Home Sweet Home

Houses help to tell the story of a community.  You will find that the older houses in your community are somewhat different from the newer ones.  The houses that your great-grandparents lived in when they were young may have been heated only by fireplaces or by woodstoves.  In the kitchen, you may have found a big wood-burning stove that was used for both cooking and heating.  These houses did not have hot running water, and often they did not have indoor bathrooms.  Electric lights began to be used in the 1880s, but in some areas, kerosene lamps and gaslights were used long into the 1900s.

Older houses also seem larger than many of the houses built today. This was because families were often larger years ago.  Many of these old, large homes are still in use today.  Through the years, of course, modern systems of heating and plumbing have been added to them.

Choose an old house in your community (at least 75 years old) and find out more about it by answering the questions below.  When you are finished, turn your paper over and carefully draw a picture of the house.

1. Where is this house located? _______________________________________
   
   
2. When was it built? _______________ About how old is it? ______________
   
   
3. Who built the house? ______________________________________________
   
   
4. What was the main material (stone, wood, brick, etc.) used to build the house? _______________________________________________________________
   
   
5. How was the house first heated? _____________________________________
   
   
6. How is it heated now? _____________________________________________
   
   
7. How was the house first lighted? _____________________________________
   
   
8. How is it lighted now? _____________________________________________
   
   
9. What families have lived in it since it was built? _________________________ ________________________________________________________________

Courtesy of the Warren County Historical Society