Meditations in a time of Zillow

The old station master’s house, the “Crescent,” from the Sears Catalog

I did not know that it was yew. The important thing, to me, was that if one carefully climbed outside the railing on the edge of the front porch one could jump down into the space between the bushes and the house and enter a kind of fairy world.

I do not suppose that is what the station master had in mind. I am assuming it was the station master who planted the yew, he evidently being a showy sort of fellow who, when he ordered his home from the Sears catalogue, chose a “Crescent” model with six pillars on the porch instead of four and then customized the lime plaster in the front room to replace the boxy wooden door frames with Italianate arches. He set his house far back on the lot, too, apparently aspiring to grandeur. The yew, trimmed into handsome shape, clearly completed the stately air.

Was it the fineness of the depot that inspired this? The Rock Island Line must have been, as the song says, a mighty fine line because it had money to spare for a striking Spanish-tiled building in the middle of nowhere. Then again, the railroad helped make Marseilles a somewhere, then, with its opera and its Carnagie library and its factory and its proliferation of Churches and schools.

The station

I wonder how the farmer felt about this progress? There must have been a time when the sprawling farmhouse stood alone and kingly on the prairie, but perhaps the farmer was gone by the time it was tamed into a mere corner lot four doors down. The stream that watered the farm was likewise tamed into a culvert running through our property – although it remains unruly enough to occasionally invade the basement of Joe West (my father Joe Middle, our next neighbor Joe East).

But back to the station manager. Despite splurging on porch and plaster he must have been a thrifty fellow who either did much of the work himself or got his labor half-price: The hardwood floor in the study was laid by someone who used up all the full-length pieces before he realized that he was supposed to vary them with the partial pieces. The chimney, not being for a fireplace (a great sorrow of my life), began at one place in the basement and needed to end at another in the roofline – a problem solved by adding a decided slant once it reached the second floor.

These thrifty defects are merely charming and I bless the man who made them. It was part of what made the house a home, as was the accretion of experiences: diapers changed, illnesses conquered, deaths grieved, births celebrated, brownies burned, pianos practiced, guests welcomed, prayers said, bags packed, tears shed, stories told, joy shared.

The day we lost the maples in the front yard and, to my great horror, my first-grade teacher noticed and took us outside to watch their slow demise. (The school is gone now and so is the oak from the corner of the lot where I used to sit at recess – a tree so old that the farmer must have known it and whose removal I, perhaps unfairly, attribute to concerns Joe East had for his roof.) The day we planted the maple free of disease and far from the powerlines. The day lightning struck the transformer. The way the sunlight caught the crystal in the window and filled the kitchen with rainbows. The mysterious cave crickets underneath the storm door. My secret bookcase door into the eaves. Dorothy Gemberling up the road. The regular passing of the freight train. Sam’s Pizza. St. Joe’s.

These things cannot be quantified. The very idea of putting a price tag on them is insulting. But even more insulting is the idea that, price tag applied, no one wants to buy the house. A lifetime – several lifetimes – with a new roof and a new kitchen and a new bathroom and new siding and new windows and sturdy, century-old construction. And in a time when we hear incessantly about the shortage of houses on the market.

I have already admitted that it is rather remote. And that I occasionally think hard thoughts about Joe East. And that the cave crickets are rather alarming. And that there is a front yard rather than a back one. But none of these are reasonable reasons not to buy the house.

Consider the advantages. Will the neighbors be all up in your business? Absolutely. Will you have to drive to the next town for some of your shopping? For sure. Will the train wake you as it passes? Probably, until you get used to it.

It is a life, in short, of texture and variety and homeliness utterly unknown to vast swaths of Americans who would benefit from it greatly and who, in their demand for conveniences and comforts and unreasonable privacy, are allowing it to die a slow and quiet death.

We did what we could. My grandfather immigrated here to open Joseph’s Jewelry. (Granted, it was only a move of 30 miles, but he did it with the same spirit of generous adventuring that brought his father from Slovakia as a mail-order husband.) My mother bought the train depot to run her medical practice in, thus linking us even more closely with the station master.

But we, like him, like the farmer and the opera and the factory and the old schools, are, alas!, but passing occupants. The river and the sandstone bluffs and the footbridge and the old canal lock and the beloved graves will remain but we must throw the torch on to others.

It need not, however, be to the nameless, infinitely wealthy New York investor who, every decade or so, is rumored to be buying the old Nabisco plant in order to provide industrial-chic condos to vacationing Chicagoans. Sometimes it is also said he will fix the raceway and reactivate the hydro plant as well. I have no objection to such a mythical real estate mogul, nor has anyone in town.

I strongly suspect, though, that this imaginary investor is a mere manifestation of our investment, our trade in much-loved particular things we wish to see restored and dignified – a wish so ardent that we would even tolerate invading Chicagoans to make it come true, which is saying something.

And that something is this: This is not nowhere.

It must be somewhere if Amazon can find the address and Joe West has been replaced by a young family and one can walk or bike to several parks and playgrounds. Nowhere doesn’t need anyone to replace the joined track with the quieter continuous rail, nor does it warrant three different denominations of Christian church within a half a block. You might not know yet how vital Church basements are to local life. You will.

But to speak of saving souls I admit my faith is waning. Not in my home – never that – but rather in anyone having the ability to see what I see. Rescue me, future owner! I will even forgive you if your name is not Joe – Sam would do – Sam’s is owned by a Joe and it would restore a kind of balance.

No mythical creatures, we: the lime plaster and the pretentious yard still bear the stamp of the station master, as the secret bookcase and the doorknocker do of the Jakupcaks. When you step out of our shadowy hopes and become real you, too, will leave traces that future generations weave into their own histories.

The yew is gone now but the fairies are still there. (We didn’t mention this in the real estate listing – one doesn’t – but you should know.) They were born in the station master’s time and, if you are the man or woman I take you for, you can hear them yet:

Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful in small things – chimneys and trees and wood floors and golden door knockers – Come share the master’s joy!

Share the doctor’s joy. And the teacher’s. And the whole procession of previous owners. But most of all, come and come soon – with a generous heart and a clear eye and a creative hand. The house will repay all of this and more, shaken down, pressed together, and poured into your lap, provided only that you are brave enough to make this place – in defiance of many sensible expectations – your somewhere.