Thank you, Dean Lorey

The previous owners of this farm were the Lorey's (pronounced Loor' eye) Carl & Zona purchased the farm in the '50s and ran it as a dairy. Many people we meet in the area tell us they worked for "Uncle Carl", filling the big barn to the rafters with hay. It was an odd marriage; they kept everything separate, including their cattle and their food. Carl lived mostly in the barn, and in fact, died there. He left the county fair feeling poorly, and they found him dead, lying on the old leather couch he had dragged into the entry of the barn.

Zona outlived him by several years, passing away in the spring of 1997, in her bed right here in this very room. Our computer desk likely sits where her bed would have been.

Their children, Dean and Norma Jean, did not get along any better. Unable to agree to an equitable division of the estate, the farm and all its contents sold at auction in December of 1997.

Although they both died here, there is little left to remind us of Carl and Zona. Chuck has slowly corrected the "quick fixes and patches" of buildings, fences, anything that Carl "repaired". Hundreds of mayonnaise jars have been hauled away, tons of scrap metal, glass insulators off electric poles, scrap lumber, old tumbledown buildings dragged here. I find no trace of Zona in the house.

But Dean - that's another story. He had a bad habit of twisting his empty cigarette packets and tossing them where ever he was working. Its been 11 years, and we still find cigarette packages here and there. Chuck found this one yesterday.

I wonder what people will find here once we are gone...............