Hurricane Irene, 9/11, and the Meaning of a House

Last updated on: September 22, 2011 at 10:40 pm by Amy Julia Becker

Hurricane Irene, 9/11, and the Meaning of a House 2011-09-22T22:40:31-04:00 Amy Julia Becker

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Shohola, with Penny, 2008

I have a new post on her.meneutics about the near-destruction of our family’s summer cottages during Hurricane Irene. It begins:

For New York City, Hurricane Irene was largely a non-event, an unnecessary nuisance with unprecedented action. For me and my extended family, Hurricane Irene was a life-changing storm. Sure, there were power outages and phone lines down and flooding and roads closed. But the impact I’m writing about was to two old summer cottages that have been in our family for nearly 100 years.

My great-grandfather bought Shohola, a rambling cottage on the point of a small beach at the end of a dirt road in Madison, Connecticut, in 1922. He had four children, three of whom are still living, and one of whom is my maternal grandmother, Frances. We call her Nana. Nana was 1 when she first spent her summer in Shohola.

Soon enough, my great-grandfather decided to build a smaller cottage on the property for his wife’s sister and her family to use. And then a family bought the house next door, and the kids spent their summers together — swimming out to a raft and burning in the sunlight and scraping their knees on the rocks and playing cards on rainy days. As it turns out, that family in the house next door was the home of my paternal grandmother. My great-grandparents on both sides of the family were friends with each other, neighbors. My grandmothers grew up together. And so my parents met one summer and fell in love.

To keep reading, click here. To see some images of the houses as they are now, and as they once were, keep looking:

Shohola after the storm

My grandparents in front of the Mixing Bowl (the smaller cottage) in 2008

William and Penny at Shohola, summer 2010

Shohola and the Mixing Bowl, winter, 2011

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