DEAN TYLER PHOTOGRAPHY; STAFF PHOTOS (2)
TALKING WALLS
It was clearly a loving retirement, and Sylvia chokes up when she recalls losing her dear husband last fall to sepsis. “In twelve days in the hospital he was gone. My heart is broken.” Not only was Bill her emotional rock, he chopped the wood, kept the house in good nick, and celebrated its beauty with her. Answered her call. Noticed things.
She takes us through the house. On a table we see Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth. Both she and her husband read it. Sylvia’s also read up on Effie Branch, and when we ask if Effie were resolutely unmarried, she says, “Yes.” “Where will you go now?” “My daughter works in England for
Boeing. She wants me to go there. My son’s an artist. He wants me to go to Florida with him.” When we approach the kitchen, she shows us the two pantries. “This is the butler’s pantry, and I call that one the larder.”
W
hen you miss the person you love, everywhere is a lonely place. “I’ve had insomnia,” she says. “I walk around at 2 a.m. through the rooms of this house with a cup of coffee in my hands. I rent out our guest house to a minister who just lost his wife. One J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 2 1 1 0 1
