IF THIS HOUSE COULD TALK-- Blog Post #8 by Earl Shreckengast

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IF THIS HOUSE COULD TALK…Blog #8 The iconic brick wall that everyone associates with me came in 1882. Charles decided to build it after the second flood in two years. The picture taken in 1883 is the first I have after the wall was finished. It is not surprising that sitting at the bottom of the surrounding hills, I would get a lot of runoff in a heavy storm. What people don’t know is that a nearby creek also backed up bringing flood waters to our property and that of some of our neighbors. I can remember the day of the second flood in July 1882. Charles was working at the bank. Concerned about his wife, Sylvia, and the children, he tried to make it here, but Broadway was totally inundated, and he had to come through a west gate. Charles wrote about the terror in his diary. “I wade through water to reach the house...only to see a river covering my house, my garden, the ornaments. My sakes, alive! I shut all the gates that have been burst open by the force of the water from the streets, and I fear greatly that my east fence will give way and then the flood will damage our beautiful home beyond recognition. I find all [Sylvia and the children ages 1, 3 and 5 years] at home, upstairs, looking upon the flood…in fear and trembling.” Charles acted quickly to build a wall that would divert flood waters away from us. It was to have raised steps at the gates to keep the water out. Work began four days after the flood and by the end of October it was finished except the marble steps and the limestone caps that had to be special ordered from St. Joe. It took 100,000 bricks and a railroad car of cement to build the wall. True to Charles’ nature, the wall was more than functional. It had brick veneers that made it handsome and substantial looking. It's too bad that Sylvia didn’t live to see the marble stairs completed. Ironically, the limestone caps and marble steps that Charles had special ordered arrived by train from St. Joe on March 27 and 28. Mr. Dougherty and five men started placing the limestone caps on the stone pillars of the wall on the 27 th , but she died of consumption on April 3 rd before the work was completed. In a bittersweet memory of her death, Charles wrote, “She passed out the front between the Pillars; where no steps were there.” Charles was ridiculed for building such an expensive and elaborate wall. It cost $3,000. His investment proved justified in 1895 when another torrential rainstorm hit Marysville. Broadway was flooded with water that wreaked havoc throughout the city. Behind the brick wall, we were safe and spared.