Don’t get lost—-get a house number. Blogfinger photo in the Grove.
This will help: deliveries, lost visitors including relatives, prospective house hunters, emergency services, mail men, yard sale browsers, and exploring tourists. It also can help those parkers who need a landmark for finding their cars, but they also have to memorize or write down the street name.
In our case, our house is now called “The Beagle House” if you are on the self-guided walking tour which you can get at the Historical Society. Incidentally, Rev. Beagle was one of the early residents of the Grove. But you still need to see the number if you want to visit it.
People used to have “lawn signs” for the front of their house. I grew up in garden apartments where there were no lawn signs. So when our 7th grade shop teacher asked us do some carpentry, we had to choose between a lawn sign or a cutting board in the shape of a pig. (But your honor, I’m Jewish—what will Mom say?) I was on the horns of a dilemma: lawn sign or pig?
I chose the pig, and Mom loved it! But we never ate pork in our house. It is currently hanging in our Grovarian kitchen.
Paul’s pig in Eileen’s not-so-Kosher kitchen; but no pork allowed. Dec. 4, 2020. Blogfinger photo. ©
But the house numbers won’t help if you are lost in the fifties. Ronnie Milsap:
House numbers did not become common in OG until the mid-1880s. Prior to that, houses were often described in town directories as being above or below a cross street. There was briefly consideration of using lot numbers as house numbers. House #113 on Mt. Hermon would be #1 Mt. Hermon, under this plan. As lot numbers jumped about quite a bit, this would have been even more confusing.