Share your stories

Nora Hendrix, grandmother of legendary rocker Jimi Hendrix once lived at 827 East Georgia Street. Photo courtesy of James Johnstone.

I first became obsessed with home histories in 2002. I was planning a trip back to Australia and I'd just discovered a 1970 biography about my aunt Joan Rosanove. The book gave the address where my father was born in Ballarat, a country town northwest of Melbourne. The other part of the book that intrigued me was a paragraph about my grandmother Ruby who died years before I was born. It turned out that Ruby was more than a little eccentric. As her eight children moved away she'd have the rooms physically lopped off the house.

The house was an old weatherboard Victorian painted mud yellow and sitting behind a picket fence painted the same colour. Cast-iron lace work decorated the front of the house and ran along a verandah supported by fluted iron pillars. The owners let me look around and I filled them in on thirty years of their home's social history. They'd raised five children in the house and thanks to the book and Ruby, I was able to solve their twenty-year mystery as to why there were a number of doors that led nowhere.

Just about anyone who has ever lived in an older house has a story. I'd love to hear yours. If you have a question or a story to share, please email me at eve_lazarus@shaw.ca