It’s hard to believe that we are coming up on one year since we burned down the “Old House”. This house was on our farm from about 1914 to March 16th, 2011. The home was built by my grat-grandfather Lawrence Weber and his siblings for their mother, my great-great grandmother Verena Weber, whom was born in Switzerland and came and settled as an LDS immigrant. She lived in the house for only 2-3 years before she died (according to the information I have received). I suppose it was about that time that Lawrence Weber took over what is currently the Weber Farm, where he ended up raising his family and living until his death in January of 1949. My grandfather, Rex, lived in this house until marrying my grandmother and building their own home, which was built next to this house.
This house was a very beautiful building in its time. It had some lavishing woodwork on the outer trim and other parts of the exterior. I’d even go as far as to say that it was one of the most beautiful homes in the valley at the time it was built. Unfortunately though, it fell into disrepair as it became a storage place for old car junk and other items. After this started happening it became clear that no one was ever going to fix it up, and in the past few years it had started to become a dangerous place to be around.
After the house finished burning down, it left some interesting traces of how it was constructed. It was built on a rock foundation, which was capped in the early 40s. It also had two brick chimneys and one cinderblock chimney, which I believe was added later when they made the edition to the kitchen. We have since collected all of the bricks and rocks.
Although this video and photos probably doesn’t seem very interesting to random people, to those that have a connection to it (especially us that still live on the farm), watching it burn was a very emotional time and experience. If the video seems a little overly dramatic for you, I apologize. I tried to capture it how it felt to us.