A lovely piece from Touchstone by Emily Stimpson, one of the ECB – Early Catholic Bloggers.

The stories also have a bit of mystery in them. Mystery exists in the very design of my house—unexpected stairways and odd angles meet you at every turn. Traces of the families who lived here before me add to the mystery—battered children’s toys buried in the backyard and letters of the alphabet scrawled inside closet walls. I don’t really believe in ghosts, but something lingers in the rooms where others once walked. The Church teaches that we are never alone, that the angels and saints are always present to us. Somehow, my house bears witness to that.

But the most vivid story these old houses tell is a story of a world where homes were not designed around television sets, where children and parents gathered around the dinner table each night for food and conversation, and where neighbors spent summer evenings on each other’s front porches, chatting and gossiping while their children ran through the streets. Family prayers, not the latest episode of Survivor, ended the day. Bigger was not always better. Love meant something more than quality time.

In my house, the kitchen is small, with no room for industrial-size appliances. The bedroom closets are miniscule. There is one full bath, no Great Room, and no Master Suite. But for ninety years, large families filled this house. One had five children, another eight. Despite the lack of counter space, the mothers managed to cook three meals a day. Even without jetted tubs and designer faucets, their families presented themselves respectably and on time at school and office. The closets held what was needed, nothing more.