- Associated Press - Monday, January 9, 2017

DEQUINCY, La. (AP) - After her husband died, Francis Glover pushed through her grief to complete a project the couple had begun together: The transformation of a DeQuincy cottage built by her late husband’s grandparents, Thomas Briton and Ruby Jacobs Taylor around 1931. Glover allowed the DeQuincy Civic Club to put it on the 2015 Holiday Parade of Homes. The American Press also wrote about what she calls her “Project House” in 2015.

Keeping busy was her way of coping. The Project House was also the perfect way for Glover to share her creativity, family history and a philosophy that’s been of help to her: Happiness is a choice.

Glover lost a dear friend this year. Once again, she decided to throw herself into decorating the “Project House” for the 2016 Parade of Homes Tour. It helped her keep busy and the theme, “Happy New Year,” helped her “keep good memories alive,” recall good times with Paul and to celebrate the generations who have loved before her.

The New Year themed house mixes bling with burlap, shows off at least a dozen handmade antique quilts, most created by family, and Glover has decorated with over 40 watches or clocks.

“I have been thinking about time - time past, time present and time to come,” she said. “Most of the clocks were found here when I came to live in this home.”

Glover has pocket watches from her late husband’s grandfather and father.

“Larry’s grandfather was a night watchman for a sawmill,” Francis said. “He would use a key to check in at different places around the mill.”

She hung wristwatches from a Christmas tree. Decorated with accent pillows with clock faces and even hung a large clock outside on her chimney brickwork.

As for New Year’s resolutions, she has no intention of curbing her penchant for collecting. However, she does plan to make time to clear out her barn in 2017. It is currently used for storing many of her collectibles and furnishings.

Part of changing out the decorations for this year included switching out her full-length closet display. Last year it was filled with a vintage Santa suit and other Christmas memorabilia. This year, the display features memories from her 1969 wedding to Larry, including a clock fixed to the time of the wedding and wedding rings.

“The mini dress was in,” she said. “We cut off my Junior-Senior Prom dress and used some of the crochet design on my wedding veil.”

The dining table in Glover’s house is set for a dinner party for two, dressed with Glover’s mother dishes.

“She gave me those in a galvanized garbage can,” Glover recalled. “Only one was broken and I don’t know how long they had been stored like that.”

The Glover depression house, like many others of the era, is built strong and constructed of what was available. It was moved to its current DeQuincy location from Fields. The cypress logs used to help get the house into place are still beneath it.

The Taylors who built it had four children: Thomas, Joy, Charlie and Norma. The three oldest were born in the house.

According to the family history distributed during the Holiday Tour of Homes, “Thomas and Gertrude, who brought a son, Larry Glover, to the marriage, moved into the house around 1974.”

Gertrude died in 2009. Thomas died five days later.

“Theirs was a great love story,” Francis said.

Glover did not host a New Year’s Eve celebration at her home, despite its readiness for the occasion. She gathered with loving friends, some of the same ones who put up a fuss when she asked them to pull over to the side of the road to rescue an old clock that had been thrown away.

For the Parade of Homes Holiday Tour, she passed out a sheet of paper with information about her New Year theme and her collections. It included this wish:

“In the time to come, I wish everyone good health, a happy home and family, and most of all love because this world would be a very sad place without love.”

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Information from: American Press, https://www.americanpress.com

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