Re-Visiting The Amish Country

 

Here are some houses that must belong to pretty affluent people.  They backed onto the Conestoga River; which was where the covered bridge was.  So after driving through the covered bridge these house were along the road.  Some backed onto the river and some houses were across the road.

This perticular property looked sad, as if it had seen happier days, but now was neglected.  Had the family just grown up and the residents were now old and couldn't take care of it properly?  Or was it just a summer home that nobody visited anymore?

I read this summer about a lady who died in a nursing hospital in New York City, she had lived the last twenty years of her life there, seeing about three people, her Filipino nurse, her accountant and her lawyer.  She had been heiress to some vast fortune, of which all three now seemed to own a considerable amount.  She still had property though, jewels and money.

 A house in Santa Barbara that she had not visited in fifty years, but still kept a staff there to take care of it.  Can you imagine taking care of a beautiful property, it would have been as if it was their house. She owned two apartments on Park Ave, NYC and a house in the Hampton's, you know the area where the Kennedy's live, Great Gatsby setting.

The reason I mention all this is because this is what that property reminded me of.

Have you ever seen Grey Gardens?  It's a fascinating story, it was originally filmed as a documentary back in the seventies and then later made into a movie.  It's about Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale, she was the sister of John "Black Jack" Bouvier the father of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.

After she divorced Mr. Beale she stayed in the beautiful home they had on the shore front in the Hampton's, this was of the thirties/forties era. However their money to actually run the house and keep things up became less and less.  So by the seventies her and her daughter lived there as ex centric ladies with a house full of cats.  Sitting in bed cooking their dinner by the side of the bed in the bedroom, with priceless oil paintings propped against the walls and cats urinating at the bottom.

You should watch both the documentary and the movie both are good.

The town of Ephrata in the Amish Country.

Christy