Hampton House Story

We moved to Hampton, Virginia from Sumpter, South Carolina where Katherine had been born at Shaw AFB.
She was 8 mo old when we made this move. The house we bought was under
construction therefore we were there in time to select all the carpeting and flooring.

We loved the little Cape Cod style home as it was near the Chesapeake Bay which offered so many fun things for the children. We learned to crab which was always entertaining. The area has beautiful waterscape views in almost any direction.. It was there that I overcame my fear of crossing bridges...why? There were bridges to cross many times each time we left home. They were everywhere, so the fear just went away.

We were there only 18 months when my husband
got an early promotion to the Pentagon. This cut short our time in this wonderful area. I regretted that, of course. The house sold quickly to two women who were in the Air Force, and we moved on with our lives.

Over
the years, any time we were traveling, we always enjoyed driving 'down memory lane' and seeing houses we had once owned and
lived in
...and especially this one.

At one point, years and years went by before we were in the area to visit the Hampton House...
An aging Volvo was sitting in the driveway. The house was sort of sad looking. The lawn unkempt. shrubs growing wild and flowerbeds empty. It was apparent that no one was there and of all things, the house looked totally abandomed.

Another few years went by before we went back...and there...of all things, the same car was still there in the same spot, rusting and the tires were flat from rot. This was too much for me as clearly something had happened in our once beautiful and lively home.

I went knocking on doors to find the answer.

They neighbors didn't really know. They said the two women stayed for only two years and sold the house to a young couple. They were there a few months and then
packed for a Florida vacation and never came back. Over the years, the neighbors had pitched in to keep the grass cut for their neighborhood appearance and picked up any random mail, etc... for now about twenty years.
"Did you report this to anyone?" (I would have.) They said that they had not.

I wanted to call "Unsolved Mysteries"...but alas, once we left, I stopped fretting over it...until the next time we were down that way after yet another few years ...

Again, I would talk to the neighbor...
The years rolled by and the situation went unchanged for a total of 30 years. Can you believe it? THIRTY YEARS !!!

We had left Hampton some 32 years ago, the women lived in the house only 2 years and then the young couple bought it and drove away, never to return.

Now, we couldn't wait to see if anything had changed as we were down that way again on our way to Nags Head Beach.

WELL! This trip, we were happily surprised...someone was there...workman...they were working on the little house.
I couldn't wait to see what was going on.
The new owner was there and had the house underway to be restored, inside and out. He invited us to go inside....

My~ the house was small. I couldn't remember the foyer and rooms being so small.
He had not taken up the flooring and carpet yet...all I had selected was still there. Visions of my babies being there flashed through my mind.
For sure, my hand was over my heart by this time and I uttered my thoughts...but only to and for myself. I was walking through a dream...or nightmare. It was weird. there are no words to represent the feeling I had. I could see my furniture there and my, my...what a small kitchen where we even had a family table. I was amazed that the same appliances were there and looked brand new. Of course, they actually hadn't been used since we were there.

My camera came alive but I didn't know what to shoot. There was no way to photograph my thoughts and feelings...my memories.

The best part is...
He had the rest of the story ~ he had bought the house from an elderly couple ( the people who had abandomed it 30 years ago when they were young.)
He had the whole story.

...First photo is how the house looked when we left it 33 years ago....then the rest were taken the day we were asked inside....


The new owner told us THE END OF THE STORY~:

The couple who abandoned the house went to Florida where he had another job and also had another house there and just left this one to return to one day. Why they never, ever came to check on it remains a mystery. They even left the furniture.

We have to assume or guess life went by too quickly for them....
when they returned, (30 years later) she had cancer and lived the remainder of her life in one of the upstairs bedrooms in a wheel chair and had only a hot plate and small refrigerator...and bed. She took care of herself and died in that room.

Her husband did nothing to the house and as soon as the wife died, he sold it, which turned out to be the month before we were there. He returned to Florida ...

The new owner said he left behind on the kitchen counter an album of photos the woman had taken pf the house the one and only summer they were there...He showed the album to me.

The photos were of nice beds of tulips she had planted in front and back flower beds. They also had painted the shutters red...was so cheerful and pretty ~
to me, it was so sweet to see that she had actually loved the house and brought life to it before leaving it to the elements. What in this world would make them leave their furniture and house unattended for thrity years? What were they thinking? Or is there part of the story we don't know?

These last three photos are the house under construction.

~How fortunate we were there at this very time in history as a month earlier or later, we would have missed this heartfelt experience.

Was bitter-sweet.
June