In the beginning….

….this was Thistle Hill Farm!

Wooz’ parents bought the farm at the end of World War II.  This is 1947….her father is sitting on the steps….an aunt in dark clothing in the center…her mother in white on the left.  (click to enlarge)

Wooz and her sister slept in the kitchen…her parents in the other room in the house…the living room/bedroom.

The Bells thought they had purchased about 100 acres with the cottage…a later survey indicated they owned 140 acres.  The house was eventually enlarged by the addition of a two story log cabin to the left…and a glassed in year-round porch in front.  Eventually son Church sheathed the entire structure.

This is now referred to as “The Little House”.  Wooz and her late husband, General Church Matthews, built the main house in the 1960s.

It’s an historic site….beginning with the fact this was part of a huge land-holding of the first Chief Justice of the United States, John Marshall.  Marshall himself was born and grew up in a log cabin which still stands not far away.