I tried so hard to talk Nancy out of selling the house. Kevin an Vivian like to do the talking for her though. Glen and Brian tried to talk her out of it too. We were all angry by it. The property of 140 north 400 east has been in my JENSEN family for close to a century. My grandparents lived there when they were alive. After they died my dad bought the house, knocked it down and built a new one on top. I'll never forget demolition day at my grammy's house. It was so fun tearing it down with a sledge hammer! Then I helped my dad build his new house on top. My brothers helped too. Brian and I took care of that place for years when my dad started to age and when he got sick and died, we cared for it for years. But Vivian made Nancy sell the house. Nancy is 82 years old. Why in the hell would she sell her house at 82 years old and take on a new mortgage? Why in the hell would she leave life as she has known it for the past 30 years and move? Why in the hell would she pack her stuff up, give her stuff away and leave at 82 damn years old??? Vivian. Thats why. She's a greedy little monger. She hired an attorney to get me and my brothers to sign probate documents to give up our half of the will. When we fought back, she then had her attorney draw up a paper giving all money to HER and they slipped it in, in the closing documents. Thank goodness Glen actually read all the papers and caught it. Snake. The realtor said it was elderly abuse. The attorney said it was elderly abuse. And Deborah & Dennis weren't happy about her moving either. They are worried that Vivian will eventually kick Nancy out of "their" house and they said that she has a place with them in their home. I told Nancy that she was always welcome in my home too.
I'd like to see karma get that witch back.
Brian and I went over on one of the last days that they were supposed to be out and took some pictures of the yard. It would just be almost impossible to take pictures of the inside. Vivian had changed it too much from when it was just my dad and Nancy's. She moved in with 11 stinky, yapping, barking dogs and like 14 cats. You read that right. ELEVEN DOGS and FOURTEEN CATS. All indoors. I wanted to toss them all, Vivian and Kevin included, in the pound. Or the dump. Or a bottom less pit..... The house smelled so bad of dog and you couldn't hear yourself think. Literally. They yapped and barked non stop. I hated them. There was fur everywhere. I COULD NOT get comfortable in there anymore. I used to love to go see Nancy. That house was always warm and inviting.... until Vivian destroyed it. You see, Vivian thought that after Nancy passed away that she and Kevin would live there for some time and then she'd sell it and move somewhere else. She said these very words to Diana. When Diana told her that the will stated that she and Brian were to have the house, she found a way to NOT let that happen. Anyway.... so I took some pictures of the outside so that I could remember it.
This is the back porch. I've spent countless hours sitting on this porch watching the fish in the pond visiting with my dad.
Off the porch when you look to the right you see this guest house. It was originally my grandpa's shop. My dad converted it into a little apartment when he demolished the main house. That way he and Nancy would have somewhere to live while they rebuilt. Jeff, Jensy and I lived there while we built our first house. After my dad died, Brian completely remodeled it and Nancy had a renter in it for extra money. Then Vivian moved in and renter moved out. She filled that apartment with cats. It literally became a giant cat house. So freaking sick. It made us extremely pissed too because Brian literally did everything new in there. New drywall, paint, carpet, shower, toilet, windows..... it was really nice inside! But the smell of ammonia from loads of cat urine ruined it. Thank you Vivian, but not really.
Looking straight up from the back porch you see the root cellar, and a little of the Trading Post and the crap house. You can also see the apricot tree in the very back middle of the picture that my grandpa planted. I can't tell you how many apricots I've picked off of that tree!
Inside the Trading Post, my dad built a really neat fireplace complete with a wood fire pizza kitchen. The grey stones that you see were from the Nauvoo Temple. When my dad and Nancy were there on a mission, my dad worked on the Nauvoo Temple, Carthage Jail and all the historical sites in Nauvoo. He was able to take some of this stone home when they did a remodel on the temple. Unfortunately there were lots of boxes and other crap in the way so you can't see it fully.
This is the Stuff House. My dad just kept "stuff" in there! Haha! He had a couple of big 50 gallon water drums in there in case of a disaster. He had fertilizer, hoses and other "stuff". I don't know why I didn't take a picture of the Crap House, which was across from the Stuff House....?? It was just full of "crap"! Haha! Tools, ladders, storage, just crap.
This apricot tree is so old. It grows hundreds of apricots every year and the bees flock to it like crazy! And this swing has been in this tree for decades!
I'm really sad / mad that its no longer in my family. When we were little kids, we used to sneak up in the back and spy on the neighbors, the Linton's. They had an old camper in their backyard that you could see from grammy's backyard. The Linton kids had drawn a bunch of naked pictures on the side of the old camper. And of course we used to sneak up there to see them. I have so many childhood memories of playing in that backyard. Memories of picking fruit from the trees in that backyard. Memories of mowing that lawn. So many memories.
