Ye old brick home

Many buildings in South Amana are brick with a sandstone foundation. Each colony is known for being built with ” mostly wood or mostly stone” depending on when it was built and what material was easily accessible for that Colony.

One neat and not super well known ( as the building is no more) is that South Amana housed the brickyard for the colonies. If you were coming south bound from the way of West Amana you would be traveling on the dirt road in the photo past our home( far left corner in picture about 1900-1920 ). You would end up at the cross roads towards north of Marengo. On the other side of this cross roads ( kiddie corner from Fern Hill store) you would have found the brickyard. Which today is just a simple unassuming Iowa county corn field. It does make me wonder what they have found when in the past and even now when they dig in the soil?!? (Update! The brickyard is not supposed to be where I was once told! Will update blog when I get a picture on the original location there MAY still be a bridge!)

As I was painting the exterior entry ( from last blog) my eye caught something a wee bit interesting. Can you see it?

Thats right! Not sure if its WNS or WHS but certainly 1926 is clear. I have asked around but no one can be sure on WHO put their initials on the brick, but what I do know is that this was signed when it was a society building as”The Great Change”didn’t happen until 1932. I have a feeling the upcoming CHANGE was being felt even as this person wrote their initials in the South Amana Harness Shop. Which is now our home.

I got excited and started to look harder at the bricks around the house we starting seeing….  FINGER PRINTS! Seriously 155 years later someones finger tips/print are still being seen…. God I DO love history.