-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, Sept. 11, 1976
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At present, the farming operation on the Skiles freestall barn for their Holsteins is under con
farm is expanding. A new milking parlor and struction.
The Kenneth Skiles family
[Continued from Page 72)
Another fascinating aspect
they found when they were
wiring for electricity in the
house is that the molding on
another door in the first
addition isn’t really molding.
Instead, the entire door was
carved out of a huge slab of
wood, including the molding.
“The carpenter told me to
take the molding off so he
could wire,’’ explains Skiles,
“but I realized I couldn’t get
it off - that it was all one
carved piece - so I knocked a
hole in my wall rather than
rum the door.”
This door, as is nearly
every old door into the home,
is pegged into place.
Another interesting
feature of this initially added
section of the house is a built
in comer cupboard. While
the Skiles family assures
that it can be removed, it
would take a lot of work
because of the chair railing
which is built around the
entire room. It appears that
the carpenter intended the
cupboard to stay, because he
ran the railing around the
room and over the cupboard,
thus pinning it to the corner,
in a sense.
The railing brings up
another interesting facet of,
the house. Since it was added
onto at various intervals of
history, different styles of
architecture were in vogue
at different tunes. So, only
one area of the house has a
chair railing, for instance,
because it was only in style
during one particular era.
At present, this section of
the house is painted with a
whitewash-type of paint to
simulate the original ap
pearance of the house.
Before the Skiles family
began remodeling, however,
the rooms had been
wallpapered Mrs. Skiles did
all the labor of removing the
paper, herself, and when she
did, she found royal blue
stenciling underneath it on
the bare walls
“From the stenciling we
are able to figure out the age
of the room,” she details.
“Back at that time, sten
ciling was a poor man’s
wallpaper.”
Skiles goes on to explain
that a professional stenciler
rode around the country on
horseback, doing his work
wherever he could obtain it.
And, although, it is called a
s®sp ■
V **■
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“poor man’s wallpaper”, the
Skiles family feels that it
was probably a privilege of
the prominent.
This room also has one of
the two chimneys set on a
“V”. The other is now
blocked up and used for the
heating system.
Although the Skiles family
did a large amount of
restoring, they didn’t restore
every part of the house.
Instead, they added some
modern features, such as a
new kitchen for Mrs. Skiles.
They refer to this change as
“our addition.”
“Ours isn’t very large,
though,” says Skiles with a
grin, “only 9 x 11 ”
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They also closed in a porch
which Mrs. Skiles now uses
for her laundry.
It may seem like a
paradox to go to all the
trouble of restoring a large
portion of the house to its
original state and then
changing and modernizing
another section, but the
Skiles have an answer to
that.
“To comfortably live in a
house,” they explain, “we
feel you need modem, easy
to care for, working con
ditions.” So, the kitchen is an
outgrowth of that
philosophy.
The Farm
The farm, itself, has the
same type of history of
growth and development as
the house. Although it came
down to the Skiles through a
maternal line, its history is
simple to follow.
Only two family lines have
lived on the property since
its conception. The second
line to own it was the
Reesers, and Skiles is a
descendent of this line.
John Reeser first pur
chased the property in 1840.
He had 10 sons, one of which
was Samuel. After 48 years
of working the soil, John
passed the farm down to
I Continued on Page 76|
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Phone 717 354 4341
Lloyd H Kreider Auct
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# HOME
I«fvi
Price index dropped
HARRISBURG - The
August 15, 1976 Index of
Prices Received by Penn
sylvania fanners decreased
two per cent from the
previous month, but was
three per cent above a , ear
earlier, according to the
Crop Reporting Service.
Lower prices for food and
feed grains, hogs, slaughter
cows, and lambs more than
offset slightly higher prices
for milk cows, calves, steers
and heifers, sheep and
poultry. The purchasing
power of prices received was
one percentage point below
July and two percentage
ffamtCK, <?HC,
R.D.3, EPHRATA, PA. 17522
ROOFING SIDING SEAMLESS SPOUTING
AWNING SHEET METAL
points below a year ago. "
Nationally, the Index of
Prices Received decreased
four per cent from both July
and a year ago. Contributing
most to the decrease were
lower prices for meat
animals, feed grains, oil
bearing crops, and food
grains. Higher prices for
fruit, milk, eggs and
vegetables were partially
offsetting. The purchasing
power at the U.S. level was
three percentage points
below last month and nine
percentage points below a
year earlier.