When we built our home in Cottage Grove in 1966, we knew there would be some challenging landscaping. The lot lay flat for the first 100 yards or so, but then it sloped sharply upwards.
Paul drew our house plans—the split level would begin with the double garage on the ground floor, the front entry a half flight up, the kitchen/living area another half flight and the bedrooms another. Both the kitchen and bedroom door (yes, there was a door in our bedroom) opened at the elevated ground level.
That was all well and good, but when he began landscaping, he had to make certain drainage would circle around the house, not into it!
So, his summer project began. He chose to begin constructing an eight-foot wall at the garage level from limestone he quarried at the Olson quarry on Gaston Road. We didn’t own a truck—the little trailer that he inherited from his dad, plus our ’65 Ford Fairlane had to suffice. Of course, the Iowa native had never constructed such a wall before, so he was flying by the seat of his pants.
It was an ambitious project, but upon completion, very handsome. His wall included an opening with three stone steps leading upwards to our backyard. He terraced the back to include a flat spot where we had the clothesline, built a three-foot wall in front of the level area, another two- footer tucked into the hillside behind.
‘Twas a huge one-man project, and he completed the walls before the beginning of the school year in late August. The only casualty was our little Ford. Hauling tons on limestone out of the quarry took the life out of the transmission—we moved on to the infamous International Travelall. But…
We admired the wall all winter and into the spring…when fate struck.
April had been wet and rainy. Returning home after dark from Good Friday services, we could scarcely believe our eyes. Driving through the rain into our driveway we saw disaster—Paul’s magnificent wall had collapsed. The driveway, riddled with rock and mud brought cries of shock from all of us.
Somehow, Paul seemed the calmest. He regrouped. He felt he’d made several mistakes—should have slanted the wall more, used gravel instead of dirt behind the rock, and should have anchored stones at pivotal points with steel rerods. Single-handedly, he redid the entire eight-foot wall that summer.
As he labored, he felt good about the progress. A number of neighbors stopped to check on him, most offering words of encouragement. One very young onlooker, Chris’ best friend, eight-year-old Jon Hammond, was one of them. Jon’s family lived a quarter of a mile down the road. Harry, his dad, farmed and made multiple trips each day past our house to his fields. Though Harry hadn’t offered any advice on the project, Paul felt his words echoing through his son when Jon, hands on hip, looked up at tired, sweaty Paul one day and commented, “I don’t know Mr. Anderson—too much stone doesn’t look good either.”
But the wall still stood proud when we sold the property in 1993.
