Oxford’s Houses and Yards at the Turn of the Century
by Polly Stone Buck
Excerpt from writings of Polly Stone Buck
Along the various streets, beneath the trees stood the village homes, almost all painted white with green blinds and, even the small ones, surrounded by large yards, whose dirt or herringbone brick walks were edged with daffodils, Roman or grape hyacinths, violets, or aromatic dwarf boxwood. No yards were elegant enough to have wrought iron fences, or pretentious statues of iron dogs or deer standing around, although in the street in front of each house was an ornamental iron hitching post for the horses of visitors.
Since it was pleasant weather most of the year in Oxford, the houses were planned with that in mind. Most of the large homes had wide cool halls for a breeze to blow all the way through, and good sized rooms. Three or four children of the same sex would sleep in the same room, in two big double beds, and a bedroom had to be of some size to accommodate these.
All the houses had large porches front and back for outdoor living, but this did not mean outdoor eating. Cake and glasses of lemonade or iced tea could be served on the porch, or even brought out to the summerhouse in the yard, or a watermelon cut on the joggling board, but regular meals were always eaten formally inside at the dining room table.
To the end of one of the porch steps was affixed an iron foot scraper, for any rainy season was mud season.
Entry to a house in the summertime usually meant walking right in and calling out for the person you wanted. There were no screen doors to be latched, and with no tramps or thieving, an Oxford door stood wide open in good weather. If it happened to be closed there were front door bells on most of the houses. They were of two kinds: one was a flat piece of metal about as long as a thumb, which you twisted, and produced a per-rr-in-ing; the other was a china knob like a door handle, which you pulled straight out about six inches, and then let go. It snapped back with a clang. If there was no bell, there were always knuckles.
Each house had its own well, located on the back porch or under a little shelter in the yard. Drawing up a bucket-full was hard work, turning a windlass to wind up the long rope over a log polished smooth with long use, and it certainly was not worth the effort just to pour it on yard grass, so grass made its own decision whether or not to flourish. In the hot months, a well might also get quite low, if it didn’t actually go dry, and then water had to be used sparingly. If a well continued to go dry, it was filled in, and a new one dug in another part of the yard.
There were no lovely stretches of green lawn around the village houses after the middle of the summer, but grass of a sort grew at random in the shady yards under the trees. Even if there weren’t green lawns, the town yards were carelessly attractive, for they all had flowering shrubs galore. The things that were growing in these yards were not there to set off the house as a sight for the people passing, but for the pleasure of the occupants. They planted blooming things that they could cut to fill vases all over the house, for the church altar, to take to sick people, and to the cemetery. In the yard of one of our neighbors, there was a gardenia bush as tall as a man. Our cook said, “They shore do stink up a room nice.” There were many crepe myrtles which were really small trees, whose full rose-colored flowers in August looked like chunks of watermelon stuck on the branches. Everybody’s front yards had masses of roses, both bush and climbers that stretched over trellises.
Back yards were generally of bare dirt, swept, when they were considered to need it, with a broom of twigs or broomsedge. All the necessary outhouses and appurtenances were here – a provision for chickens, or a cow or a horse, a carriage house, tool shed, wood piles, etc. There would also be a vegetable garden large enough to feed the family, and peach, pear, fig, and pecan trees.
Houses bloomed inside as well as out, for village ladies were also devoted to house plants. They caught rain water for their darlings, and sedulously gave them drinks from the pan under the icebox. In the summer all these potted plants sat around on the porch, or in the yard, where Mr. Meadows, the town carpenter, would have built a sort of wide-step-arrangement on which they were set in rows above each other. In winter they either lived in the house or they were carried into a half-submerged glass-roofed house in the yard called a ‘pit.”
The mild climate made it possible for a great deal of living to go on in the yards of houses. There would be a platform swing on which not only the children congregated, but where the ladies of the family could sit facing each other to chat or sew, their long skirts safely above the damp grass or dust. There was quite apt to be a little round or octagonal latticed summerhouse, with its climbing roses or honeysuckle vines, a bench or two in the shade with peeling paint, and a joggling board (a long pliable, springy board supported on each end by wooden stands) for the children. If two trees grew conveniently near each other, a hammock was swung between them, and after the midday dinner, the head of the house frequently put his handkerchief over his face to keep off the flies, and napped there on summer afternoons.
Oxford homes were not warm in winter as were the furnace-heated houses in Atlanta. Those refreshing cool breezes, so welcome in summer as they poured across the sills and through the halls, lifting curtains and even slamming doors, did the same thing with redoubled force in winter. After November, people shook their fists at them and called them drafts.
Since it was pleasant weather most of the year in Oxford, the houses were planned with that in mind. Most of the large homes had wide cool halls for a breeze to blow all the way through, and good sized rooms. Three or four children of the same sex would sleep in the same room, in two big double beds, and a bedroom had to be of some size to accommodate these.
All the houses had large porches front and back for outdoor living, but this did not mean outdoor eating. Cake and glasses of lemonade or iced tea could be served on the porch, or even brought out to the summerhouse in the yard, or a watermelon cut on the joggling board, but regular meals were always eaten formally inside at the dining room table.
To the end of one of the porch steps was affixed an iron foot scraper, for any rainy season was mud season.
Entry to a house in the summertime usually meant walking right in and calling out for the person you wanted. There were no screen doors to be latched, and with no tramps or thieving, an Oxford door stood wide open in good weather. If it happened to be closed there were front door bells on most of the houses. They were of two kinds: one was a flat piece of metal about as long as a thumb, which you twisted, and produced a per-rr-in-ing; the other was a china knob like a door handle, which you pulled straight out about six inches, and then let go. It snapped back with a clang. If there was no bell, there were always knuckles.
Each house had its own well, located on the back porch or under a little shelter in the yard. Drawing up a bucket-full was hard work, turning a windlass to wind up the long rope over a log polished smooth with long use, and it certainly was not worth the effort just to pour it on yard grass, so grass made its own decision whether or not to flourish. In the hot months, a well might also get quite low, if it didn’t actually go dry, and then water had to be used sparingly. If a well continued to go dry, it was filled in, and a new one dug in another part of the yard.
There were no lovely stretches of green lawn around the village houses after the middle of the summer, but grass of a sort grew at random in the shady yards under the trees. Even if there weren’t green lawns, the town yards were carelessly attractive, for they all had flowering shrubs galore. The things that were growing in these yards were not there to set off the house as a sight for the people passing, but for the pleasure of the occupants. They planted blooming things that they could cut to fill vases all over the house, for the church altar, to take to sick people, and to the cemetery. In the yard of one of our neighbors, there was a gardenia bush as tall as a man. Our cook said, “They shore do stink up a room nice.” There were many crepe myrtles which were really small trees, whose full rose-colored flowers in August looked like chunks of watermelon stuck on the branches. Everybody’s front yards had masses of roses, both bush and climbers that stretched over trellises.
Back yards were generally of bare dirt, swept, when they were considered to need it, with a broom of twigs or broomsedge. All the necessary outhouses and appurtenances were here – a provision for chickens, or a cow or a horse, a carriage house, tool shed, wood piles, etc. There would also be a vegetable garden large enough to feed the family, and peach, pear, fig, and pecan trees.
Houses bloomed inside as well as out, for village ladies were also devoted to house plants. They caught rain water for their darlings, and sedulously gave them drinks from the pan under the icebox. In the summer all these potted plants sat around on the porch, or in the yard, where Mr. Meadows, the town carpenter, would have built a sort of wide-step-arrangement on which they were set in rows above each other. In winter they either lived in the house or they were carried into a half-submerged glass-roofed house in the yard called a ‘pit.”
The mild climate made it possible for a great deal of living to go on in the yards of houses. There would be a platform swing on which not only the children congregated, but where the ladies of the family could sit facing each other to chat or sew, their long skirts safely above the damp grass or dust. There was quite apt to be a little round or octagonal latticed summerhouse, with its climbing roses or honeysuckle vines, a bench or two in the shade with peeling paint, and a joggling board (a long pliable, springy board supported on each end by wooden stands) for the children. If two trees grew conveniently near each other, a hammock was swung between them, and after the midday dinner, the head of the house frequently put his handkerchief over his face to keep off the flies, and napped there on summer afternoons.
Oxford homes were not warm in winter as were the furnace-heated houses in Atlanta. Those refreshing cool breezes, so welcome in summer as they poured across the sills and through the halls, lifting curtains and even slamming doors, did the same thing with redoubled force in winter. After November, people shook their fists at them and called them drafts.