In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines…

One of our earliest encounters with the Gifford clan happened one late summer day while we were playing in the backyard. Gram had the rear door under the spiral staircase open to allow some air into the house. The grandchildren were playing in the yard along the older part of the house. My brother BJ, always the trouble maker, decided it would be a good idea to climb the vines growing along the side of the house. I knew this wasn’t going to turn out well. Gram was not going to take kindly to us climbing up her vines. But, just like Madeline said to the tiger in the zoo, “Pooh Pooh.” He grabbed ahold of one of the larger vines and began to scurry up the side of the building. Others followed until there were at least 3 cousins scaling the wall. BJ rose as high as the second floor and was headed for uncle Bill’s balcony. I preferred to stay on the ground and watch from a safer distance.

Suddenly the vine began to pull away from the building and the roots at the base of the house began to give way. As the boys swung from the side of the building and tore the vine’s roots from the ground a small headstone rose from the side of the house. Those of us at the base of the building began to dig furiously to get a better view of what the stone said. As we dug around the stone we discovered another headstone right next to the first.

The boys on the vine had now climbed down or jumped to the ground to help with our excavation. We were shouting and cheering and expected to find skeletons or even a casket. The two tiny headstones seemed very old. They had tiny angels at the top and the names of a boy and girl and the dates of their deaths. It was quite an exciting find! We all were riled up and also a bit scared that we’d somehow raised the dead.