My great grandparents, Claude and Aulta Jones Shoulders, built this house around 1910 or 1911. Claude died at age 40 in 1915. A few years later Aulta sold the property to her oldest daughter and her husband, Edna and Bob Meadows. My grandfather, Captain Bob Meadows, was a riverboat pilot licensed for the Mississippi River and it's tributaries. They lived there until 1949 when they sold it to their oldest daughter and her husband, my parents, Johnny and Claudine Cassetty. My mother was born in that house in 1917 and as best we can figure it out, lived there for about 75 years. She was still living there when she died in 2010 at the age of 92.

As to changes in the last 42 years, the house still looks much the same. the smaller house in the upper right, was originally used for a farmworker as both Claude Shoulders and Bob Meadows travelled a lot, leaving their wives to manage the farm as well as their large families. That smaller house is no longer there, having burned about twenty years age.

Sadly, the house no longer belongs to our family. On the bright side, the man who bought it is experienced in restoring older homes and is working on restoring this wonderful old home.

Hi Connie,
Thank you for all the wonderful history surrounding this property! Do you have a favorite memory from the home you would like to share as well?

There are so many wonderful memories it's hard to chose just one but this is likely my first memory from living there. My parents bought the house in 1949 from my mother's parents. At that time my grandparents were building a house but it wasn't ready yet so the two families lived together for over a year. On our first Christmas in this six bedroom house, there were two couples and nine children between the ages of one to thirteen. I was three and shared a bedroom with my older sister, being the only two girls of the nine children. Early on Christmas morning, my grandfather and my father walked up and down the large center hallway that ran the length of the upstairs playing Christmas songs on their harmonicas until they had all nine children out of bed, wide awake and ready to celebrate. Do I need to say that my mother and grandmother were not very happy with their menfolk.
This incident is vivid in my 75 year old mind but I honestly can't say if I actually remember it or have heard the story so many times that I believe I remember it.