The Third of July

The biggest missing piece of land was the top of the mountain, that was taken by the state to create the park. Her great, great great grandfather had unwillingly sold it off. "I don't have a snowballs chance in hell of keeping it he wrote above his signature, the state has too much money and power to allow me to fight this." Attached to the back of the deed was a note signed by him to just invest it for him.

That land had been taken in the middle of the Great Depression. He never mentioned the money to the family before he died three years later. The original investment still continued to grow. Who ever had been handling the fund had turned One hundred and fifty thousand dollars into over one hundred and seventy five million. Carolina and I promised to never tell anyone for a long time. The money was all in her name..

We decided to continue living off of the land as her family had done for a long time. We also found out that years back when the mine shutdown and no one wanted to buy it her great grandfather bought it at auction for the princely sum of eighteen hundred dollars. The taxes were a little over two hundred a year. Carolina sold the land to me for not much more.

Sarah and I continued to work at repairing our relationship, we had to learn to live together all over again. As we work toward that goal, we also began to discuss what we wanted in the way of a house. The children spent their weekdays living in town with Mom and Dad and we all spent our weekends with Carolina. After six months we restated our vows. Soon after that we asked for plans to be drawn up to create a house much like Carolina's. Ours was to be of stone, with a full basement and incorporate newer building techniques to make it more energy efficient. We also would have electric and indoor plumbing. We began to look for contractors and found two old men who wanted to do the job. They always wanted to build one last house the old, old way. They completed the outside and the massive fireplace before handing the rest of the job over to their sons, who now ran their company. When completed it was a showplace. They drew as much material from our land as they could. The stones were collected from the area around the entrance to the old mine. Afterward the entrance was dynamited three times to close it forever. David and Carolina had fallen madly in love, their wedding was held in the fall, in the new house before we moved in.

Carolina loved the place so much that the old men were pulled out of retirement one more time to build an addition to her place. She chose to use stone and logs to match the old work. She did allow inside plumbing and electric to be installed in the new part. The old part was gone over and there were no repairs to be made.

They had their first son in the late spring with three more children following in hot pursuit. The last was the little girl she had always wanted.

Sarah and I had another boy and a girl. We finished up about the same time. The children wore out the road between the two houses.

Mom and Dad lasted well into their ninety's, they were grandparents to both families and were excited about every single child. They lived with us their last years. Our oldest son bought their house and soon moved his new wife into it. He longed for the days when he lived near other people, the solitude of the mountain was too much for him.

Two of Carolina and David's sons and their daughter married into our family. Soon there were houses all along the old dirt road. Most were built of local materials on the outside. At my last count between the two families there were forty two grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.

Sarah and I spend each July Third visiting the falls and sitting on our wall.

Carolina's dream of repopulating her mountain came true.