House

on Loon
Lake
An abridged transcription of a

This American Life Podcast

Act One
Adam Beckman:
It was my brothers idea to go down to the
lake. Wed brought an M-80 firecracker
and we wanted to detonate it in the shallow
water where we used to swim. We were
11, and it was late fall of 1977. We were
visiting a place called Freedom, New
Hampshire, a small town of a few hundred
people just across the border from Maine.
We were wandering around looking for
something to do, and we saw the house.
It was gray, weathered, and leaning
precariously at one end. The windows were
boarded up from the outside. Two old cars,
probably from the 30s, sat in the yard. One
of them had a tree growing up through a
hole where the engine had been. At the
back of the house, we found a window that
was broken and I remember peering in into
near darkness.

It was one of those things where we

just would say, Id go in that house.

Wouldnt you?
1

Ian :
I remember it was kind of a dare kind of
thing. It was one of those things where
we just would say, Id go in that house.
Wouldnt you? And you would say, yeah, I
have no problem going into that house.
Adam Beckman :
Ian was the skinniest, so it was decided
that he should go in first. He slid sideways
through the broken panes so he wouldnt
get cut and disappeared. After maybe 10
seconds, he scrambled back out clutching a
newspaper. It was brown, and I remember
it crumbled in our hands. The headline
said something about Nazis invading.
That was all we needed. One by one, we
climbed into the house. It was dark inside.
The only light came in through little
cracks between the boards that covered the
windows. The floor felt soft underfoot. And
as my eye suggested, I could see that it was
covered with a layer of filthy clothes. Stuff
waseverywhere.

...we moved from room to room

touching things, opening up

drawers, climbing into the attic.

Kenny Beckman :
Actually, we couldnt walk around on the
floor because you couldnt see the floor in
most places.
Ian :
It was just jammed with more stuff than
you could live with. I remember there were
a couple of rooms you couldnt go into, for
how much stuff was jammed in there.
Adam Beckman :
I was careful to remember how we got in,
in case we had to find our way out in a
hurry. We were all very quiet. We had seen
enough horror movies to know that joking
around could get us into trouble.
Ian :
We didnt spread out. We were almost hip
to hip. Our backs were glued to each other.
Kenny was looking the other way. We were
sort of like this little star of people walking
into the house. And Kenny is one of the
worst people to go into a situation like that
with. Hes very jittery. And he always will
mumble about what the worst thing might
happen. Like, I bet somebodys going to
come out of that closet.
Adam Beckman :
Some rooms were in total disarray, with
things strewn about like theyd been
rummaged through. But then there
were these little areas where things were
untouched. In the kitchen, dishes were
stacked on open shelves, pots and pans
cluttered the sink, and a pantry was stocked
with canned food. I picked up a container
of Hersheys syrup and it felt heavy. A salt
and pepper shaker sat on the kitchen table.
Kenny Beckman :
The main sense I had was of disaster. As
if people had been toodling along in their

everyday lives and something catastrophic

had happened to the people in the house.
So catastrophic that no care had been put
in arranging or sorting or editing any of
the contents of their lives. And there was a
feeling as we sat there that this time capsule
hadnt been opened in 50 years.
Adam Beckman :
Hanging in the kitchen was one of those
calendars they give out at gas stations. It
was dated December, 1938. In the bedroom
was a pile of shoes, maybe 30 high, that
had fused into one mass. On a nightstand
I found a pair of eyeglasses folded on top
of a mans wallet and I slipped them both
into my jacket pocket. In another room
was a bureau, and tucked into the mirror
frame was an invitation to a dance at the
town hall. Pinned to it was a rose that was
completely withered. Kenny opened the
closet door next to the dresser and hanging
there was a rotting, white dress.
We begin to fabricate a story. A teenage
daughter returns late from a dance with a
rose. She pins it to the mirror and hangs
her dress in the closet. And then something
horrible happens, and thats when
timestopped.
Outside, we raced back through town. I
had this sense of doom about the whole
thing. I heard about the King Tut exhibit
that was touring the country. I wondered if
wed be cursed like the guys who had found
King Tuts tomb.
Also, I had someones wallet in my pocket.
I took it out and showed Kenny and Ian.
Inside was a bright green one dollar bill,
dated 1935, and a drivers license for a man
named Virgil Nason.
That night while our dad drove us home,

I put on the eyeglasses Id found, to make

Kenny and Ian laugh. But then I feel bad
about the joke. I didnt know anyone who
died before. And now I was pretty sure I
was carrying the wallet of a dead man.
The next day I would have to face the
kids at my new school alone. I had always
been a moody kid, but it was an unfocused
sort of moodiness. Now that all this was
happening in my life, my gloominess
took on a new focus. I brooded about the
Nasonhouse.
That spring, my parents went back to do
their volunteer stint at the camp. This
time, I brought a new friend named
David. I knew it would impress him. We
got up early and packed flashlights in
our bookbags. I think we even brought
a canteen of water. It was raining as we
climbed through the window of the house.
Nothing looked like it had changed over
the winter. And just like the first time, I
had this acute feeling of being watched as
we moved from room to room, touching
things, opening up drawers, climbing up
into the attic. David felt it, too.
David :
All their personal belongings were right
there, so they felt so close. And I remember
walking through some of these dark rooms
looking around, being afraid of, perhaps,
uncovering something, some evil scene.
Or discovering that they were there,
discovering that they had died there.
Ian :
I remember thinking that we were going
to find a body the closet at any moment.
I remember there were some closets and
cupboards that we just flat out didnt want
to open. Or even open up the oven. Youre
just afraid that you might find something
you just didnt want to see.

...theres something creepy about

a doll thats been mangled.
Adam Beckman :
We never went into the basement, and
heres why. The door to it had been
blocked shut by a couch that was propped
on its end, as if someone wanted to keep
something down there from getting out.
David :
I remember finding a small doll whose
face had been burned off, and I remember
being terrified of that, thinking this must
have been some scene of some horrible
ritual. Theres something so creepy about a
doll thats been mangled.
Adam Beckman :
I remember discovering that there was
these smeared feces areas. Whether it
was animal or human, we couldnt figure
thatout.
Kenny Beckman :
The poop on the bed. That was scary,
too. That made you wonder, what the hell
is going on here? I think at that time, we
thought maybe people were crashing out
here. So that fed into a whole story about
a fugitive on the run from justice who was
hiding out in an abandoned house or the
town alcoholic who used to crash out there
after a binge or something like that.
David :
The strange part is people just pick up and
walk out a front door one day and leave
letters that are incredibly personal? These
were important artifacts of their family.

And if you did leave for some legitimate

reason, you pack up, you move. You dont
leave things like a wallet with money in it
or your address book that has the birthdays
written in it of your family members.
Why do you leave things like that? How
couldyou?
Kenny Beckman :
We had a mission. The mission was to find
out as much as we could about the family
who had lived there. And all over the place
were letters and pieces of paper, and each
one was a potential clue. So we sat down
in this dingy, musky house, and we started
toread.

November 29, 1933.

Dear Mr. Nason,
I have checked up your case quite
thoroughly and find that you have already
had as much, if not more work, than most
people. I find also you are working a car
and a truck and that your son has a car
and a truck. Also that your team is working
hauling cut lumber. So long as a man
has anything at all, he has to use it, as we
have to give work to the people who have
nothing at all. Under these circumstances,
you do not qualify for work at this time.
Signed,
The Office of the
County Supervisor of Relief.

Adam Beckman :
Over the next two years, I returned to the Nason house four
times in all. And each time, I came back with more clues
about what happened. I read these letters over and over,
trying to decode them, convinced that the answer about
the familys downfall was hidden in some seemingly trivial
comment or offhand reference. This note is written on school
paper by a young girl who was probably my age at the time.

Dear Mama,
Im staying over tonight and go to the dance. Archie
and I had a fight. He thinks Im going out with Eddie. I
may, I dont know. I dont want him to know where I am,
so dont tell him. Come over to the dance and bring my
shoes, the black spiked ones. Now come over Mama, and
dont be mad. Dont even tell PT. Now Mama, please
dont be mad at me. Mr. Jackson is ugly today. Be sure you
get Dad to come to the dance. Theres a ballgame tonight.

Dear Clyde,
I wanted a boyfriend, so I thought I would write to
you, Darling. Theres no other boy around here that
interests me as you do, Clyde Darling. Call me up, Clyde
Darling. When I saw you last night over at Pinks, I
thought I would go crazy because I love you so.
From your girlfriend,
E.D.

David :
We had to take things that could help us
unravel the puzzle. I dont think we even
thought of it being private property at the
start, because it was just abandoned and no
one cared about it.
Adam Beckman :
We read notes from doctors and found bills
from creditors. We scanned library past-due
notices and studied postmarks, and came
up with lots of ideas about why the place
had been left.
Kenny Beckman :
We started to think maybe these people
had their house house foreclosed and were
thrown out by bankers. Because it does
seem as if somebody might have been shut
out of the house with all of the objects
inside.
Ian :
One of my favorite theories was that
maybe the father died at maybe the same
time the sons had to go to war. Because
were looking at papers that talk about war
starting and thinking about how a couple
of events with an old father and a couple of
sons could very quickly finish a family.
Kenny Beckman :
I remember finding information about
betting. I think we saw, I think they were
tickets or a schedule of a dog track or a
horse racing track. The story we made
up was taht these people had lost all their
money gambling.
Adam Beckman :
Freedom is a small town. Someone must
have known what had happened. But
when wed go ask down at the general
store or the post office, people gave us the
cold shoulder. This confirmed to us that
they were part of the conspiracy to bring
this family down, or at least part of the
7

cover up. In retrospect, I realize the adults

may have brushed us off because we were
12-years-old.
It was David who found the breakthrough
clue. A matchbook, matches intact. Soiled,
but legible. It said, Stop and Shop at Nason
Grocery, Freedom side near Effingham Falls
Bridge. We rode over and ditched our bikes
under the bridge. There were two or three
houses on either side, all big old Victorian
buildings. But it was obvious to us which
one was the Nason Grocery. There were a
couple of ancient gas pumps outside and
a rusting Moxie soda sign. A rope held the
door closed, but we were able to squeeze
through. The first thing I saw when we
went through the door were the boxes of
Corn Flakes that line the walls.
The Nason Grocery was a completely
intact, perfectly preserved store from the
1960s with products still on the shelves.
By the cash register, there were magazine
racks and rows of candy. There were glass
countertops displaying fishing gear, and
stacks of canned vegetables, corn and green
beans. Some of the cans had exploded from
years of heating freezing, which we thought
was cool. Upstairs, there were a few rooms
that must have been an apartment.
There was a small safe under the counter,
and when I turned the handle, the door
swung open. Inside, I found four silver
dollars and three Kennedy half dollars.
I also found a five dollar gold coin from
1892.
I took the coins.
I spent the eighth grade kind of detached
from school. Id stare out the window at the
falling snow and think about the drifts that
must have been blowing through cracks in
the house. Or Id lie awake at night and
imagine how still and cold it would be in

...greater mystery
than i had imagined
there. Every reference to New Hampshire
became relevant to the mystery. Id sit at
breakfast and stare at a tin of maple syrup
and think about the Nasons. I was pretty
sure that if there was some way I could
support a family researching abandoned
houses, that it would be my vocation in life.
I was 13 years old and I had a crush on a
house.
I hadnt told my parents much about
it. I was afraid they would shut it down
over fears wed get hurt or arrested. But I
remember feeling that I wanted a grown-up
to see it to confirm that we hadnt imagined
the whole thing. So I started to tell my
mother about it, but I could see I wasnt
getting across how amazing it was. So that
spring, I led my mother across the field of
weeds and watched as she climbed through
8

the window of the house.

Adams Mother :
I was a little appalled. More than appalled
when I went inside. It was a much greater
disaster than I had imagined, also a much
greater mystery than I had imagined. And
in many ways, much more interesting for
that reason.
Adam Beckman :
My mom proved to be quite a sleuth. She
drove me to the town cemetery where
we found plot after plot of Nason graves.
There was Ivan Nason, died 1943. Bertha,
died 1968. Virgil, whose dollar bill and
drivers license I had, died in 1974. And
Jesse, who died in 1969. There was another
Jesse William who had a birthday, but there
was no date of death. So our theories of a
car carrying the whole family into a ravine,

of the war, of sudden plague, of the whole

town rising up against the Nasons and
massacring them, these no longer made
sense. Whatever had driven the family
from its home hadnt been sudden. The
circumstances were more complicated than
anything I had imagined.
That winter, I had my first nightmare.
I was in the house rummaging through
things and the Nasons were there in the
walls watching me. And they werent
friendly. The next year I didnt go to New
Hampshire. My mother went up on the
semiannual work weekend at the summer
camp, and she brought my sister along.
When they returned, they told me a story
that made my blood run cold.
What happened was this. My mother
brought my sister into the house and theyd

seen a childs crib rotting away in the attic,

and they decided to take it. So they drove
my familys bright orange Volvo station
wagon up in front and went in to get the
crib.
Adams Mother :
There was no way one could bring that
crib down the stairs. And finally, I found a
piece of rope somewhere, tied it up and we
lowered it down the window. Thats when
a boy walked by and saw it. We saw him see
it. We saw him see it. And we realized, uh
oh.
Adam Beckman :
The boy returned with two women, who
told my mother and sister they had no
right being in the house. My mom argued,
asking them why, if someone somewhere
had an interest in the property, they were
9

letting it rot. The women said it was none

of her business and that shed better leave.
I felt betrayed. The scene my mother had
described-- the orange car, the dangling
crib, the confrontation in the middle of
the road. I collected all the objects and
letters Id found and put them in a small,
wooden fish tackle box Id found in the
Nason grocery store. I tucked the box up
in our attic, and I never went in the Nason
house again. Three years later, I took a
trip back to Freedom but the house was
gone. All that remained was an outline of
the foundation in the dirt. We drove to the
bridge to see if the store was there, but it
wasnt. We couldnt tell if the buildings had
been torn down or if they were burned.
But they were gone, as was, I thought, any
answer Id ever get as to why theyd been

left in the first place.

I was having the nightmare regularly now.
Each time it was the same. I was in the
Nason house, or some version of it, but
now undead Nasons were leaving their
hiding places in the walls and attacking me.
It was a terrifying dream, and I had it many
times over the next 20 years.
Recently, I went to visit my mother and
looked through the box of things Id saved
from the Nason house. All the years Id
spent away from home, she had kept the
box carefully labeled and stored through
four moves.
The box was as I left it. A little make up
case with powder still inside, the eyeglasses,
some childrens records, and the coins.
Photographs of the family, the letters, and
there were newspapers. Right on top was
the one Ian found that very first day.
Adams Mother :
This newspaper is very old. Boston Sunday
Globe. After marching into the rest of
Czechoslovakia in March, Hitler and
Chamberlain exchanged speeches. Nazis
stayed there and Chamberlain said he
mustnt do it again. April 16, 1939. My
grandparents were already in exile because
of this taking of Czechoslovakia.
Adam Beckman :
When my great grandparents fled their
home in Czechoslovakia, theyd left
furniture, paintings, letters, all very
suddenly and never returned. My mother
tells me that all those things probably
still exist somewhere. With that in mind,
she couldnt bear to see the Nason things
rotting away like they had.
Adams Mother :
Its all very melancholy, all these little
remnants. The abandonment is melancholy.

In a way, its worse than throwing away,

much worse. I can understand one family
being obliged to flee or run or abandon,
but that nobody else cared. That it was so
overwhelmingly abandoned by everybody,
that nobody had cared to solve something,
to resolve something. That was very
offensive to me. It was like leaving a corpse.
You dont leave a corpse. And thats a little
bit the feeling that I had. That here was a
carcass, the carcass of a house, of a life, of
a private, and nobody cared to pick it up
and give it a proper burial.
I thought that it was important that
somebody should care. That somehow,
somebody was leaning over these words,
reading them, unfolding these letters that
somebody had bothered to write. It really
didnt matter that it was an eleven-year-old
boy who cared. Objects have lives. They
are witness to things. And these objects
were like that. So I was, in a way, glad that
you were listening.
Adam Beckman :
There was one letter, in particular, that my
mother and I couldnt get out of our heads.
It was different from the others, and Id
kept it separate in a plastic Ziploc bag. It
was mildewed and barely legible.

10

April 18, 1940,

Laconia Hospital.
My daughter,
excuse writing. Its the best I can manage.
They brought me to the hospital here Tuesday
night at 8:30. The baby was born prematurely
at 3:00 yesterday afternoon. I am writing for
you before I name him. What are we going
to do? Im nearly crazy. Did you get my
telegram? Be sure to bring the $20.50. I am
weak and cant write more. Hurry. I may die.
But I love you more than ever. I registered
here as your wife. I knew it would be better.
With all my heart and love,
come quick.

11

I can hardly stand it.

Adams Mother :
I can hardly stand it, I have thought about
her so often. Ive worried about her. Im
worried about her son. Ive never forgotten
this letter.
Adam Beckman :
Back home in New York, I started doing
research on the internet, working off a
list of Nason names I had found in the
cemetery. Eventually, I found this posting in
a genealogy website. Nasons of Freedom,
New Hampshire. Looking for relatives of

12

Jesse Nason and his wife Bertha. Any info

from their kids or grandkids, and pictures
would be awesome. They are my great,
great grandparents. The person who had
written it is named Samantha Thurston.
I sent her an email confessing everything,
and this is what she wrote back. Hello,
Adam. Im very interested in what you
have found, and almost wish that you had
taken all that you found. Jesse and Bertha
are my great, great grandparents. I dont
know a lot about them, but they did have
a store in Freedom, New Hampshire and
were well-known.
We exchanged a few more emails and
made plans to meet. Samantha said the
immediate family either didnt have many
answers or didnt want to talk. Her last
email to me included this cryptic postscript
about the Nasons. They might not be what
youd expect. They are a rough crowd.
The line is followed with three exclamation
points.
13

Act two
Adam Beckman :
In August, I drove north to New
Hampshire to meet with Samantha
Thurston, the woman from the internet,
to see if I could find someone to talk to
me about the Nasons. I brought the box
of Nason stuff with me. Its small, about a
foot square. Inside are family letters, the
coins I took from the grocery store, the
can of Hersheys syrup from the Nasons
kitchen. Im hoping to give it to someone
who cares about this stuff. Samantha told
me that the Nasons either didnt know what
had happened to the house or didnt want
to talk. She also said that everyone would
know I was in town. Its hard not to feel a
little paranoid.
I have a couple of days to kill before my
meeting with Samantha, and at breakfast
someone suggests I talk to a few locals who
might have known the Nason family. The
first one on the list lives right across the
street.
Gail Holgrem Bickford :
Well, my name is Gail Holgrem Bickford.
I came here at the age of six months with
my parents and have spent most of my
summers here. What else would you like to
know?
Adam Beckman :
Do you do you remember the Nason
family?
Gail Holgrem Bickford :
Of course. They were scruffy little kids.
They were always kind of disheveled and
half-dressed and needing to be washed.

14

They were a real-- what do you call it-the ones who went across in the covered
wagons and never got to school. Well, I
guess maybe they did go to school. But I
think they went barefoot. They were sort
of scary, to go by there. If we walked to the
beach, you went pretty fast to get by that
house.
I think the firemen burned that house down
a few years ago for a practice session.
Adam Beckman :
What was the Nasons status in the town?
Gail Holgrem Bickford :
I dont know anything about that. And I
dont know the whole family set up, but one
of them was into race horses and made
quite a lot of money in race horsing.
About 1940-something, they built a bypass
so that the main Route 25 did not go
through town anymore. And then the town
began to die out. There was no reason
to come to town. And then the stores lost
business, and they began to close up one
by one. I have no idea whether thats what
hit that family, but there may be somebody
around who knows.
Adam Beckman :
Carol Chase was the fire chief in Freedom
about the time the house was burned. I find
him sitting on his porch on a road outside
of town. Hes 92 years old and hard of
hearing, but he does remember the fire.
Carol Chase :
We just lit it with a match. Newspaper and
a match. The people who owned it wanted
it burned. Thats about all I know about
Freedom. People mind their own business.
Adam Beckman :
Was the house empty, or was it full of stuff?

Carol Chase :
Nobody lived there.
Adam Beckman :
He looks away from me as he says this,
and I take the hint. Later that day, I learn
hes related to the Nasons by marriage.
That afternoon, I go to a junk shop on
the outskirts of town. The owner, John
Woodard, salvages most of this stuff from
traumatic moments in peoples lives-- a
divorce or a death, or when they move
from a house to a retirement home. As it
turns out, back in the mid-70s, he got a call
about the Nason house.
John Woodard :
They were getting ready to knock down
that house and the guy called me up and
he said, you ought to come over. He said,
theres boxes and boxes of old whiskey
bottles with paper labels and all this stuff in
there. I got 10 or 12 boxes. Ive sold them
over the years.
Adam Beckman :
Do you remember if theres anything in
here that you got from the Nason house?
John Woodard :
If Ive still got some that have labels.
Adam Beckman :
John walks me out past aisles of discarded
family possessions to a barn filled with
hundreds of bottles.
John Woodard :
See, something like this. Pickwick Ale
bottle, probably from about 1919, 1920, in
the 20s. These were upstairs. They were
upstairs in some boxes. Of course, the roof
had fallen in on part of it if you remember.
The upstairs, it was one of those you said,
is it really worth taking a chance getting

15

those boxes down from upstairs? But we

did.
Adam Beckman :
John hands it to me. Its got the same
veneer of rust on it that everything in the
Nason house had. He gives it to me for
free. For my project, he says. Im supposed
to meet Samantha, my internet Nason
contact, at a B&B at 1 oclock and she
shows up 15 minutes early. A red pick-up
truck tears into the lot in a cloud of dust
and a tough looking woman in a flower
print dress gets out and slams the door.
Samantha is young, in her 20s. Shes
made up, hair tied back in a bow, but her
demeanor is all tomboy.
We talk, and its like weve been living in
parallel worlds. Samantha has been looking
for clues about the familys history for 10
years. She tells me shes been scouring
graveyards and reading through public
records trying to construct a family tree.
She began her search when she heard
rumors that she had Native American
ancestry. She decided to find out if she did,
to get financial aid for college. Before long,
she figured out her grandfather was, in
fact, an illegitimate child of Ernest Nason,
one of Bertha and Jesses kids. Although,
her grandfather was not the person in that
letter my mom had remembered all these
years.
Samantha Thurston :
And they have a lot of hard feelings in the
family as it is.
Adam Beckman :
I bring the box of stuff from the Nason
house down and put it on the floor in
front of her. She opens an envelope with
her great, great grandmothers name
handwritten on it. She handles it incredibly

gently. I watch as she lets the contents fall

into her hands. Its a bunch of tiny recipes
cut out from a newspaper.
Samantha Thurston :
Its actually a blessing that you had gone
into the house at that time period, because
once it fell in, everything was scooped up,
thrown in a dump truck, and taken to the
dump. And all them memories, everything
that they left behind that shouldve been
divvied up so that it could have been passed
down was all lost. So it actually was a good
thing that you were a nosy little boy.
Adam Beckman :
Samantha didnt know much about why the
Nason house had been abandoned. But she
told me a man named David Buzzwell, who
lives across the street from where it once

stood, might have some answers. David is

sitting on his front porch with his friend,
Mabel Davis.
Adam Beckman :
Do you remember that house?
Mabel Davis :
Of course I do, honey. Been in it many
times.
Adam Beckman :
Really? When the Nasons living there?

16

Mabel Davis :
Yeah, Mr. and Mrs. Nason were living
there. And I can see Mrs. Nason now
taking out a pan of biscuits. Honest to god,
Ill bet that pan was that big.
Adam Beckman :
Mabels arns are spread wide as she says
this. The image is pure Norman Rockwell,
and frankly, its a relief.
Adam Beckman :
What were the Nasons like?
Mabel Davis :
Well, they were wonderful people, really.
How would you say about Jess? All of his
kids worked and worked hard. Both Mabel
and David knew the Nasons and had been
in their house. But David, like me, had only
been inside after it was abandoned.
David Buzzwell :
It was full of treasures. Old dice sets,
Morris chairs, advertising cans, that place
was just packed with stuff like that. They
were pack rats anyway, they collected
everything. Everything.
Adam Beckman :
Why would they just leave all that?
David Buzzwell :
Dont ask me. Just the way they were.
Adam Beckman :
I would think the grandkids would want to
look through it.
David Buzzwell :
They didnt care about it. No, none of
them. You know how young people are.
They dont care about old things today.
Bertha died in 1968, and Jesse soon after in
69. And then things fell apart in the Nason
family.
Mabel Davis :
When Jess died, one of the children was in
charge. He was the executor. And there

17

Why would a family leave all their things,

these precious things-- not of value,
but a great emotional value...
were some that were very, very put out by
that.
David Buzzwell :
They had to sign off and give him the
authority to dispose of it, and some of
them would not do it. Its a terrible thing
to say, but they died off one by one by one,
it made it easier. But it wasnt even settled
when this person who was in charge settled
the estate, he had died and still it was left.
And then the widow who was paying the
taxes all these years, and she said, Im not
going to continue to pay them. Let them
go. I think there were one or two of the
family left, and they didnt want to pay
them. So she said, to heck with it, Im not

gonna. So the town took it for taxes.

I finally went to town and I said, thats a
fire hazard. Someone could step on a nail,
a glass, a wire, and sue. Its not posted.
So I said it ought to be burned. I had
communicated with Mr. Thompson. He
said to me at the time, will you arrange
with the fire department to burn it at a
practice session, and I will give them a
$1,000 donation. He did. And I said, thank
god, because it was an eyesore. And people
were in and out of it all the time.
Adam Beckman :
Was it still full of stuff when it burned?
David Buzzwell :
There was a lot of junk in there, yeah.
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Adam Beckman :
The Nasons also had a store in Effingham
Falls.
Mabel Davis :
Oh yes, they certainly did. Jess and Bertha
had the store.
It did quite a business. It sold a lot of beer.
And they had candy. There was a glass
showcase. Groceries, they had groceries
too.
Jess was a keeper of everything.
Adam Beckman :
Do you remember when it closed, or why?
David Buzzwell :
They both had died. And none of the kids
wanted to run it.

Adam Beckman :
Why would a family leave all their things,
these precious things-- not of value, but a
great emotional value-Mabel Davis :
No, but a sentimental value. You know,
Ive never really thought of it but it seems
rather tragic in a way. I mean, that was a
large family. I mean, how well do you know
people? How many of them were interested
in knowing?
Adam Beckman :
And so the house and the store were
abandoned because the kids didnt care.
In some ways, this was bleaker than
anything Id imagined back when I was

11. I assumed a murder or an illness or

an accident caused the Nasons to leave
all these things behind, something out of
the familys control. But in fact, it was the
opposite. The family made it happen. They
didnt care about the stuff, or they just
didnt care to remember.
David Buzzwell :
Its too bad they werent here to tell you.
They were characters, werent they? Nice

19

people, but they were a breed thats hard to

find. They made everything do.
Adam Beckman :
Members of the Nason family who
declined to be interviewed on tape
confirmed the story Mabel and David told
me. Jesse and Bertha Nason lived in the
house until 1946. Thats when they opened
the store near Effingham Falls and moved
to the apartment above the store. They
took what they needed and left the rest
in the old house, using it as storage and
keeping open the possibility that theyd
move back some day.

When Jesse and Bertha died, the fight

over the estate began. Immediately, their
kids-- there are nine of them-- locked up
the store until it could be resolved. The
house stayed pretty much as it was. After
11 years, the fight was settled. The property
was auctioned, the money was split, and
the buildings were razed to the ground. I
asked an older Nason why they didnt clear
out the precious things in the house and she
said, what precious things? It was full of
crap. And I mean, crap.
As for the woman in the letter that my
mother was never able to forget, no one
knew anything about her or her baby. Dave
and Mabel told me this just figures in a
little town like Freedom.
In retrospect, I know it was a little much,
my obsession with the Nasons as a kid. I
found this stuff in their house precious, so
I assumed they would, too. But of course,
the relics in their house werent about my
life. They carried no memories, good or
bad. Its possible that for the Nasons, they
were reminders of an inheritance dispute
or other disputes that theyd just as soon
forget. When I was talking to my friend
David about the Nason house, he told me
this story. His wifes father had recently and
suddenly died and left behind a house that
no one in the family wants. So David and
his wife Susan now find themselves involved
in figuring out what to do with it.
David :
I feel like its on the cusp of being
abandoned. No one is living there, its ripe
for being vandalized. And what do you do
with a house like that? And now its strange.
Its tied up in this weird world of legal
probate where you cant really do anything
with the property, you just kind of have to

maintain it until some future court date. The

property has become a ball and chain. And
Susan said an interesting, which was, gosh,
I wish that house just burned down. And I
was thinking, gosh, why would you wish the
house to be burned down? Theres a lot of
memories tied up in the house and emotions
tied up between her and her dad, symbolized
by the house. Something about it seems
relevant.
Adam Beckman :
In the early evening, I walked through town
and onto Loon Lake Road to the gound
where the house once stood. That night
when I was packing to leave town, I found
a small scrap of paper on the floor that
had fallen out of the box of Nason stuff.
There wasnt any writing on it, but I actually
hesitated at the trash can. Its not that I
missed my box of clues. I felt relief handing
them over to Samantha. In fact, I actually
felt lighter. But I was glad to have a remnant,
however small, of the Nasons. So I tucked
the scrap in my bag.

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I missed my box of clues...

21