Granny's house gone

I knew it was, but finally I've seen it. My myspace page has my hometown as Spring Hill (South Charleston), West Virginia--and it is. I was born in Charleston, lived as a baby in a house on Indiana St., and even after we moved from there when I was two, we were there a month every Summer when I was a kid. I played in that neighborhood, walked up and down the railroad tracks and the hills, swam in Rock Lake Pool (sadly, now gone), and watched my cousins play baseball in Little Creek Park. Granny's church, Spring Hill Baptist, was across the street from her house, and we worshipped there--I first received Jesus there into my life, at age 12 (the church is still there).

Thomas Memorial Hospital bought up all of Poplar St., the street behind my grandmother's house. Then they bought up the east side of Vine St., my grandmother's street, within the past couple of years (she went to be with our Lord after 105 years here).

I just googled Spring Hill, WV, and looked at the hybrid (map and satellite combination) shot of the neighborhood. There it is--my grandmother's side of the street is now a parking lot for the hospital. Don't get me wrong--I love Thomas Memorial Hospital--it's just very sad to me that Granny's home for many years (also the home my mother grew up in), and the whole side of the street we played on as children--is now gone.

Call me nostalgic, tell me to get in the real world, -- yeah, I know. I would have liked to show my wife and daughter the neighborhood -- with Granny's house. It will never be. Good thing is, we will see her someday. Granny, pray for us.

Can't really go home, can we--we have to make home where we are.



peace of the Lord,
fr francis