Family home

The funeral home in Honey Grove wasn’t anything odd when I was a kid visiting my grandparents there. It was big and old. Maybe a little musty and certainly boring. But when I was visiting the place growing up, I never gave much thought to just how it came into the family. After all, grandparents are always old to a kid, and the house was old–so a big, old house in the family seemed just about right.

I learned the family history little by little over the years–that the funeral home had once also had a store attached, that there had been a post office there, that it had belonged to my great great grandparents before my grandparents moved in. Later still, as I was looking through all these old papers, I learned that the Van Sweringen family had previously owned the house. But, until I pulled some additional papers out of a little leather folder, I didn’t know how or when it came to be.

In April 1896, William Van Sweringen and Harvey S. Henry, my great great grandfather, signed articles of agreement stipulating that Harvey would rent from William the stone house for the sum of fifty dollars per year. Additionally, Harvey would rent from William the farm’s outbuildings for thirty dollars a year and take charge of the post office, included in the house, for an additional twenty dollars a year. At this point, presumably, Harvey and his wife, Grace Patterson Henry, took residence in the home that would stay in the family for more than a century.

On September 4, 1896, William and Harvey came to another agreement, this time for Harvey to purchase from William a corner lot formerly housing a sawmill, for the sum of twenty-five dollars.

My great great grandparents would not stay renters for long, however. On April 1, 1899, Harvey paid to the estate of the now-deceased William the sum of $1413.75 for ownership of William’s “mansion property.”

Harvey and Grace owned the property for just about half a century. On August 2, 1947, the now-widowed Grace appears on a deed with her son, John P. Henry, and daughter-in-law, Margaret A. Henry, assigning ownership of the family home to them. However, according to the terms of the deed, Grace retained the right to live the remainder of her life in the home, free of charge, and retain full control and management of the property–all while her son paid the taxes.

The old lady drove a hard bargain.