By Lara Sodon
So I did something on Saturday afternoon…maybe I should start at the beginning. My paternal grandmother moved to Table Rock Lake when I was a baby. My granddad and my grandma bought a plot of land from friends who had moved down there and built a house and resort. My grandparents planned to build their house right next door. Picture a STEEP Ozark mountain. There was a family owned campground at the top of the mountain, a gravel road that led to the two houses and the resort below that. My grandparents’ house had nothing but trees between their house and the lake…maybe 100 yards.
If my memory serves me, the story I was told was that my grandparents sold their house in St Louis and moved to the lake. My granddad laid the concrete foundation and got the framing done (side note: my granddad built most of the houses that he and my grandma lived in. There are at least 3 houses in St. Louis that I could take you to right now that he built, and they are still standing, and people live in them). Anyway, Dec 1972, my granddad died suddenly, and no the house was not complete!
The situation was assessed. and it was determined that my grandma was not in a position to walk away so my dad helped complete the house! My grandma lived in that house until 1998. Most of my memories of my grandma are in that house. We moved her to St Louis in 1998 for a variety of reasons. She had some health issues that were not helped by living on an Ozark mountainside; her friends/neighbors/original owners of the land/resort were either moving or getting ready to move to warmer weather and the family owned campground was being sold or had been to a corporation. Just wasn’t a good idea for my grandma to be there by herself.