George Howe Colt
Autore di The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home
Sull'Autore
George Howe Colt is a former staff writer at Life magazine whose articles have been published in The New York Times, Civilization, and Mother Jones, among other publications. He lives with his family in rural western Massachusetts
Opere di George Howe Colt
Opere correlate
Life Magazine April 1991 The American Family Institution, The Tragedy of Lithuania Revolution, Faye Yager Rescuer of… (1991) — Collaboratore — 1 copia
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Sesso
- male
- Nazionalità
- USA
- Luogo di residenza
- Massachusetts, USA
- Istruzione
- Harvard University
Johns Hopkins University - Attività lavorative
- journalist
- Relazioni
- Fadiman, Anne (wife)
- Organizzazioni
- Life
Utenti
Recensioni
Liste
Which house? (1)
Best Beach Reads (1)
Premi e riconoscimenti
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 4
- Opere correlate
- 1
- Utenti
- 1,072
- Popolarità
- #23,987
- Voto
- 4.0
- Recensioni
- 26
- ISBN
- 21
- Lingue
- 1
- Preferito da
- 1
This is about the author’s memories of summer’s spent at this summer home, known in the family as “The Big House”, that has been in the author’s family for a 100 years. As well, he has put together a great historical account of his ancestor’s summer gatherings at The Big House from the very beginning by interviewing family members and elders who were still summering on Wings Necks, and by reading and researching through many books. At the end of this book, in Notes, he has recorded all the books used in writing up the historical parts of the book. It’s worth a browse.
The author's Big House, originally 6,000 square feet and later remodeled to 8,000 square feet, was built by his great grandfather, Ned Atkinson and designed by Ned's brother, William. Ned married into the Forbes family...Ellen Forbes. They had two sons and one daughter. Their only daughter, Mary Atkinson, married outside the fray of what was normal for Bostonians to a penniless, upstate New Yorker, the author's grandfather, Henry Colt. This is one branch of the Forbes family to whom the Trust Fund of descendants of Ellen Forbes Atkinson would peter out. With taxes and maintenance up to $25,000 a year by 1990’s, it had become unaffordable to keep and decisions between his father and siblings had to be made. Even though they did manage to keep the house in the family, it was no longer the gathering place for just whoever wanted to spend the summers there. It now belonged to someone. His parents eventually purchased a small one-acre cottage in Maine, where George and his siblings now meet for family functions. This would now become their "Big House".
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MY LIFE AND MY "BIG HOUSE":
I could fully relate to his sentimental reminiscing, and you will too. I think we all have a “Big House”. I grew up on Cow Bayou when it was alive back in the 70’s and 80’s. But, unlike the author, we didn’t have money. My parents bought a rundown 2 bedroom camp on Cow Bayou that had been vacant for 30 years. They did a lot of work to it over many years to get it in good living condition. Me and my two sisters shared a large room over the bayou throughout all our growing years, up until we moved out of the house. We survived by putting the "don’t cross the line" tape down the middle of the room between each bed. Mom mostly stayed home and kept house and cooked beans and rice. Dad worked a miserable job in the warehouse at the plant. But, once when Mom did go to work for just a short time, we were in high school, and wouldn’t you know, we started sneaking boys over, and we’d open our windows and, running through the house dripping wet, jump through them into the bayou, then we started jumping from the roof of the house, then we would swim the quarter mile to the little bridge on the highway and jump from there...until….someone drove by and saw us jumping from the bridge and told mom. She quit her job.
Other memories of the bayou were of the good-looking doctor’s sons and their friends next door at their “true” camp on weekends, and all their loud fun. Us swimming and learning to ski, seeing the occasional gator down our cut (once I was even chased out of the bayou by a gator), splashing the water all around when we’d see a black snake (water, moccasin, or cotton-mouth...we never knew the difference) to scare it off, fishing for gar at midnight off our little dock, and camping nights on the little marshy island just across from us. We did crazy things. It really is amazing we survived at all.
Much like the author's Big House, our house was always an open house. The grill was always going on weekends with loads of sausage and chicken and beans cooking on the stove because someone would ALWAYS stop by in a boat or bring their families for a day of swimming on the bayou. My parents fed them and shared a cold one or two.
But, today, Cow Bayou is dead. You don’t see kids swimming. You don’t see boaters and skiers...people having fun anymore. The bayou looks dead, scary and creepy. My parents are 75 and 90 years old now. Their yard is not as kept. Their doors are closed. We girls are taking care of our parents as Mom goes through her lung cancer treatments, and as Dad needs his doctors for skin cancer treatments. He on oxygen and she needing treatments and will also soon be on oxygen. Life changes, and like the author, whether you want it to or not, you have to find a way to someday let go because you can’t go back. It changes because it never really was about “The Big House”, it was really about the people who made The Big House so great. So any place can be “The Big House”. It’s our little Cow Bayou house. It’s my great-grandparent’s poor little house in Vidor, Texas, where we gathered every Christmas Eve for many years until they could no longer hold it. Then, it was the little house on 6th street in Port Neches, at my grandparent’s home where we gathered for another many years. The Big House is where your family gathers and memories are made.
P. 189: They had a tradition of waving goodbye to guests and family members while standing on the porch waving a hanky or shirt or whatever until their visitors rode out of site. Down here in Southeast Texas, we walk them outside saying our goodbyes, then, feel it’s rude if we don’t walk them to their car...still saying our goodbyes. We don’t dare turn and walk back into the house until they are in their car driving and out of site. Meanwhile, we are still waving goodbye and they honk their way away. Too funny!
P. 304: George's father chose to keep the Trollope set because his mother LOVED them, but they were to remain in the house with the new owners, his father's nephew and wife. This started a discussion of the merits of Trollope, especially "Barchester Towers" and "The Warden", and its readability between the siblings. Hmmm...yesterday I just bought “The Eustace Diamonds” at a used bookstore for $1.00. I’m curious now what his grandmother loved so much about Trollope’s writing. I loved that their Big House was filled with books in every room. The family seemed to always be big on reading. His grandfather always read a bedtime story to the kids during the summer at Wings Neck, and this trickled down to creating readers of those kids...something to remember.… (altro)