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Ethel's Fairy House

We bought our cottage several years ago from an elderly woman named Ethel. She was a lovely woman, even writing us a letter after the sale to tell us how nice it would be for her to think of our family enjoying her beloved place. One of our family stories is how the cottage was discovered (it wasn't for sale) and purchased (there was another person determined to buy it and they had deep pockets) and the anxiously awaited phone call from Ethel telling us that she would sell it to us after receiving Papa Dick's poignant letter with a photo of his four daughters. Sometimes we even read Ethel's letter aloud to further enhance the story.

Once Summer day, some of the granchildren decided to build a fairy house. I had a large, woven stick basket that they filled with moss, decorated with ferns, added pine cones for chairs, made a stick table and piled pebbles in a circle for a fireplace, filling the center with red berries representing live coals. It was one of those lazy summer day activities that turns out to be more fun than one would expect, since one thing led to another and the creative juices were flowing. When it was finished, I put it in the screen house and draped little white lights around it. When it was done, Lucy said,"It's Ethel's fairy house. For her spirit to be here with us." And that made it even more special to all of us."

Excerpt from
"Papa's Legacy The Growing of Grandchildren" by Joan Fleming

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