Homesteads may tumble, but memories unscathed

“In western North Carolina a folklorist found many old family homesteads empty and neglected, but often used for family reunions; what mattered was ‘the memory of the experiences within and the meanings attached to the homeplace…. not the walls, the roof and the foundation. [They] preserve stories about old houses better than they preserve the structures themselves.’ ”

— From “The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History” by David Lowenthal (1996)