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Once upon a dream house
Connie Nelson/Star Tribune
Abandoned farmhouses dot the rural Minnesota landscape.
With their gaping doors, their collapsed roofs, their windows open,
staring like lidless eyes, they seem to be mute remnants of a silently
fading past.
But to William Gabler, these vacant houses contain rich
and riveting stories of Minnesota's past. He tells those stories in his
new book, Death of the Dream: Classic Minnesota Farmhouses.
Using text and 70 tritone photographs, he charts the rise
and fall of the family farm on the Minnesota prairies. Though it includes
information on the wheat boom and the prairie ecosystem, the book focuses
on the family farmhouse -- giving detailed explanations of the evolution
of the structure from the simple sod hut to the popular L-shaped design to
the extended family farmhouse complete with Victorian embellishments.
The thorough text is complemented by historic photographs
of vibrant farmhouses juxtaposed with Gabler's haunting photographs of
farmhouses in decline. Gabler uses the heart-rending photos to document
how the houses disintegrate, noting that "As abandoned houses decay
they come apart in approximately the reverse of the order of their
construction."
His dust-to-dust depiction of the prairie farmhouse serves
as a reminder -- and a retainer -- of the past.
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