I wonder how many times I’ve said, “If only these walls could talk.”  And yet… they do.  Not the walls, perhaps, but the likenesses of the many people who have lived within them over the years.  Or, in some cases, people who have visited or who have made a difference in our lives.  Sometimes they murmur, sometimes they call out, occasionally they scold or congratulate.

It’s in our stairwell that I hear their voices most clearly.  It’s where so many of our family pictures have been hung – “The Portrait Gallery” David Campiche once called it.  He had Laurie photograph me standing on the stairs with the pictures in the background for an article he did about me in Coast Weekend once. (Actually, it was mostly about my redoubtable Uncle Willard – perhaps that’s who David heard talking that day of the interview…)

The Portrait Gallery (or “Wall of Ancestors” or “Display of the Dead” as some have called it) was begun by my parents when they lived in the house.  So much wall space!  So many photographs!  It seemed a natural.  But they went up in a rather helter-skelter fashion, so when Nyel and I entered the picture (so to speak) and my OCD proclivity kicked in, we reorganized them.

The Oldest H.A. Espy Children – Medora and Albert, 1904

Now, at the bottom of the stairwell are my grandparents (since they were the first family members to live in the house) and proceeding upwards are their children, oldest (Medora) to youngest (Dale, my mother).  Spouses and progeny are included along the way and at the top is me and then in the upstairs hallway, Charlie.  I’ve never done a careful count, but I think there are between 75 and 100 in all.  They vary from formal studio portraits to candids.  Frames are varied, sizes disparate, and probably all need attention by a feather duster.

The Youngest of the H.A. Espy Children — Dale in a P-38 – at Lockheed on a PR Tour for General Engineering Shipyards, 1944

The scary part, as I am wont to tell people, is that I ‘know’ almost all of them – even those who died long before I was born.  I not only know who they are and how they are related, I know their stories and the skeletons in their (maybe our) closets.  Not only do they talk to me, I talk to them, as well.  I miss those I knew and lament the ones I didn’t know and wish for more chances to visit in person with those who are still among us but far away.

Whether going up and down the stairs or simply standing at either end, it’s an area to linger, to reminisce, and to be thankful that our walls (and their denizens) do, indeed, talk!