Trash Defense

This past weekend we focused our attacks on the front yard...still. The battle is not quite won, but we are closing in on the enemy. The enemy, by the way, is the trash that blows down our street and is left by the thoughtful kids who buy candy at the corner store. In order to defend our yard and new plants, we had planned a while ago to build a stone wall. This would also help to level our yard and retain some of the dirt, but that is incidental.

First, though, Adam finished the stone walkway from our front porch to the driveway.


View from the driveway.


Pretty fancy work.


Reagan was in charge of laying the stones in front of the larger bluestone slabs (but Adam helped).

So onto our defense walls...we used the same flat stones as in the pathway to make most of the wall, but as "fence posts" we used some of the larger, irregular stones that Adam dug up from the yard when he was making the too-big holes for our trees (at least some part of that operation was useful).

We dug up the front of the yard, set the stones in place, and poured a little bit of concrete at the base to keep the stones in place.

Then we put the dirt back on top to fill it in and covered it back up with mulch. Hopefully this allows for a nice long curing time for the concrete?

Overall, this front section of wall only took us a couple hours (with help from the neighborhood kids, of course).

And we're done for the time-being...who knows when we'll be able to finish, but at least we've protected that little section of the yard from the invasive trash in our neighborhood.

Thank you Ellis family!

We have been in touch with Maureen Ellis Geiger, who grew up in our house. She has been so wonderful to share with us the history of this home and some older photographs of the house. So now we will share with you some of the stories that she and other family members have told us (Ellis family, please correct me in the comments if I have made a mistake).

Timothy Lynch was the first owner of the house, and the house was supposedly built in 1893 (see the maps below). We have to find out more about this Lynch guy, but while ripping up the kitchen floor we did find a piece of cardboard with an address label with his name on it.

1889 map of Dorchester, and the red box shows our approximate plot of land (originally all owned by George Welles). Some old structure sat on our property and overlapped our neighbors'.


1899 map (just 10 years later...we think we have problems with rapid development/sprawl now). Our plot with the outline of our house, and Timothy Lynch's name. (Montague and Mellen streets were not on the earlier plan.)

James Ellis, a lawyer and judge, and his wife Kathleen bought the house in 1942 for $4,000. His mother, however, had immigrated from Ireland in the early 20th century and had lived and worked in this house as a domestic servant (for the Lynch family). So the Ellis family has a long history in this house! One of James's favorite aspects of the house is the beautiful quarter-sawn oak Newell post in the front hall (which is one of ours, too).

James Ellis, just before selling the house, standing at the Newell Post. Supposedly, he decided to buy the house as soon as he saw this, before even seeing the rest of the house (and before his wife could see it!).

Area curtains hung in the doorways in the first floor, where there are still hooks, and dark velvet curtains were hung as blackout shades during WWII. These curtains were left on the 3rd floor when they moved out because they were too heavy to lift, but they have since disappeared. Speaking of wars, Maureen also told me that, as kids, she and her brothers were rummaging around the attic and found old conscription papers from WWI. (We have yet to find anything nearly as interesting...just a couple dead mice.)

The house, as Reagan had confirmed under the microscope, was always yellow with green shutters. Neighbors remember the house with great canvas awnings before the shutters were installed. The porch was slightly different, with the corners solid and shingled. We may try to reproduce this this summer, or at least some aspects of the original porch.

An old photograph of James Ellis (center) with Maureen, left, and her brother in 1950. You can see how much sturdier the porch used to be, as well as the original posts. And look at how little those shrubby trees were!


I absolutely love this photo. A goat! But you can see the porch well here, too.

Maureen remembers the kitchen being remodeled, with the dropped ceiling installed, while she was a teenager. The long green bathroom off the kitchen was installed while she and her mother were on a trip to Ireland. Maureen, however, refused to use it since it had previously been the pantry, and it just didn't seem right to go to the bathroom in the pantry.

James Ellis in the kitchen. On the left is the wall and doorway that we removed. We found bits of the linoleum as we were pulling up the kitchen floor, and also a tile here and there during demolition. I wish we still had that big old sink.

James Ellis's mother - the same who had worked in the house - lived with them in the house as well. Maureen's bedroom was the front little room on the second floor (which currently serves as Adam's dressing room). Then as now, there is no door to this room, as Maureen's grandmother had the opinion that whatever you were doing behind closed doors, you shouldn't do at all.

The dining room always had a rug to cover up the central pine flooring in it, and we were told one story that, after having lived through the depression, the Ellises always kept a couple thousand dollars under this rug in front of the fireplace. Don't worry, though - they never once built a fire in the fireplace during their entire time in the house!

Kerry Close, one of James and Kathleen's grandchildren, shared that she thought a ship captain had lived in the house before (Timothy Lynch?) and had left an assortment of nautical mapping instruments and books up on the 3rd floor, which was of great interest to the kids. (I have to say, as a preservationist I am completely remiss in thoroughly researching the history of this house - I have some more rummaging through archives to do!)


The house ca. 1985, before the trees were lopped off mid-way, and still with the old porch. Notice the lack of driveway, too.


James Ellis on his front porch in 1985.

One of the reasons that we love this house so much is that it was changed so little. It's rare to find a 100+ year old house that had really only 2 owners in its life. The family who owned the house before us only had it for about 10 years and only made a few small cosmetic changes. We're working hard to bring the house back to a state that we like to think would make Mr. Ellis proud! Thank you all for sharing these great photos and stories.