Not far from where my daughter Colleen and her husband, Adam, used to live in Somerville, Massachusetts, there’s a house for sale. It’s an old house, built in 1900, and it’s not very elegant. It’s a place you’d want to own if you had a big family, or if you wanted to rent to a bunch of tenants. It fits well into a neighborhood of ordinary homes, and it’s selling for nearly $1 million, because it’s that close to Boston.
Daniel Chapman, who died from heart disease on Aug. 21, 1899, lived in a house that was on the land before the current house arrived. He left a widow and two married daughters. For some reason, his widow had the house knocked down and this one built within months of his death. I don’t know why. Perhaps the old house held too many memories, or maybe she sold and moved in with one of her daughters. I wonder about that whenever I pass by. I’ll never know for sure, but it’s worth thinking about because of Chapman.