We have a neighbor who likes to keep us informed.
By that I mean when she sees us outside walking up the driveway to our vehicles she likes to halt her endless yard work and rush over and inform us that the pile of mulch surrounding our pine trees needs to be moved at least 3″ away from the base immediately or the trees will die, or that our landlord ripped out the flowers but left the poison ivy in when he first acquired the house, or where exactly our property line is, or how the house got a new driveway, or that our basement’s foundation is unstable and leaks in from the front of the house (she knows this how?) or that the fallen tree branch in our front yard has been there an awfully long time, or that a tree fell in our backyard last night at 2 a.m. or that our landlord is incompetent and never fixed the toilet for the previous tenants, etc. As I said, she likes to keep us informed.
Sometimes we don’t quite know what to believe. She, oddly, seems to know an awful lot about everything, like our neighbors, their families, their homes, the layout and renovation of our home, our yard, our basement, and the area in general. But she also divulged upon our first meeting last November that she communicates with the spirits and that our little plot of land, apparently, is very spiritually active.
Okay.
Anyhow, like with the trees in our front yard surrounded by mulch that are, I guess, dying a slow cruel death (um, they’re fine)….we don’t always know what to believe. But I’ve always seen our little corner of the world notated as “Fruit Hill” on maps of Cincinnati. A few months ago she informed us as to why.
We do, indeed, live on a hill. Off a tiny little cut-through street at the end of a long driveway. We have quite a lot of land in the area and a lake a few feet back. The house is old, dating back to around the early 1930s, we think. Our landlord has no idea when the house was built while our neighbor, on the other hand, seemed to know exactly when it was built. She told us that our house used to be the old fruit stand way back when and that people came here when they needed fresh fruit. The whole area was a farm, owned by one family. From what I can remember of her tale, our house was built to be the fruit stand. Then the farmer’s built the house behind us and the family moved in there. Somehow this tale also involved the two houses in front of ours as well, but if this story is true, I’m proud that our house played such a vital role. Of course sections were added onto the house later when it became a living space. I’ve done a little research so far on our house and Fruit Hill, but unfortunately I’ve been unable to find anything more on it other than that the area used to be a fruit farm. I think one day I may spend some time in the library looking through some local files to see what I can find. I wonder what she looked like back then? I often wonder this. If I could find a photo of her back then it would be like Christmas Day to me!
But I love the history of this house. Fruit stands are pretty cool places to begin with, even more so back in the day when they were fairly important to the people who relied on them for their fresh produce. I’m proud that we were able to live here and contribute to her history for a year. Fruit Hill seems to suit us, and I’ll always remember our time here and the history of it fondly.
Does your house have a special story behind it?
