Thursday, January 04, 2007

What we're finding in the walls of our 1911 house

With the demolition of the kitchen yesterday, a small pile of artifacts and items is being assembled. Kitchen books, letters, postcards, photos, life insurance envelopes....so many goodies I don't have time to do justice with a good post. But I wanted to do a quick share of one gem before I run out this morning.
1917 Found in the Walls of our Kitchen
This tiny book was found in the kitchen molding area. I haven't cleaned it up yet, and it's in almost perfect condition. I think it's a scripture book, in German, and it's dated inside with handwriting, of 1917.
A gift of friendship from 1917
Some of the other things, you won't believe....

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very cool. When ever I do renovations on my house I seal things in the walls as well, newspapers, coins, soda cans, building plans. I write messages on the inside of the sheetrock.

Anonymous said...

Wow, that is really cool. It almost makes me want to rip out some walls in my 1920 house. Almost.

llywrch said...

From the single picture of the inside pages, this looks like an interesting book. One page is written in old fashioned German script -- the printed text is in Fraktur, and although I don't know the name of the writing hand, it's an older, 19th century hand that can appear unreadable to those unfamiliar with it. It contains the name of the owner (which I can't quite make out), dates 3 June 1917. The facing page is mostly in Latin -- it's an Imprimatur, or a statement that Bishop Sebastian Gebhard of Milwaukie has confirmed this work contains nothing that contradicts Catholic dogma. And

In short, it's a Catholic religious work, written in German, but published in the United States, probably in Minnesota. There were many German-language books published in the US up until World War I.

Geoff

brett said...

wow. that is soooooo cool. The Oregon Historical Society would be able to assist you if you want to clean it up without damaging it. Also, they may be able to tell you more info about it.

We have found so much interesting stuff we have a drawer. Maybe that will be my winter project.

Kathryn said...

Very cool.
Oh, and I concur with everything Geoff said...

Maggie said...

Really cool. I love finding stuff like that. Especially those old cookbooks.

Anonymous said...

That is too cool!

When we did our kitchen we found a drill bit...circa 1984.

Jay said...

Sweet. Did I ever mention I do eBay consignments? It could fund the rest of your remodel...

Anonymous said...

that is so neat! oops, i just said neat. i mean incredible.... can wait to read more...

ps. rodger, that cracked me up