The Dead of the House

The Dead of the House Summary | In My Grandfather's House Summary

This story is told from the perspective of the narrator, a young girl named Vanessa, whose grandfather has been the major influence in her life. She begins by sharing the history and lineage of her family as far back as her great-great-grandfather who brought his family to America from England in 1840. Her grandfather begins to tell her the story one more time about how it all took place. They stand on the porch of his Tudor-style home in Cincinnati, Ohio; its wild lawn bordered by similar homes with neatly manicured lawns. This is probably the first time she has noticed the outward signs of how her Grandpa Nye is different from anybody else.

Vanessa's great-great-grandfather had been a minister in the Baptist faith when he received a message from God that he should go to America. His wife was blessed with considerably more common sense and thought the idea was ridiculous. However, her husband wasn't to be swayed and eventually the family took up residence in Quebec. The family thrived and produced seven children, only one of whom didn't reach adulthood.

Vanessa could never get enough of her grandfather's stories and begged for more. This time he relayed their odyssey from Quebec to Cincinnati and how his own grandfather met and married the daughter of a Baptist minister recently moved to Montreal. For ten years, they thrived and created a big, happy family. They were absolutely devoted to their children and their adoration was returned in kind. A chance meeting of one of his wife's cousins persuaded their father to move to Cincinnati where the opportunities were robust and the children continued to thrive in the wild nature they found there.

The Ohio River was no match for the St. Lawrence Seaway the Nye children were used to, but as they floated on rafts with their friends, they could have been on any waterway in the world. Grandpa Nye's days of swimming and digging for Indian arrowheads are the most memorable times of his life. Probably most memorable time from that summer was the birth of the L F B M club - the Lively Five of the Blue Miami. Grandpa Nye and four of his buddies swore their faithfulness to each other and carved the club's initials into their not-anywhere-near-manly chests and then ground ashes into the grooves to make sure they would stick. Even to this day the faint scars can be seen on the old man's chest like a badge of boyhood that he'll never lose.

Grandpa Nye eventually attended Farmers' College where he soaked up the information presented to him and was honored to spend time in the company of Mr. Bronson Alcott (who would have preferred to be remembered for his association with Thoreau and Emerson, and not as the father of Louisa May Alcott, whose books he thought to be a bit of drivel). Grandpa also had his theory of creationism tested by the teachings of Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin's partner on the development of the theory of evolution.

Grandpa Nye eventually married Laura Washburn, the daughter of a high school principal, and they would have five children - Charles, Nathaniel, Joab, Edward, and Morgan. Nathaniel died as a child and Joab died at age 23 when he succumbed to the combination of ether and gas during a hernia operation. Vanessa keeps a book of Joab's poetry by her bedside and imagines that she takes after him with the drama of his robust and literary life tragically cut short. Grandpa Nye keeps the family alive with their pictures hung all over the house. Every way you turned, you could see their eyes watching you watching them.

There were no pictures of Grandmother Nye, however, and Vanessa's only recollection of her is seeing her lying in her casket in the great parlor of her house and thinking that she wanted to kiss her slightly smiling lips but her mother yanked her away before she could. Soon after, Grandpa Nye married Miss Janice, who had been their housekeeper. Vanessa could never bring herself to call her Grandmother.

Through the years, Grandpa Nye and his brothers and sisters would continue to talk about their mother, raving about how refined and elegant she was; and so intelligent too but always driving her husband for something. All Vanessa could conjure up was the image of her body in the casket, which made her think of all the dead in the house - Nathaniel, Joab, Grandma Nye and Great Grandmother Vanessa - and the calm secrets that they took with them to the grave. Their wills to live still hung in the air like screams.

Reading her Uncle Joab's poetry reinforces Vanessa's melancholy. In the spring she takes the book outside where the grass is soft and the air filled with the perfume of blossoms from the budding trees, and she imagines him buried near the roots of all those things.

When her grandfather has finished telling the story of his boyhood, he forgets that he hasn't told Vanessa yet about his mother's family, the DeGolyers. James DeGolyer had come from France as a soldier to fight in Canada in 1748. Soon he would marry a girl from five generations of New England farmers. James and his sons fought in the American Revolution.

While her grandfather was quiet, collecting his thoughts, Vanessa thought how much he looked like Tecumseh with his long weathered cheeks and distinctive profile. She asks whether there is any Indian blood in the family and he says not, but there is a sense of wildness that runs through them that makes them seem like it. Some of the finest times of his life had been spent on the water paddling canoes and now that he is too old to do it anymore, he is filled with immense sadness for his lost youth.