10/12/2006

Derrick Smith and Luke spent most of the day pulling off old wallpaper and paint in the NE parlor room. This had the effect of exposing the hidden cracked plaster. One interesting thing happened today when this was done. One place on the wall that had only been seen as an outline of a box under the paper was taken out and a partial copy of a 1924 Cleveland Plain Dealer paper was found under the wall paper. It had pictures of “Flappers” and an ad for a Locomobile. The suspected hidden box did not turn out to be a wall safe but just a series of wooden blocks that were replacing bricks in the wall. These were covered by an inch plank and the newspaper was over that. This must have been done to allow a heavy wall hanging item like a large and heavy mirror or very heavy picture. The newspaper was saved and many photos were taken of the wall as this mystery unfolded. We got information today from Lisa Adkins of SHPO today on how to handle the high radon levels. All work in the basement has come to a halt due to the high radon reading. The second test will be mailed to the lab when the exposure time is up.

Floyd Simpson