Preserving where we came from
FREE DINNER
ON YOUR BIRTHDAY!*
Provino’s Dinner 7 Evenings
Sundays from 11:30 a.m.
(770) 720-9676
1365 Riverstone Parkway • Canton
Since 1977
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CHEROKEE PERSPECTIVE
MARCH - APRIL 2020 | CHEROKEE LIFE 5
By Rebecca Johnston
Living in a small town is one of the great joys of my life.
Whether we have lived here a year or a lifetime, for
those who call this community home it is special in a
million ways.
There are so many diverse
lifestyles to choose from in
Cherokee County. Intown living
close to everything, rural farms
with rolling pastures and horses,
lake homes, family-friendly
subdivisions, active adult
communities.
These days the “modern
farmhouse” is all the rage, and
I often wonder what my greatgrandparents,
who farmed
the land here each day of their lives, would think about how
romanticized we have made what for them was often a hard life.
For me, as Cherokee County grows, it is especially important
that we preserve as much of where we have come from as
possible, so that we can retain what makes us unique while we
map our course for the future.
I was delighted last year when two young men purchased
my grandmother’s little house, which had sat on Main Street
at the corner of Roy Street in Canton in a state of disrepair
since the recession.
The house had sold out of my family 40 years ago when my
grandmother died. She loved her home so much and I loved
visiting her there.
I loved the front room, with its horsehair sofas, tables full of
knickknacks, dark red carpet and huge mahogany upright piano.
The front bedroom was where we spent most of our time,
ensconced in her two large rocking chairs sandwiched between
the bed covered with her hand-crocheted spread and her
treasured cedar chest from Jones Mercantile.
She had a dresser fitted with a piece of glass on top, and under
that glass she had a jigsaw of family photographs, many of them
from the earliest days of the 1900s. Framed pictures of her
children and grandchildren were scattered around the room.
Her kitchen was the heart of the home, with a hoosier cabinet
where she kept her biscuit making supplies. She cooked her
special town biscuits almost daily, kneading the dough in one of
those old wooden bowls, then rolling it out on the counter and
cutting it into small rounds.
Gran, as I called her, had two stools we could pull up to the
cabinet and use it as a table. Otherwise, we had to go into the
small dining room where an oak pedestal table and sideboard
held court.
In recent years the house sat forlorn and sad, falling into a sad
state that broke my heart. We tried to buy it, but the price was
too much.
When it finally sold, the young men who bought it researched
its history. I found out that the Dick family of Canton built the
house. My grandparents bought it from them about 1922.
It was then that the Dicks built a new home further out Main
Street. That house built in 1922 was purchased three years ago
by my son and daughter-in-law, who renovated it. That was a
lovely coincidence.
As for my grandmother’s old home, after much work and
money, the young men finished their renovation project, and I
got to visit it while the project was underway. The house looked
much the same as I remembered, only fresh and lovely.
By this Christmas a new family purchased it and was living
there. When I passed by and saw it all decked out for the
holidays, tears came to my eyes. The porch is once more filled
with places to sit, the paint gleams and the windows are brightly
lit and welcoming.
My grandmother would be so happy that it is once more a
happy home.