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Archiver > BRETHREN > 2000-08 > 0967612097


From: "Robert Pumfrey" <>
Subject: Re: 2 door houses
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 00:08:17 -0500


All,
I currently live in KY and have traveled around the state and in neighboring
states, where I have seen many smaller, older, rural homes with two front
doors. The explanation I have heard is that one door opened into the parlor
and was used to welcome guests directly into the parlor. I do know from
talking to older family members and neighbors that parlors were often used
only for special company, but none of them ever said anything about an extra
door. - Robert

>Art and Sandi Wilson,
>In my area of Frederick Co MD near Carroll Co MD and 12 miles from York Co
PA, some
>of the early houses made of brick baked on the farm had 2 doors. They are
rapidly
>disappearing here by the way!
>Since I research the early German Baptist Brethren here as a hobby
(sometimes United
>Brethren and sometimes Lutheran switchovers), I find many with 2 front
doors and some
>with the old outside stone German chimneys (also in Washington Co MD near
Smithsburg
>and Leitersburg). Well sure it could be coincidence due to the Adams style
and the 4
>or 5 bay homes and the fact that they were built between 1770s and before
1820s but
>gee all the ones I do are from families that are Brethren. And then I go to
OH to see
>where some of the other family lines went and they have 2 doors too just
like the
>ancestors had from MD, but only a few out there in OH are left. So is it
Brethren,
>probably NOT but the families were. Some of the houses have a trap door
like or
>expanding wooden platform used for dividing rooms in them too just like
early
>Brethren churches did for love feasts. So I stick to the houses with 2
doors, the
>orchards, the family cemetery with its sodium metabisulfite schist or slate
engraved
>tombstones enclosed by a limestone wall with periwinkle growing all over
the graves,
>the mill, the lime furnace to burn lime to go on fields (which
unfortunately leads to
>keeping ahead of the mine and quarry searchers of present day looking for
calcium
>carbonated lime or marble), the everlasting cedar trees (with some ash
trees if the
>wife is from Scotland for good luck), and too many other things to try to
remember
>but I look for automatically.
> Old brick houses around here with 2 doors that I look at are Bollinger,
Geiman,
>Petry, Neff, Keller, Zimmerman, Cassell, Baile, Bankert, Miller, Myers,
Danner,
>Devilbiss, Nicodemus, Alexander, Nusbaum, Trimmer, Driver, Royer, Roop,
Kemp,
>Johnson, Doubs/ Dubbs, Schaeffer/Shaffer and too many other names that are
forgotten
>right now from instant recall that malfunctions too much for me these days.
Now the
>real test is to figure out if the stone ones in Washington Co MD are
Brethren, where
>that stone is really prevalent resources for homes.
>And ya know what, some of the homes have 2 doors in Switzerland too but not
of brick
>but of a small diameter schist stone!
>regards, Karen
>
>Art & Sandi Wilson wrote:
>
>> Hi, can you explain about the house with two doors?
>> Thanks,
>> Sandi

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