If you turn south at Caddo, Texas, onto the dirt road there and follow that road as far as it goes, you will come to The Homeplace. At least that’s what my father has always called it. He grew up there, and his father did, too. To go there is to journey into my family’s past. It’s taking a break from the hyper-cyber world and stepping into a sepia-toned movie vignette. The props are all there, but the actors live only in our memories.
The road leading up to the rusty cattle guard winds through thick cedar trees intermixed here and there with scrub oak and mesquite. Limbs brush the sides of the pickup as you go. The log house you come to first fell down a few years ago. A colossal rock chimney stands over the collapsed structure, and even the chimney is ready to crumble into the past as it strains against the chain that holds it at a tilted angle. Behind the house sits a water well, covered and dry now, a derelict wagon and silent barns.
The scene was not always so devoid of life. My great-grandfather, Dave Mitchell, made boots and shoes in this two-story homestead at the turn of the century. I close my eyes and imagine how different it must have been in the late 1800s when the house bustled with activity…
It sits to the north of Interstate 20 at Willow Park, not too far off the road, but hidden from the hustle of rush hour traffic by a thick row of pecan and hackberry trees. If you didn’t know to look for it, you would miss it altogether, except for the bright, teal-blue roof in the distance, towering above the tree line.