Memories, Memorial Day and Stuff – Including One Very Used Pasta Pot

By Mike Hiestand, Houstory Founder

Dan and I are both in transit this week. Dan is setting up a new home in Portland, Ore., where his wife will begin another temporary assignment as a traveling speech therapist and I’m in Miami where I’m helping my daughter create a new home from scratch after being accepted two weeks ago from a wait list into the physical therapy program of her dreams – with the provision that she be ready to start class five days later. If you look at a map of the U.S. and put one finger on Miami, Fla., and the other on Ferndale, Wash., – well, you’ll see that creates quite the adventure.

Uncle Tom

But given it’s Memorial Day – and Houstory is a company created to honor and preserve memories and home – I thought I’d share just a few words about the powerful memories created by stuff.

My uncle, Thomas Walsh, is one of those we will be remembering this Memorial Day. He was killed in Vietnam in September 1966 when the plane he was piloting was shot down. He had just arrived in Vietnam a month or so before. He was my mom’s older brother and her only sibling. In addition to my mom and her family, my Uncle Tom left behind four of my cousins and my aunt, who was pregnant with my fifth cousin. My uncle was 27.

I was 2 ½ when died and have no real memory of him. But I’ve heard lots of stories, of course, and seen lots of photos. He loved baseball and golf. He was a great big brother to my mom growing up in Bellingham, Washington.

Stories are important and photos are great, but there is one thing in particular that helps me regularly remember my uncle (and also his mom and dad, my grandparents, who are also now both gone): their pasta pot.

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Always wanted a Home History Book? Now is your chance…

Apr29 by Houstory Publishing

By Dan Hiestand, Houstory Marketing Guy

Since 2010, Houstory’s Home History Book archival journals have helped Real Estate agents, bed and breakfasts and homeowners around the world tell the stories behind their homes.

Now, we want to say “thanks” for your support while clearing out our inventory.

Now for a limited time, we have drastically reduced the cost of all original Home History Books in our Deluxe line. Regularly $300, all Deluxe books are just $149. This includes free shipping in the U.S., a free bookstand and a personalized brass address plate.

Quantities and styles are limited. When the original Deluxe books are gone, they’re gone.

Order yours HERE!

Houstory Herd: Hestia, Goddess of Hearth and Home

Mar30 by Mike Hiestand

In honor of Women’s History Month, we remember Hestia, the Goddess of Hearth and Home.

By Mike Hiestand, Houstory Founder

This is a reprint of an article first published on the Houstory Hearth on December 12, 2012, and has become one of the most requested on our site.

Before there was Houstory, there was Hestia. Literally.

An early prototype of company logo — before we became Houstory.

After the muse struck and we had shopped around the idea of the Home History Book with positive results, we figured the next logical step would be to give our dream company a real-life name.

In inspired fashion, Hestia came to mind.

I knew almost nothing about her at the time, but I learned that Hestia is the Greek goddess of Hearth and Home, charged with the important task of keeping the home fire stoked. Sounded like a pretty good fit for our company.

While I won’t go into the details of her birth (which like many God/Goddesses involves considerable oddness — in Hestia’s case being swallowed at birth and later regurgitated by her dear old dad), she is regarded as one of the 12 great gods of Greek mythology.

Specifically, she is goddess of domestic life. Of motherhood and child-rearing. She is the “mom goddess” – even though she never married. Curious that.

An early depiction of Hestia, Goddess of Hearth and Home

According to Wikipedia and other sources, she blesses one with domestic happiness. (Or withholds her blessing if not asked for it.) She is often thought of as the nicest goddess. As the goddess of the sacred fire of the altar, she feels comfortable in the kitchen and has a special affinity for cooks and bakers. Hestia has a keenly developed spiritual side and plays a special role in the rituals of the various gods and goddesses, always making sure that their temples are prepared and everyone is comfortable. She is a wonderful hostess.

While I’ve not seen it written down officially, I feel Hestia actually would have been very comfortable being the Goddess of the Heart. But that, of course, was a position firmly occupied by Aphrodite. So the next closest thing to the heart, she felt, was the hearth. While today we generally think of the hearth as simply part of a nicely designed fireplace, in historic times the hearth was essential. It was used for heating, cooking and cleaning. It was also the focal point for religious rituals. Both literally and symbolically, it was heart of the home.

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Our New Project: ‘Corner Houstories’

Mar23 by Houstory Publishing

‘Corner Houstories’ is our attempt to reach you, The Houstory Nation, on the street and communicate your stories of home. With your help, we can also inspire others to save their stories and remind them why it’s important to do so. Oh—and I think we can also have some fun!

By Dan Hiestand, Houstory Marketing Guy

Houstory (pronounced “House Story”) was founded with the idea of telling and sharing the stories of home.

antiques roadshow, texas, houstory, heirloom registry

Yours truly at Antiques Roadshow,when the PBS TV program visited Corpus Christie, Texas, in 2012. Man, look how excited I was to be there!

When we say, “the stories of home,” we mean it. What makes a house a home? When was it built? Who has lived in it? What has happened within its walls? What do you know about the precious belongings—the family heirlooms—within its walls?

Unlike single-dimensional, statistical information such as dates of birth and census information, these physical elements—the places we live, the walls we build and the objects we touch—have clear and powerful connections to our past.

In other words, to know grandma was born in Pittsburgh in 1911 is important.

To flip through the kitchen-stained pages of grandma’s favorite cookbook with her handwritten notes is transcendental.

The object, whether it’s a house or a family heirloom, is a connection point.

With that in mind, our new project, “Corner Houstories,” is about as simple as it gets: We are going to randomly ask people on the street—maybe even on street corners—about the stories of their homes. Everyone has them, no matter how boring they think their lives may be. You just need to ask the right questions

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Houstory Herd: Louisiana Plantation Rich with Black History

Feb28 by Mike Hiestand

A “slave cabin” at the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, LA [Photo by Michael McCarthy, https://www.flickr.com/photos/msmccarthyphotography]

In honor of Black History Month, we seek lessons learned from a plantation with a dark history.

By Mike Hiestand, Houstory Founder

Every home, as we like to say at Houstory, has a story.

And while much of our marketing material shows families happily living their stories and enjoying their homes, the truth, of course, is that not all home stories are rosy. Some stories can be hard to hear. But such stories are often those most worth preserving and sharing.

In honor of Black History Month and the idea that these difficult but important stories are worth sharing, we turn our attention to the Whitney Plantation on Louisiana’s River Road, 35 miles outside of New Orleans. The location opened its doors to the public in 2014.

Records show that an immigrant family from Germany bought the land for the plantation in 1752. Its second owner named it Whitney, after his grandson.

While there are a number of historic plantations on River Road, most focus on what one writer called the “hoop-skirt version of Southern history,” where visitors can tour grand, restored antebellum southern mansions and have picnics under trees or host weddings under big tents.

Whitney is the first plantation museum in the country dedicated to telling the unvarnished story of slavery. And much of that story is told by houses on the property.

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4 Easy Steps to Prepare for Your Death, Family History Style

Jan27 by Houstory Publishing

Someday—I hate to break it to you—that “loved one” who passes away will be you. Family history prep starts now.

By Dan Hiestand, Houstory Marketing Guy

I’m guessing there are probably more than four steps that you can take to prepare for your death. In fact, the list is pretty much endless. For example, unless you die naked, who is going to clean the clothes you are wearing? What about the enormous pile of dishes you may have left in the sink? Do you have someone lined up to destroy your gutty attempt at a novel? In reality, none of us can fully prepare to die, right? But what about preparing to die when it comes to passing down family history?

Luckily, there is some pretty low-hanging fruit out there that you may want to consider if you have a little time on your hands. And by “a little,” I mean a few hours.

I can hear you already: “But Dan, I don’t have time. I mean there is some much going on with the kids and work. Plus I need to take out the trash.”

I hear you. Don’t worry: what I’m proposing will not get you in trouble with Child Protective Services, your boss or the local sanitation department. As you’ll see below, following these steps take less than a sliver of time. The best part is that once you finish these tasks, you’re done for the most part. And trust me, you family will be really, really grateful that they don’t have to go searching for your legacy when you’re no longer around.

As a point of reference, I’m going to throw out this number:

8,760.

That’s the number of hours in a normal year. Each task will take time off this total. So, let’s do this thang. No better way to kick off the new year then to write about death, dying and all that jazz!

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Natural disasters: Are your family heirlooms and family keepsakes ready?

Dec31 by Houstory Publishing

By Dan Hiestand, Houstory Marketing Guy

I live in the Pacific Northwest, and earlier this year there was an article in the New Yorker that created quite a stir (you probably saw it). It was about the impending Cascadia earthquake that is likely to kill thousands and decimate regional infrastructure. The sub-headline of the article provided this chilling message: “An earthquake will destroy a sizable portion of the coastal Northwest. The question is when.”

That’s always fun to hear, right? Especially in your own backyard.

In response, I’ve since prepared emergency supplies for my wife and I while creating a disaster preparedness plan for my immediate family living in the area. This first-level preparedness has provided me with piece of mind when it comes to survival and basic needs. Water, food, shelter. Check, check and check. Undoubtedly, these are the most important considerations when disaster strikes.

Family heirlooms after a flood. Photo courtesy of Ralph Barrera/Austin American-Statesman.

But now that I’m prepared on that surface level, let’s dig a little deeper. What is the second level of preparedness? Much like end-of-life issues, getting your house in order ranks highly. This includes compiling and organizing medical and financial issues in such a way that physical destruction doesn’t mean they disappear forever. Just because your house has been burnt, flooded or destroyed doesn’t mean your life ends.

This whole process got me thinking about what people are doing when it comes to family history and specifically family heirlooms.

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White Friday anyone? Try an Alternative to Stuff This Holiday Season

Nov12 by Mike Hiestand

By Mike and Dan Hiestand, The Houstory Brothers

Instead of waking up earlier and earlier on Black Friday (or increasingly never going to bed as more stores compete to open their doors first), battling the traffic and fighting the crowds for more stuff, what if you gave White Friday a try instead?

For the past few years, we’ve run our “No More Stuff” holiday campaign that encourages people to re-think the relationship they have with the objects and things that surround them before they head out shopping for things they may not really need or even truly want.

This year, we’re giving the campaign an official kickoff day — the day after Thanksgiving. Yes, we know we have some competition — so we’re calling ours White Friday.

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Houstory Herd: A Magic Treehouse

Oct30 by Mike Hiestand

By Mike Hiestand, Houstory President

“All treehouses are sort of magic, don’t you think?”

I’m having pizza with Karen LaVerne, sitting in her treehouse, outside Bellingham, Wash., and I have to admit, lit up with candles on this beautiful fall night, a bit of a mist settling into the woods outside, this place feels very, very magical indeed.

“This place has that feeling for me,” Karen continues. “Pretty much everything in here has a story, has some meaning.”

And though I’d just come to have dinner and catch up with my friend, I knew it was time to put on my home historian hat and get out my notebook. Because, like all homes, it occurred to me that every tree house also has a story. And this one sounded like it would be a good one.

Karen tells me that she and her husband Peter moved into their main home in 1992. That home — which has its own impressive history — sits on about 5 acres, most of which is heavily wooded. There are only a few paths disturbing the natural setting, which includes soaring old growth maple and cedar trees.

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Houstory Herd: ‘Origins’ Podcast

Sep25 by Houstory Publishing

By Dan Hiestand, Houstory Marketing Guy

On this this third episode of “Houstories: The Stories of Home” podcast (entitled “Origins”), we pack up for a weekend trip. Not just any trip, though: My first hunting trip. Initially, my goal is to discover the origins of the food I eat by going to the source (in this case small game in Central Oregon). However, along the way, I discover the origins of a unique family cabin constructed with nearly 100 percent recycled materials!