If you’re a Retro Renovator, at some point you’ve probably unearthed a hidden story from within your own home. Perhaps it was stripping the kitchen wallpaper to discover three more layers of interior design history underneath. Reader Cindy was extra lucky: When she recently remodeled her bathroom, she found a real time capsule tucked away by the home’s previous owners, who had remodeled the bathroom 39 years ago. Pam had me play Brenda Starr — and I actually connected with those previous owners to learn what they remembered about creating their message in a bottle or, as it were — in a peanut butter jar?!
Cindy told us that in the process of demolition, her contractor found a time capsule, which the previous owners had put into the wall when they re-tiled the tub surround:
You can see the time capsule in the wall above the sink. We opened it, and I took pictures of what was in it, then we put it back in the wall, along with one that I made.
Contents included a note from the desk of Gerry and Georgia Strickfaden dated November 20th, 1976, along with ephemera found around the house.
The note reads:
From the desk of Georgia Strickfaden
Time Capsule
Planted here November 20, 1976 during bicentennial of USA by Gerry and Georgia Strickfaden, married 3 years, and in this house 3 months. Carter elected president of United States. We voted for Ford.
It’s a small world — we all love history
Pam had me track down the Strickfadens to see what they thought about their time capsule being found after all these years and to get permission to show their names here. A few Google searches later, I found the Strickfadens — and discovered both Georgia and Gerry’s interest and involvement in local Los Alamos, New Mexico, historical societies. Georgia owns a historical tour company there, Buffalo Tours, which specializes in tours of the ‘Atomic City’ — where the government conducted the Manhattan Project nuclear research and testing in the 1940s.
Georgia and Gerry were both delighted at the discovery of their 1976 time capsule, and said they had been acquaintances with Cindy since she bought their house. Shortly after Cindy found the time capsule, they saw her around town, and she mentioned the discovery. Alas, the trio’s busy schedules kept them from connecting to view it before it needed to go back in the bathroom wall.
Georgia didn’t remember what she had put into the time capsule, so I described the items to her over the phone. She recalled pulling it together in a hurry — they had removed a bathroom heater that they were no longer using and — being the history buffs they are — decided to throw together a quick time capsule to stick in the wall cavity before closing up the hole. Georgia said she just ran around the house, scooping up coupons, match books and other odds and ends she had laying around… penned a quick note… sealed it up in the jar… and stuck it in the wall.
The house had not changed hands many times since it was built in the early 1950s, she said. Prior to the 1960s, the government owned all of Los Alamos. Georgia and Gerry bought the house from its first non-government owner.
Cindy also added her own, second time capsule to the bathroom wall cavity. Just like the Strickfadens years before her, she hurried to get her time capsule into the wall before the contractors began closing it up again — so we have no photo. Cindy told us what her time capsule includes:
I put some newspaper ads and the banner of the same newspaper into my time capsule. I also put in a USB memory stick with a lot of pictures of the house and the neighborhood, a printed photo of the bathroom before we started, and a “selfie” of me and my dog — because what could be more 2014 than a “selfie”? The adorably cute dog is Nellie.
You’re right Cindy, nothing quite says 2014 like a selfie of you and your adorable dog!
Mega thanks to Cindy, Nellie, and Georgia and Gerry Strickfaden for letting us share this bit of history with the Retro Renovation community.
lynda murray says
When I removed some old paneling, from the 60’s, I found someone had written in really big sloppy paint , “I will Love You For Ever” . That is in an apartment over our detached garage. We bought our house from the origional owners son, He did mention that he lived in that apartment when he was first married. I thought it was so cute to see this , I just imagined a young couple in the late 60’s “updating” their first apartment together.
Karen says
I’ve put a penny of the year the reno was done usually but love the idea of a plastic container with stuff of the time in it and who we voted for, as that made me laugh. Great ideas.
We found old papers in the walls of this house from 50s, farmer paper. Friend was burning wall debri and had 1900 newspapers around Christmas, with old fashioned toys etc.
Kim says
Such a fun find! No such discoveries–yet–in my WWII Cape Cod cottage, but if I ever get to retile the remuddled bathroom I’ll make my own. At my dad’s farm, we did put handprints in a concrete porch slab: me, my little sister, and the dog, plus a quarter to indicate the year, about 1984. The quarter’s long since gone missing; it’s possible Dad took it to Reno. 😀
Steve H says
Enclosing the memory stick with digital photos was a great idea. That will be a goldmine in the future. I’ve found a number of lost items in my old house. Most were rather ordinary: marbles, lead soldiers, an empty bottle of Mrs Stewarts Bluing. By far the best was an old cancelled check from 1885 that was written by the second owner of the house.
Mary Elizabeth says
I wonder if in 25 to 50 years anyone will have a device that reads a memory stick? When I moved from my last home, I threw away a bunch of floppy disks because I no longer had a computer that would take them. Luckily, everything I needed to save had either been printed out or saved on the current hard drive.
Cindy says
I thought the same thing about the likelihood of someone being able to read the memory stick. My first thought was to put it in there as a technology example, without anything even on it. But then I thought how disappointed a person who went to a lot of trouble to find a way to read it would be if there was nothing there to read! So I put the pictures on there just in case.
pam kueber says
Yes, they can take it to a museum to get it read!
Tony Pinizzotto says
Found a great old Black & White pic of our 1956 Rancher. in the garage. Recreated the pic for our movie announcement and people loved it! The house has barely changed. We framed the original and it now hangs in out entrance way. Would love to share the pics with you!
Nikki says
We’ve been in our 1902 Foursquare nearly 14 years now. All we’ve found so far is a really old bag of weed along with some wedding matches from 1985. I did do a newspaper archive search and found out there was a funeral held in our house in 1919. That freaked the kids out!
Sabrina says
“A really old bag of weed” Ha! I’ve never found anything in the walls but at once at an interesting estate sales I’ve been to, the sellers found an old coffee can of weed in the walls!
The house was a flat-roofed mod 50s style owned by a lady who was quite a “character”, I was told. She hosted pot parties in the 60s, and there was a funky oil portrait of her with her hair in a blonde bouffant, wearing nothing but a fur coat!
Scott says
That’s so cool. I’d so love to find out more about my housestory and honestly never thought about leaving anything of my own behind, a great idea.
KiWi says
Not sure if anyone here lives in southwest Michigan, but there is a house in Kalamazoo with not one but TWO intact pink bathrooms, a powder blue bathroom, and some wicked rainbow stripped shag. The kitchen’s pretty good too. There’s an open house this weekend:
http://www.trulia.com/property/3174190762-1771-Clovelly-Rd-Kalamazoo-MI-49008#photo-15
Not in the market myself, but I’d hate to see someone buy it and modernize it.
Nina462 says
Hey – I live in Kalamazoo. Well, Portage to be exact. I believe Pam/Kate highlighted this home earlier this year – because it had the extra cold water faucet in the bathroom.
pam kueber says
After we moved into this house, we became friends with the family who had lived here for 38 years. They had sold to another couple before us, so had not been in the house for a good 10 or 15 years. When they came to visit once, the son — who is my age — wanted a complete house tour. When we were down in our basement family room, he said, “Let’s see if it’s still here!” “What?,” I asked. He opened a door to a cubby to hold firewood. Stuck his hand into a crevice between the framing. Pulled out a pack of Marlboros. “My teenage smokes,” he said. Then we put them back. 🙂
JKM says
I’ve never thought of doing this but it’s wonderful. The only thing we’ve ever done was write the date we did something on the wall behind wallcovering or directly on the concrete slab before putting down new flooring. We did discover an old Dr Pepper bottlecap once when we replaced our dishwasher that, according to an internet search, was from the 1970s. Woohoo!