The house was named Tumbledown, after the way that it appears to tumble down the side of the gorge and it was built sometime in the 1930's as a love nest for my great uncles only wife, Hattie.
She was long dead before I was born. She died in childbirth, which was much more deadly than it is today. Now we treat childbirth as a supermarket trip. But back then, well, if you survived the trauma of the actual birthing, your child might actually live four or five years before dying of some nasty disease.
Edgar and Hattie only had a few years together before she died. Long enough for him to build Tumbledown and get used to the idea of being with her forever. He never got over her death nor the death of his infant daughter some few days later.
It was then that Edgar packed up Tumbledown and departed for destinations unknown. Family rumor had it that he vanished for five years before he came back home. He never stayed home long when he did come back. I guess it was too painful for him to stay in the house where his beloved died, yet he was unable to sell it because she had loved it so much.
I know that Edgar traveled extensively, his house is full of souvenirs from his adventures. Not just tourist knock-offs, but real, genuine articles that would have historians and antiquarians panting to put them in a museum.
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