Thread: Old houses
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Old 01-07-2014, 10:07 AM
ctownboy ctownboy is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2009
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-14 with a wind chill near -40 here in Indianapolis. Oh yeah, over a foot of snow also.

Anyway, whenever I hear of people using newspaper for insulation in houses, I think of my Grand Mother.

She was born and raised on a small farm out in the middle of nowhere in Kentucky. They didn't have much money and lived in two small houses. When I was a young teenager (?), my Mother drove us to Kentucky for a family reunion and my Grand Mother wanted us to go see where she grew up.

When we reached the two buildings, I couldn't believe my Grand Mother and her parents and 10 brothers and sisters lived in such small buildings together. When I went inside one of the buildings, I found the walls covered with newspapers. My Grand Mother said that is what they used for insulation.

The newspapers were from the 1920's. My GM found one with a headline of Babe Ruth hitting a home run. She knew I liked baseball so she tore the headline off the wall and gave it to me. I have no idea what else was in there because it was so dark and I didn't have a flashlight.

I found out years later that one of my relatives went to the buildings and found there was still stuff up in the small attic. I have no idea what. Since none of our family members owned the property, we weren't supposed to take anything out of the buildings.

Years after that, I heard the owners of the property went and burned the buildings down. So, if there were any baseball or sports cards used for insulation or in the attic, I never found them and they were burnt.

David
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