1/26/2011 Life In The Delta :: Human Interest, It Sta…

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It St a r t ed Wit h A Bir dh ou se .
by Cheryl Bryan .
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Woodworking is a hobby for William Ly les of Greenv ille. Ov er .
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the y ears, he had built rocking horses and other toy s for his .
grandchildren, but he’d nev er considered building any thing as sm all as a 1 0-inch .
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house – m uch less furniture to go inside. Once he started, though, he found him self .
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constructing an entire farm stead – not only m iniature furniture but a m iniature .
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outhouse (tw o-seater!), grist m ill, blacksm ith shop and ev en farm equipm ent. .
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How It Bega n .
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It began w hen his sister Shirley Ann asked Ly les to build her a bird house. This was .
no ordinary birdhouse. She w anted it to look like their Grandpa and Grandm a .
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Melton’s old far m house in Schooner Valley , Mississippi (betw een Coffeev ille and .
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Bruce). When his grandm other, Alice Melton, died in 1 96 6 , the 6 00-acre farm was .
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div ided am ong her eight children, and the buildings w ere ev entually left to the .
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elem ents. Ly les didn’t ev en hav e a photogr aph of the old hom e place; he was going to .
hav e to re-construct it from m em ory . .
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He started w ith a 1 2 ” x 1 2” base and began building .
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exterior walls. He had som e trouble dev ising a roof .
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that could be rem ov ed for cleaning the birdhouse. .
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Once he figured that out, he thought, “Why not .
div ide it into the room s I rem em ber?” then, “ Why not .
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include the furniture I r em em ber?” .
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Ly les had retired in 2 005, after w orking first at Greenv ille Mills for 2 0 y ear s then .
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Uncle Ben’s for 26 , so he had tim e to dev ote to the project. He began in early .
Decem ber of 2009 and finished the house by Christm as; the rest – 1 1 buildings in all .
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– took him another three m onths. As he built, he rem em bered details, and as he .
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rem em bered details, he kept building. He constructed each one on the sam e scale as .
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the house, so the barn on the hill that held the large anim als is bigger than the barn .
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behind the house w here they m ilked the cows. .
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He didn’t spare details. If y ou look closely ( cl i ck h er e for ph ot o), y ou can see fences
around a cornfield and a rock path to the front porch. Outside y ou’ll see a m ail box, a
w ater well w ith hanging bucket, a working front porch sw ing and far m equipm ent.
Inside the house y ou’ll see a tiny sewing m achine in the window , a fireplace and an
old w ood stov e with its pipe leading out of the hou se. You’ll notice shov els and a
posthole digger, m eticulously painted and placed on a rack in the blacksm ith shop.
You can see that the doors open and fasten shut. Ly les say s that the construction w as
so intr icate he had to use tweezer s to place som e of the objects.

To m ake it look ev en m ore authentic, he landscaped an area in

his back y ard and planted ry e in rows to resem ble a corn field.
He brought in trim m ed shrubs to look like tall trees and other
gr eener y for the perim eter of the farm stead. Because the
m iniatures are of unsealed white pine, he display s it outside only

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1/26/2011 Life In The Delta :: Human Interest, It Sta…
occasionally . Otherwise, they are in his house, carefully stored
behind glass.

Is he finished? Not quite. Now he’s thinking of a hay baler and

two-row cultiv ator he’d like to replicate. Because as he builds, he
rem em bers.

Mem or ies of t h e Fa r m
Though Ly les didn’t grow up in the old farm house, his m other
Vera Mae did, and Ly les has plenty of m em or ies from the extended periods of tim e he
and Shirley Ann and brother Joe Van spent w ith their grandparents. In fact, as he
got close to finishing the project, he say s, “I started getting flashbacks.”

He rem em bers following his gr anddad, Will Melton, around, w atching him grind
cor n and wheat for farm ers in the area and forging his own farm tools in his
blacksm ith shop. He r em em bers the snow sled his granddad m ade out of two runners
and a flat piece of board, which William and Joe took out into the w oods to gather
pine knots for kindling for the fireplace. They clim bed trees and swung on
grapev ines – try ing to see how far they could get before they had to touch ground.

He rem em bers the tim e he was helping lay by corn,

and they ’d hung em pty fertilizer sacks on the fence
post. He left the horse and plow to get som e w ater,
and a whirlwind cam e through so intense it w as
pulling off the green ends of the corn. When the wind
started w hipping the fertilizer sacks, it frightened the
horse, w hich dashed off between the grist m ill and
blacksm ith shop and across the road to William ’s uncle’s farm , plowing up tw o w hole
row s of cotton on his way .

He rem em bers when his grandfather suffered a fatal stroke in 1 9 56, at the age of 7 3 .
When it happened, y oung Ly les w as holding the fence open for his grandfather to
stoop through to retriev e som e w andering cows.

Fa m il y Respon se
Ly les w as so busy w ith the details of his farm project he didn’t realize the im pact it
w ould hav e on his fam ily . His wife Helen was ov ercom e with em otion when he first
show ed it to her. His sister w as delighted w hen she receiv ed photos of the Melton
farm replica, regretting only that their m other nev er saw it.

Grandpa and Grandm a Melton’s grandchildren – and great grandchildren –

recognize w hat a tribute the farm replica is not only to their grandparents but to the
freedom they enjoy ed on the farm , to hard w ork, and to the v alue of fam ily .

Shirley Ann doesn’t ev en m ind that she didn’t get her bir dhouse.

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