LaFarge Mansion - reminiscences of life there
Letter to the author [Claire Bonney]
14 August 2005
Dear Claire,
Our family was probably one of the last to live in the north wing of the mansion. My parents, Leon and Lucile (Van Brocklin) Trahan bought the mansion about 1947 or 1948 and we lived there until around January 1949 when we moved to Watertown. I was seven years old when we left and my Dad sold the house, much to my mother's disappointment. She loved the house even though it was without running water, telephone or heating. It was a lonely place set back from the road for a woman often left alone with three little children all under the age of seven.
I am surprised at how accurate my memories are of the flooring, the wainscoting and the inside shutters. I loved those shutters!
I used to sit in the wide windowsills and watch for my Dad to come home from work in LaFargeville.
I remember playing on the stairs leading up to the unused and unsafe second floor. I was never allowed to go up there by myself but I can remember how scared but thrilled I was when my Mom would accompany up there to “look around”. I just remember dark wood floors, very little lighting and the ghostly feel. I would never have dared to venture up there by myself!
I also remember the dirt floor and the brick Dutch oven in the long extension beyond our kitchen. It wasn't until I visited Mt. Vernon as an adult that I realized that area was probably used by the servants to cook the meals. I was too young at seven to appreciate the historical value of the house I was living in!
The pump house was where my mother sent me to plug or unplug the pump (depending on the time of day) that always had its share of wasp’s nests on the walls. Afraid of being stung I would run in, pull the plug, and run like the wind back to the house!
LaFarge Mansion, Lafargeville, NY. The mansion deteriorated in the 20th century and was demolished.
Even though I am now 63 years old I still have dreams about that house. It was one of the biggest disappointments of my Mom's life that we didn't live there that long. She talked about its possibilities right up until her death at age 78. I learned from her later in life that her own parents (Elwin and Margaret Van Brocklin) had lived there for a brief time (as tenants I think) around 1918 or 1919. I have one picture of my aunt at about two years of age standing outside to the right of the house.
About ten years ago before my Mom passed away we stopped one day and a man who was working there (I don’t know if he was the owner) allowed us to walk around in what little there was left standing. We could have wept to see how it had been allowed to fall into ruin but at the same time we were thrilled to visit a place we both were so attached to by memories.
Side porch of LaFarge mansion showing high quality of stone work.
I’m afraid I don’t know much about architecture but I do know about memories and I appreciate your article which gave life again to so many of them.
My Mom would have loved to have shared her own love of the structure of the house with you, I am sure.
Maxine (Trahan) Plichta
Rancho Cordova, California
This letter is reprinted from Claire Bonney, French Emigré Architecture in Jefferson County New York, 2015. The book is available from the Jefferson County Historical Society, Watertown, NY 13634.