World War I victory garden in a formal setting, location unknown,* ca. 1917 – ca. 1920, by Harris & Ewing, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
The organization was created in early 1917 by Charles Lathrop Pack. It sponsored a campaign of pamphlets, posters, and press releases aimed at “arous[ing] the patriots of America to the importance of putting all idle land to work, to teach them how to do it, and to educate them to conserve by canning and drying all food that they could not use while fresh.”
Like it or not, what you do with the land around your house tells the world what sort of citizen you are.
This was the front porch of “The Firs” in New Baltimore, Michigan, between 1901 and 1910.* At that time, it was a summer boarding house.
Detail.
Although the ladies above look calm enough, throughout the 20th century — and up until the house was torn down in 2005 — many residents, visitors, and trespassers reported weird phenomena there.
Lights flickered, dishes flew off the table, strange voices were heard, and invisible fingers stroked girls’ hair. Ghostly figures were sometimes seen — particularly those of a young woman, an older man, and a child playing in the yard — or so ’twas said.
The residence was first known as Hatheway House, for Gilbert Hatheway, a businessman who built it about 1860.
When he died in 1871, the house went to his son, James S. H. P. Hatheway. James had one daughter, Mabel, who died in March of 1881.
Mabel was only twenty at the time of her demise and had married a man from another town just three months earlier. Local legend has her being killed from a fall down the Hatheway House stairs.
One account of the alleged incident notes that her father, irritable from chronic pain, was also unhappy with her choice of husband; another brings up an older cousin with anger management issues. In at least one version of Mabel’s slight history, she is mentally ill.
A slightly spooky allée in front of the porch.
In the late 1800s, the Hatheway family moved out of the house, and it became The Firs.
About the same time, or perhaps later during the WWI years, the west side of the building was turned into a small hospital, run by Dr. Virginia French. It was never a home for the insane, although that was the creepier story often passed down.
I haven’t been able to find out what happened to the property later in the 20th century, except that it seems to have been empty by the late 1990s, if not well before — perhaps because of its reputation as a haunted house.
Naturally, teenagers found it a fun place to explore at night and vandalize. In August 2005, much to the neighbors’ relief by one account, the house was demolished. However, there continue to be reports of strange lights and noises in the ruins of the basement.
A fairly cheerful side garden.
You can scroll through more (and larger) images of The Firs by clicking on ‘Continue reading’ below and then on any thumbnail in the gallery.
*Photos by Detroit Publishing Co., via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Porch at the residence of Margaret Brugiere, Wakehurst, in Newport, Rhode Island, August 6, 1958, by Gottscho-Schleisner, Inc., via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Margaret, or “Daisy,” Brugiere was Van Alen’s daughter-in-law (widowed and remarried), and she kept the place going in a high style until her death in 1969.
At some point, the family must have wanted the comforts of an American porch and created one with awning. Its interior style seems inspired by Naples — both the city in Italy and the one in Florida.
The property exists today as the student center for Salve Regina University.
We were lucky enough to be in Paris and Brussels all last week. The weather was wonderful: slightly cooler than Stuttgart and — my photos below not withstanding — very sunny.
“Ambleside, stepping stones, Lake District, England,” ca. 1890 – ca. 1900, a photochrom print by Detroit Publishing Co., via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Addendum: Below, two more views of the same type of stream crossing. . .
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“Abbey stepping stones, . . . Bolton Abbey, England,” ca. 1890 – ca. 1900, photochrom prints by Detroit Publishing Co., via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
While taking pictures at the 
enclos*ure 