestras providing the soundtrack. Beautiful homes sprung up around town.

The city’s Gilded Age, however, was short-lived. The railroad was extended to Americus, and then a deadly combination of small pox and malaria almost completely destroyed the city. Bodies were taken by the wagon-load to a Native American burial ground and interred in mass graves. Thousands moved away. And many of those beautiful homes were burned.

But a handful of the homes survived. When I grew up in Oglethorpe from about 1975 to 1991, there were a few beautiful old homes that harkened back to the glory days. They rested quietly on tree-lined streets of a small town with about 1,000 residents. Today, that population has plummeted to 995 or so. But the town does have one traffic light, which I think is one more than it had in 1850.

The last house my family lived in there was built around the turn of the 20th century. To the side of the massive front porch from which I’d watch the regularly scheduled afternoon thunderstorms in the spring and summer was not a carport but a porte-cochère — a “carriage porch” for people to tie their horse and buggy out of the rain.

As I rode by yesterday, I could barely see our old house through trees and weeds. What I did see was crumbling. In fact, many of the old homes that were once so beautiful and loved in that town were abandoned and also overgrown and dilapidated. It wasn’t exactly the uplifting experience I needed. It’s hard to get in touch with your roots when they’re covered up by weeds.

Small pox didn’t take these houses out, nor did a tornado, fire or hurricane. They’d simply been ravaged by Father Time — not in one fell swoop but in an equally disastrous drip by drip slower than a stream of sugar cane molasses from the cupboard of my grandma’s drafty tin shack in January.

So, I truly appreciate something I’ve seen from our Fuller Center Disaster ReBuilders the past couple of weeks in western North Carolina, which was hit so hard by Hurricane Helene last year. Yes, they’ve been doing tremendous recovery and rebuilding work over the past 11 months, but these projects were unique.

Last week, they dedicated a restored 104-year-old home that FCDR volunteers lovingly refer to as “the log cabin.” The gratitude and joy on the face of homeowner Mari Beth is unmistakable. She is home. This week, they dedicated a Beacon Mill Village home that was built a hundred years ago and lovingly cared for until Helene roared through. Volunteers have also been busy this week restoring a beautiful home that dates back to the 1800s.

There are times when natural disasters turn lovely homes into complete losses. Whether that home was built 10 years ago or 100 years ago, it can be a devastating blow to a family and neighbors. And, in places where the Disaster ReBuilders go after events like Helene, Harvey, the Kentucky tornadoes and Katrina (which prompted their first efforts with The Fuller Center), there can be entire streets and neighborhoods of complete loss.

Anytime that the Disaster ReBuilders’ dedicated volunteers can restore one of these damaged houses and bring displaced families back home, hope is restored, spirits are boosted and faith is renewed. Behind each one of those often difficult and dirty restorations is a story.

But there’s something a little extra special about restoring an old home where decades of memories have been made and where generations of a family — or multiple families — have been sheltered, nurtured and loved. These are the places where people rocked on front porches just days before a storm, still smelling the memory of their Grandma’s cornbread baking as they watch their own grandchildren play in the front yard.

My Grandma’s tin shack in the country burned to the ground 40 years ago. Our old house in Oglethorpe is beyond repair. I can only imagine what it must feel like to see your old home resurrected, but I can see the gratitude and joy in the faces of homeowners being helped by the Disaster ReBuilders.

And I’ll be seeing it in person in a few weeks when I plan to visit the Disaster ReBuilders, volunteers, families and others in western North Carolina. I have a feeling that trip will be more uplifting for a troubled mind than yesterday’s slog down an overgrown memory lane.