Something about living in this old, neglected house makes me wonder about who lived here before me? What were they like? Were their years here happy ones? Maybe I’ve seen too many episodes of HGTV’s “If These Walls Could Talk”?

Their original building permit was applied for by Henry Gatz, who is also listed as contractor, on November 23, 1911. The house was completed in 1912. The entire cost of the building is listed as $1950, about what we pay for our mortgage every month. The home was built for John L. Welsh. He lived on our street at 2938 Hobart Blvd at the time this house was being built. I wonder if the 2938 Hobart house was an earlier home that John Welsh had built or if the family was renting?

In 1916, a sleeping porch was added by extending the present dormer on the rear of the house. That work was done by H. V. Wright of 3933 S. Hill St. John L. Welsh applied for a permit to build a private garage with a dirt floor and a paper roof in April of 1919. He is listed as the contractor and architect. The garage is no longer standing so we can’t see his handiwork.

Those are the facts but they don’t shed much light on the personalities of our house’s original family. I can get a sense of their preferences or at least the prevailing tastes of their day by peeling through layers of old paint and wallpaper to the home’s original color palette. They chose fairly dark, masculine colors: a dark orange-brown color that looks like the spice cinnamon for the living and dining room walls with a dark, dark brown-black mission stain on the douglas fir woodwork. The den was a medium orange, terra cotta color with a similarly colored wallpaper ceiling that has hand painted silver designs on it. It’s still intact but badly damaged and more than likely unsalvageable. The kitchen, in 1912 a woman’s domain, was a more feminine salmon-pink color – at least on the ceiling.

I get the feeling of a strong male presence having lived and left his mark in this house. Maybe because John L. Welsh’s name was the only one listed on the paperwork we received when we purchased the house, that’s who captured my imagination? I wonder if he would have approved of the choices we are making?

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Ida K. Welsh was born on August 12, 1872, in Pennsylvania. That would actually make her 4 years older than what she reported to the census takers in 1920. She died on May 1, 1962, in Los Angeles. Her maiden name was Boll and the “K” in her middle name may have stood for Kuhler, her mother’s maiden name.

John’s Daughter and Son-in-law
Upon further research I’ve discovered that John L. Welsh’s son-in-law Don Catudal, of 91345 Mission Hills, Los Angeles, CA, born on May 26, 1896, died in November of 1976. John and Ida’s daughter, Mary “Magdalen” Welsh Catudal was born on December 2, 1897. She died on December 14, 1957 at 60 years of age.

John’s Grandsons
Ray Catudal died in September of 1986. His birth date is listed as December 30, 1925. Roy F. Catudal died on November 9, 2002, just two months after we closed escrow on the house. His last residence was listed as 96051 Lakehead, Shasta, CA. The odd thing is his birth date is listed as October 6, 1924. In the 1930 Census both boys were listed as age 5 so I had assumed they were twins. Being born 14 months apart may have felt almost like being twins? Another interesting fact is that their social security numbers were 1 digit apart so they were obviously applied for at the same time.

It saddens me a little to discover that all the people who first lived in our house have passed on, along with their memories.

Not a photo of the actual hole underneath our house, but this is the way it appears in my imagination.

Our home inspection turned up many things, none of them good, but the strangest discovery was, to quote my husband, “a body-sized hole” in the crawl space underneath the house. I never actually saw the hole but made my husband describe it to me several times in detail. The hole was as wide as a man’s shoulders and at least 6 feet deep. How did David know it was that deep? Because the building inspector crawled over to the hole and poked a long stick into it. They didn’t discover a body, just some discarded rubble.

All old houses hold their mysteries but a body-sized hole wasn’t exactly one we wanted to know more about. Lying in bed that night, David and I speculated why anyone would dig a big hole underneath their house? Being a secret fan of true-crime murder novels (a guilty pleasure) and Court TV’s Forensic Files (a morbid fascination), all kinds of wild thoughts sprang to mind. The home’s present owner, Mr. Jolly, said he inherited the house from his grandmother and his uncle. Did we really know what happened to them? Plus, who has the last name of Jolly anyway? Maybe it was an alias or an attempt to hide a darker side? What if there were bodies buried under the house?

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