A family home for generations

Her grandparents lived ina rented company home.Now, she's the landlord.
By MARALINE KUBIK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
HILLSVILLE, Pa. -- As far back as she can remember, Robin Barns visited her grandmother and bachelor uncle in their Hillsville home, an old company house once owned by the Michigan Limestone Co.
Barns' grandmother, Edith List, lived in one side of the duplex from the time it was first built 77 years ago until her death in the 1980s.
When Barns' grandparents moved in, her grandfather, Ben List, was working at the limestone mining company and the rent was deducted from his paycheck.
"We found some of his old pay stubs, and rent was $8 a month," Barns said. She's not sure what year that was, but later stubs indicated rent rose to $12 a month.
After her grandfather, a foreman at the limestone company for 43 years, died, and the Michigan Limestone Co. closed its Hillsville operation, Barns' grandmother bought the double-wide house she lived in, plus the one next door and three company houses across the street.
"She bought one for each of her sons -- she had four sons. They were all in World War II," Barns noted.
Only two of Barns' uncles, Fred and Paul List, ever lived in the houses their mother had bought for them, she said. So, her grandmother rented the others to tenants.
One of the houses, which stood where Nick's Barber Shop is, burned. Edith List sold two others, one to the barber, and one to a longtime tenant, Barns said.
Left to her grandchildren
When she died, Edith List left the two remaining houses -- duplexes -- to her grandchildren.
By then, most of her grandchildren had their own homes. Only Barns wanted to live in the home she had always known, and she wasted little time buying both properties from her grandmother's estate.
Barns and her family moved into one side of the house next to the one where her grandmother had lived. She leased the other three units to local folks.
"Now I'm the landlord of the company houses," Barns sighed.
The arrangement has worked out well. Barns and her husband can both walk to work. She works across the street at the post office, he works three doors up the street at an auto repair shop. Barns' 21- and 23-year-old sons could also walk to work if they had to -- they both work at Poland Concrete about two miles away.
Although many young people have left Hillsville, Barns said it appears her boys will stay. Both still live with their mom in the house their grandmother bought from the company that employed their grandfather and paved the way for their family to make a home in Hillsville for generations.
kubik@vindy.com