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.
Christian says
I love stories like this and even more so when they’re from my home state.
Cathy says
When we moved in our house in 1986, I found a cornflower Corningware quart saucepan (I guess that’s what you call it) with a slightly chipped handle and a very old blue Christmas ornament almost completely faded out. I still cook with the Corningware nearly every day and I always display the ornament near the top of the Christmas tree in December. It reminds me of how proud I was to own my first home!
Pam says
For several years I managed a great motel in San Francisco that had been built in 1956. During some much needed bathroom renovations the workers found a large intact (empty) Lucky Lager bottle in the walls, which thrilled me to no end. The best part is that the label showed it was bottled in SF in April of 1956! Guess some construction workers got a little thirsty when they were building the hotel. That bottle is now displayed in my kitchen.
Mary Elizabeth says
Yes, when my DH and I were doing renovations to the downstairs bath in our 1978 condo, we took down the sheetrock on one exterior wall. We found: insulation only halfway up the wall, then crumpled up newspapers from 1978; various bits of construction debris, such as nails and sawed off ends of wood and laminate countertop; a beer bottle; a cigarette pack with several cigarette butts in it. It seems when they ran out of insulation they just swept the floor and dumped everything into the wall before adding the last bit of sheetrock.
By contrast, the bath in my late father-in-law’s 1890 house was being “deconstructed” by our daughter’s husband, who found the entire history of the bathroom from its original construction to the present. He was redoing the walls and found that if he added one more layer to them a standard toilet could not be properly positioned over the hole (it would be too far from the wall), so he had to take out a couple of layers. The first layer was peach-colored ceramic tile from the 1970s, and under that was a green plastic tile from the 1950s. On the plastic tile and sheetrock was a note “Ceramic tile installed by [F-I-L’s name]” and the date. Under the plastic tile and another layer of sheetrock was, again, his name and the date. Under that was another layer of ceramic tile and just the date. By the time he got down to the plaster walls, he was cursing and threatening to “dig up the old man and kill him.” But the funniest thing was that he found part of the original bath, which had been smaller, with plaster walls and wainscoting, in the early 1900s style. Guess what he and our daughter had decided to put in the bath? Yup. Wainscoting appropriate to the period of the house.
Vince says
Is that a chili pepper? Hehe
I love stories like this! If I ever need to open a wall, I will leave a time capsule. When I was a teenager, I left a picture of our back yard taken 5 years previous and I wrote the year on the back… the trees (Siberian elms mostly) had grown a lot since then, so I thought it might be interesting for the new owners to see.
Cindy says
It’s most definitely a chile pepper! This in New Mexico, where we’re pretty much all addicted to chile and the most important question is “red, green or Christmas?”.
Lydia says
We moved into our 1967 home about one year ago. The kitchen was painted the darkest brown possible and the backsplash area was white tile, or so I thought. One day I am leaning on the counter looking at the tile and all of a sudden I am like….They painted the tile, so what is it….I got some spray stripper and to my JOY, it was PINK TILE!!!!!!!! I now have a pink and white kitchen. I am a happy camper. At least they didn’t do that to the two bathrooms that are also the old tile. Great discovery for me.
mary says
Years ago while tilling the garden at our old farm house we found a partial collar with sleigh bells attached. My favorite finds were old old wallpaper in a bedroom closet and gorgeous patterned linoleum way back in a cupboard in the kitchen. And by the way, 1976 was not the best year for some poor bridesmaids. Frilly cap sleeves, some girls even wore bonnets like in the old west!
lisa in Seattle says
I’m not sure what’s available in other areas, but an address search in the online archive of our local newspaper turned up lots of interesting info about our house. Before the 1980s it seems like it was standard practice to print the address of any local person mentioned in the paper, and luckily this house was home to people who got into the paper one way or another. I also got the owners’ names using the address search and some other online public records and then searched those in the newspaper archives.
Robin from Michigan says
Love this!
When we replaced the oven in the brick wall in our 1963 ranch, all we found under it was lunch garbage–like a jelly jar and a tin can. In our previous 1953 house, we took apart an interior entryway divider and discovered that it was built around a planter, which was still there, dirt and all!
On the other hand, the previous owner of our house told us she lost a big diamond out of her ring in our front yard. You know we all went out with flashlights at night hoping to see a its reflection in the grass.
pam kueber says
Big diamond! Still somewhere out there! That’s a great one!
Marta says
My daughter lost her very nice engagement ring while mucking out the bunny pen in the back yard. Someone may find it someday.
Wendy M. says
What a great topic! It’s fun to read all the stories.
I don’t think our finds were intentionally left there. However, we found the wall where the dryer vent exits the house stuffed with newspaper from Memorial Day weekend, 1964 (the weekend the original owners moved into the house.) After pulling the tinder-dry paper out, I read them (of course!) The best find in those newspapers was an editorial from our local paper (a college town) stating that our residents are too intelligent to be good drivers (they are thinking about more important things) so they should just stay off the roads on Memorial Day weekend. I framed it and hung it in the laundry room. We also found vintage matchbooks, newspapers and cereal boxes in the cabinets flanking the fireplace and the original house plans (with corrections) in a kitchen drawer. (We also found an obscene amount of Calgon in unmarked containers in the bathroom cabinets…that one took me a while to figure out. 🙂
Christa C says
How wonderful! My ceiling will need to be opened next week for some electrical work….I think before it gets closed up again, I will make a time capsule to put up there 🙂