INTERVIEW UP FORT FAMILIES
BARBARA DOLORES ASHBY GORDON
7/15/11
I am Barbara Dolores Ashby Gordon, daughter of Carlita Alva Ashby, granddaughter of John Linton Ashby and Jennie Wanzer Ashby. I spent every summer from elementary school to 15 years old at the Ashby homestead. The address was RFD 4 Braddock Road, Alexandria, VA. Many letters were sent to that address.
It was a big white house with a full porch that ran the width of the house. As you walk up to the house you walk in to the entranceway. On the left side was a double portico, this led to the sitting room with highly polished floors. From there you went to the dining room, which was elaborately decorated. No children were allowed in either the sitting room or the dining room. From there to the right led to a full kitchen. You could reach the kitchen from the entrance hallway straight through to the back. From the kitchen you walked through a doorway to the fully screened back porch that ran the width of the house.
Down the porch steps led to the garden. From the garden on the left side of the house, down the path was the outhouse, way down that path. To the left side of the outhouse was a chicken coop and pig pen. On the right side, just before the outhouse was the grape arbor with plenty of black grapes. We ate so many that we got sick from eating grapes. Go back up the steps of the house and a door led to the cellar (basement). There John kept his lawn mower and tools, like a modern day workshop. Go out the door of the cellar and across the walkway to the well. A fully covered well (wishing well like) with a bucket. From the well back in the house, through the kitchen, out the front door to the full front porch, down the steps to the yard where John built a swing on the oak tree with a rubber tire for the kids.
From the house, across the yard, past the weeping willow, go down the driveway (dirt/mud) to the garage, a 2 car garage. The garage was huge where he kept his 2 cars. One was in good running condition and one that he was working on. In winter the surrounding neighbors brought hogs to the house, and he had hog killing in his garage. (slaughtered hogs) They were big hogs. Off to the left of the garage a little ways, John built a bomb shelter into the hill. After WWI the bomb shelter became a root cellar. It was lined with cinder blocks and had mud roofing, built into the hill. From the root cellar you go up the road to the weeping willow tree. There was lots of land to the left and right of the family house. There was a bird bath in the yard off to the side of the front yard. Also in the front yard he built a hanging planter, which was made from his WWI helmet on a tripod.
There was quite a distance from Braddock Road to the front door of his house. The house also had a full attic where the kids cut out paper dolls from the Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs and dressed them and played house. The house did not have indoor plumbing until the 1940s. Before then we had chamber pots in all the bedrooms and potbelly stoves full of coal for heat in winter. There was a staircase to the right of the house. It was a three bedroom house, fully furnished with potbelly stoves and chamber pots.
Beside the birdhouse was a road that ran down to the end. The first house was a frame house, that was back from the road but not as far as the Ashby house. Further down was a white family living with a little boy they nicknamed Cotton. (blond hair and very pale) Further down was a creek with the coldest water you ever tasted, it just bubbled up out of the ground and the kids laid down and drank the water. Way, way, further down was the Randall house. They became friends because they had 8 boys and 1 girl. We played with the sister and the youngest brother and Cotton. We were playmates. We rummaged through the woods, never found anything because we were afraid of snakes. Back up the road to Braddock Road, down Braddock was the Church, school house where all the children from Mudtown went to school. Great Aunt Louise Jackson Ashby was a teacher there. The schoolhouse was in front of the cemetery, where a good deal of the Wanzer family is buried. Further down Braddock Road was Addie McKnight’s house. Further down was the Terrell family house. Can’t recall any houses beyond those on Braddock Road.
No house were on the right side of Braddock Road, the Episcopal Seminary was there. A brick wall ran from King Street all the way up Braddock Road to the end of the Seminary. The Episcopal Seminary had cattle and horses grazing in the area behind the brick wall across from the Ashby house. This was down Braddock Road. Back toward the left of the Ashby house, up Braddock was the Jackson family house. Beyond that was an unattended shack and no one lived there. Further down the road was the Peters farm, John’s sister Ella Ashby and her husband John Peters. The Peters raised cattle, hogs and had a cherry orchard. We fell out to the trees many a day, eating cherries. The Peters had a big piece of property and now the Hospital (Alexandria Hospital) is built there. Back up the road to the Ashby house the Jacksons lived to the left of him and the Peters also. I used to walk carrying a pitcher to Aunt Ella’s Ashby Peter’s house to get fresh milk from their cows for my cereal. As a little girl, it was a long walk, but really it wasn’t that far.
In the 1950s they tarred Braddock Road, before then it was a dirt road. We used to came from the city (DC), out Mt Vernon Pky, thru Alexandria, right on King, past the tower and on to Braddock Road, it was a muddy, dirt road and then turned into the Ashby homestead. As kids we went down the road, past Barbara Randall’s house and peeked through the woods when they were building Shirlington. After they tarred and paved Braddock Road the kids would dig up the tar when it was hot and soft and chew it like gum. We could not go across the road because of the brick wall of the Seminary, but along that wall grew blackberries. We picked blackberries, got thorns in our fingers, got our tummies full and then would go back home.
Fairfax County, Falls Church took our house with everything in it. They didn’t give us a chance to go and clean it out. They just took it, by decree of whatever. They wanted it for a museum or something. The government made an offer which John refused and then they took it. The museum is basically the same as when we lived there. I haven’t been able to go in the museum to see what it is about because it brings back too many memories. The park that sits on the side was a part of his land. The cemetery is behind the schoolhouse, Church, home. As a private house the Clayborne family lived there and we played with their little girl. That about all I can think of right now.
I am 75 years old, born September 14, 1935. I am sorry this is delayed, but it has just come to light what you are trying to do.
Barbara Ashby Gordon
Born and raised in Washington, DC
Living retired in South Carolina.
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