Thanks to my many chats with Betty, great granddaughter of the last Wing member to live at the farm, I now have a great deal of knowledge about the family members who lived here, including lots of stories and many great images. I feel so lucky that Betty got in touch with me. I hope to host her here at the farm some time this year. She has never seen the farm or the places her family members are buried, including her great great great grandfather, Prince Wing. I have no idea why things like this happen in such a great big world, but can only say it was my blog that lead her to me and my search for a connection that lead me to her.
What can I say? I am deeply touched by it all and feel a real connection to Aunty Alice especially. She had no children of her own, but cared for the 3 orphaned Wing children in this home until they moved out. Those children never returned and the house left the family in 1913. I have been carelessly tossing my weeds into the foundation of the third home ever built in Greenfield around 1805. I have looked down into the very hand-dug well that Daniel built and Elihu and Alice drank from. I have sat myself down at the Wing Rock in the woods, now hidden in an overgrown pasture across from the homestead, where the children liked to enjoy their lunch. The strange rose bush I found in the woods was part of the landscaping of the original homestead. The rocks cleared by horse, scrap metal under the duff, the tea cup fragments, the ink bottles, the wild apples, all of it is made a bit holier now that I know it is still alive in someone's memory. Even if Betty has never seen it with her own eyes, it is alive in her, so can be transferred to me. It is my plan to create some signage with my neighbor's help to help us all remember the history of this little holler, only paved 20 years ago, a place of pride. Most notably, we have proof now of the family's sawmill operation and that the family most likely owned the Pompa Quarry on Petrified Sea Garden Road. Thus, both the rock and the wood this house is so sturdily built with was the prize of their labors.
Holy Wing Road Farm! Even in the snow, even with chipping paint, even sinking into the earth, even cut up into pieces, even overgrown, even dismantled, leaning and shifting, even quiet and hidden, not as proud as she once was, this farm is an amazement.
