I see a fair number of houses like have been shown here while hunting in Montana, some in very nice settings amongst large cottonwoods in little river valleys. You can't help as you wander through them and see the kids toys and household goods imagining kids playing in the yard and the dogs and chickens running around. Many of these old places remind me of the house I grew up in, a 100+ yr old structure that had poplar poles for roof rafters, soybean stalks in the walls for insulation, and the old wrinkly glass in all the windows. The last two houses Jack showed would have been a pretty upscale house in their day, far nicer than what we had I can tell you. In many places both those houses would be gutted and restored. I helped restore a similar house in Michigan that had full-dimension rough cut oak for all the studs, some of which went from ground level to the roof on the second floor. I'm sure that young folks today who look at a house like that have no clue just how recently it was filled with a family and life.
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