the gem city of the ozarks
Finally. I finished enough of the "old Mansfield" page to get it online. I realized a few things while trying to pull it together this week. First, I researched the Cooleys more than the Wilders. Second, I researched Mansfield six years ago and I haven't looked at most of my files since then. So everything was new to me all over again (which meant I got bogged down reading it all), but every time I needed something, I didn't have to look too hard to find it.

One thing I have got to remember from now on... TAKE MORE PICTURES! Since I used to go to Mansfield every year, I stopped taking pictures after the first couple of visits. I also didn't take enough pictures of things I needed pictures of, mostly the other sides of buildings. I know I got a few windows in the wrong place on my plans because I didn't have a picture to measure distances from.

Once upon a time, I was interested in the evolution of Rocky Ridge farmhouse. I copied all the photographs I could find, and I made lists of things you saw in one photo that showed up in another one obviously taken years later, like Rock House furniture ending up in the farmhouse.

There's one photograph that's always puzzled me, and it's not an interior one. It's in LIW Country, and the caption says: "The well house and the woodpile show the structure of the original two-room farmhouse constructed by Almanzo on Rocky Ridge Farm." -- What part of the house is showing? It's not the kitchen door, because the roof pitch is opposite from the way it is on the house in all other photos. If it's the current kitchen and dining room with Rose's loft, then why is the building so tall? There's a photo of Laura standing at the kitchen door when the new house was being built around the two rooms and loft, and the loft was low. Both the loft roof and the new upstairs roof are visible, and neither is like this LIW Country photo.

This is going to bug me until I figure it out.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:18 AM