Quietly, I watched Cassie Pearl Browning name each relative who lived within a couple of miles of her new home, the lease signed only two weeks before we visited her. She was in her element, surrounded – literally – by family members who had settled in Wyandotte generations ago.

I live on the corner of this mile section – I’m the only one on THIS mile section.

The mile section directly south of us – I have some distant cousins just on this corner across from me.

And the mile section directly east of us, on the corner, the 40 acres was owned by my great-great grandparents.

And, the corner – my great-aunt had built her and her husband’s house whenever they got married – they moved in there.  We sold it when she passed away, and it went to another family member, which happens to be my landlord’s mother.

And then on the back side of that 40 acres is my aunt…my mother’s sister…and then half-way down that road is my second cousins from Dallas – they moved up here in 98 and built a house, and if you go travel north on that same mile section – you go half a mile and my parents live down there.

But before you get there, my other aunt and uncle live down here.

And, if you go on the mile section that’s cattycornered from us – my brother lives on the opposite side of it – south side of it – facing that section…and, uh,..that’s all of us…maybe…

Cassie was raised in Miami until she was twelve, when her parents bought their 40 acres in Wyandotte. She’s so attached to the land and the area that she moved back into her parents home for a year after graduating from college, waiting for property in the area to become available.

Just as she was about to give up and “move into town,” her landlord’s son took a preaching job.  So, she’s now living in the home her great-great and possible one more great-uncle built.

In the video, Cassie mentions the rocks with which her great-times-three uncle covered the home. They had been retrieved from the Picher mines, and when you peer close, tiny worlds of crystallized quartz and other formations can be seen.

Cassie Pearl Browning was surrounded by history, and completely comfortable with those surroundings.

She feels at home in her “new-old” home, as did we on that drizzly day while sitting on her porch.

Happy housewarming, Cassie Pearl.