One of our neighbor ladies is 92 years old and has lived in the area all of her life.  She remembers that Mrs. Cable was very proper and was always dressed fancy and had nice things.  She said that Mr. Cable was always much more simple.  She remembers Gladys from the country school they attended together just down the road.

Willam lived in the home until his death on October 5th, 1926.  It had said in the abstract that he had suffered from a lengthy illness.  He is buried just a few miles away from the house in a small country cemetery.  His illness left Mary and Gladys with nothing but property to pay for the debts he had accumulated.  Mary began borrowing money against our property and others around the area he had left her.  As she got deeper and deeper into debt the lawsuits started.  The lumber company in town sued, a roofing company in Des Moines sued, and numerous banks and insurance companies sued.  Even the two daughters from the previous marriage, Nora and Ruth, sued.  They were given another plot of land as settlement.  After this point Mary was going to loose the land to an insurance company she had borrowed money from.  To prevent this she hired a lawyer to act as Gladys's guardian and he won a court settlement in her favor that transferred the land to Gladys.  Mary then returned to court and had herself deemed Gladys's guardian and started borrowing money in her daughters name.  Of course in time the money borrowed in Gladys's name came due and the law suites started again.  Around this same time Mary begins renting the land to her son from a previous marriage, G.Ewing Lambert, for $1,000 a month.  At this time Mary and Gladys start disappearing for periods of time, it is noted in the abstract that the sheriff tries to visit them numerous times to serve them with their court papers.  She has now stopped paying her taxes.  The final nail in her financial coffin occurs when the Equitable Life Assurance Society sues them for a $36,224.24 loan they had taken out 10 years earlier in Glady's name.  Mary takes bankruptcy to avoid loosing the house.  But  that doesn't work.  Then as a last ditch effort she attempts to buy more time through an act created during the depression, but even that doesn't work.  It is written in the abstract that she is "financially incompetent," and that nothing she can do will ever save her from the large amount of debt she has accumulated.  The insurance company ends up with the house and remaining land.  This is the last that we know about Mary.

Gladys married a man named Faber Miller and lived out the rest of her life in town.  She had two sons, one of which is buried next to William in the country cemetery.  The other is still living, but not in the area.  Gladys had a stroke fairly young in life and lost the ability to speak.  She died in the early 90's.  Her funeral took place in town and she is buried in the cemetery in town with her husbands family, but after the ceremony the funeral procession drove out by the house and then back into town.

The house was put up for auction by the insurance company and Charles "Bert" Pooley, the owner of the local lumber company, bought it in his daughter's name, Persis Pooley.  Neither he nor she ever lived in the house.  Instead they rented the house and land out. 

Fred Wirth was the first farmer to rent it long term.  He and his wife, Florence, had two daughters and a son who are still living and visit the area occasionally.  We have been lucky enough to have a few e-mail conversations with them and they have even provided us with some old pictures that we are using to restore the exterior.  They said that when they first came to the farm it was a bit run down.  Thankfully they worked with Ms. Pooley to do some up keep.  It was during this families stay in the house that the barn was given a new roof, paint job, and foundation.  I'm sure this is the only reason it is still standing today.  Also, the Wirths slaved at taking out layers of old wall paper.  In some spots up to 14 layers!  When they first moved in there was no bathroom in the house.  They hauled their water from the windmill by the barn and heated in on the stove.  They did their laundry with an old wringer washer on the north porch off of the kitchen.  While they were there the bathroom on the first floor was added.  Their son tells me that before that it must have been a bedroom because he can remember sleeping there when he had the chicken pox.  My favorite story though is of them "shooting hoops" up in the attic!

Merril Peters was another farmer who rented the acreage and surrounding land for quite some time.  He and his wife are still living and also visit the area frequently.  We are hoping to get in touch with them soon. 

When Persis died she left the property to her nephew Gary Rottler who farmed himself.  The Peters left when he took over farming the surrounding land.  Two years previous to us buying the home he had sold it on contract to another man who planned to turn it into a bed and breakfast.  He ended up being transferred out of the area for work and began renting the property out.  The renters turned the house into a meth lab that was busted last fall and has sat empty since then.  The man who had wanted to turn it into a bed and breakfast stopped making the payments so the acreage went back to Gary.  We bought the property from him, and he still owns and farms the surrounding ground.