A scribbled note dated September 3, 2020, has “Uncle Ed’s Doors” written across the top. I had rescued a couple of homemade doors from a house Ed Joiner once owned, and I wanted to preserve that tidbit of family history. While preparing old doors for new roles, I began thinking about how a lot of good things get discarded. Sometimes all they need is a little help.

Ed Joiner was one of my grandfather’s brothers. He died before I was born and left the farm life decades before that. I’m not certain he ever lived in the house. I’m guessing he did because Daddy called the hundred acres around it the Ed Joiner Farm.  

During my early childhood the never-painted building was just north of us, facing the same dirt road. It had been vacant since the 1930s when Bob and Martha Brown and their young daughter Mary Ann lived there. Miss Martha enjoyed telling how Mary Ann would watch the road for my Uncle Emmett’s rolling store. She’d stop Uncle Emmett and ask him to wait while she ran to see if the hens had laid. Fresh eggs were bartered for Baby Ruths, perhaps inspiring the term “sweet deal.”  

In the mid 1950s Daddy needed a cattle barn and some shelter space, so he relocated two large rooms of Uncle Ed’s house to our backyard. Moving the whole building would have been too much for his Big M tractor to pull across the field on poles. 

I guess that was the first time those doors were involved in a repurposing effort. Daddy took a house that was rather useless and put it into a different kind of service. Mr. I. B. Barnes provided the skilled labor. Daddy and Julius Bembry assisted him. 

A shelter was added to the front to accommodate two small tractors and our black 1952 six-wheel Chevrolet truck. Another shed off the back was enclosed for the cows. A milking stall was in one corner and a long wooden feed trough in the middle.   

Feed for our cows, hogs, and chickens was kept in those two rooms which anchored the barn-shelter combination. Unfortunately, the ground corn also fattened up countless wharf rats and attracted more sparrows than I had BBs.  

Our son returned home from California in 2020 during Covid. Bobby Altman, a carpenter and family friend, converted a small building on Mama’s property into a tiny home for Seth. I built a simple wardrobe using salvaged lumber, sized so an antique door would fit. Another door became a headboard for his bed. Neither piece is heirloom quality, but rescuing them felt rewarding. One found a new opening, the other a new purpose. All they needed was a little help.

Those old doors caused me to think about other things that are too quickly discarded. It even happens to people, although we use gentle words to disguise the harshness. I’ve been pondering that somewhat troubling thought for six years now, ever since I wrote a scribbled note – Uncle Ed’s Doors.