Volume Two, Issue 30

September 5, 2022

We desire to see everyone living in healthy relationship with the Lord.

Housework

from Cossondra

One of the resources I use when writing about the buildings of Downtown Mobile is the Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South, completed in 1939. The Library of Congress has detailed nearly 7,000 images from the project, documenting attributes of historic buildings across the South.

Just down the block from our office, on South Conception Street, is a brick building documented in the survey. Now hidden behind some trees and tucked between a bar and an office building, it is an elegant structure called a double French house. Its cast-iron balconies and posts set off the brick of the two-story structure, and a passage for driving carriages or walking from front to back runs through the middle of the first story.

This house at 56-58 Conception Street is one of the two Downtown double houses cataloged by the Carnegie Survey. Francois Girard (1803-1833) built it in the 1820s, so it is most commonly referred to as the Girard Double House. An interesting note about Girard is that while he was born in Mobile, he was technically born in the Mississippi Territory since this was years before Alabama statehood.

The other building mentioned in the survey was the Reingard Double House, located at 8-10 South Jackson Street. Like the Girard house, it was constructed in the 1820s, with a carriage passageway and cast iron details on the front. Regrettably, it is no longer there.

Built as a law office for Charles Rapier and Henry Chamberlain, the Girard Double House has had several tenants over the last nearly two hundred years. Another interesting note in Downtown history is that it was the home of Adelaide Marston Trigg's original Haunted Book Shop in the 1940s. After fifty years and several moves, the bookshop reopened on Dauphin Street in 2018 by Trigg's granddaughter. (Look for an article about them in the future.)

Most recently the home of a pair of attorneys named Brutkiewicz, this double house has been the home of at least two other law firms. But the Brutkiewicz team has moved across Downtown to St. Joseph Street, and the Girard Double House sits empty.

Buildings left empty tend to deteriorate rapidly. No one is there to notice the cracks, the leaks, or even the dust that builds up. When property issues are left to pile up, they get worse and are more challenging to repair.

By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.

Proverbs 24:3-4

We need to be careful about emptiness in our minds and souls. If we allow stress to create cracks, anger can enter our space. Avoidance can cause leaks, weakening our ability to reason. If worry debris piles up, we can get overwhelmed. Check your mind as if it were a house. Are there areas that require attention? Repairs that need to be made with emotions or relationships?

While our minds aren't nearly 200 years old like the Girard Double House, we likely all have a little maintenance that needs doing. So this week, consider going to God in prayer about it. Ask about one area where you may need to process a memory, forgive someone, or forgive yourself. And, if you use a prayer journal, be sure to catalog what you discover. You will create an architectural survey of your mind, a resource to use later to review your renovations.