The Bedford Home
101 Walnut Street
Owners: Karen and Mike Bedford
Built in the early twentieth century, 101 Walnut Street has been home to only three families since it was first purchased in 1930. For nearly a century, the house has remained remarkably intact, carrying with it not only its original architectural character but also the stories of the people who lived here.
A. W. Henderson and his wife, Clara, purchased the house in 1930. Henderson was the postmaster of Terrell, serving in that position from approximately 1925 until around 1940. When he retired, the Hendersons sold the house to Bourke and Patty Cartwright in 1940.
The Cartwrights would remain for the next 43 years.
Bourke Cartwright died in 1965, but Patty continued to live in the house until 1983, when she sold it to Karen Bedford. Karen had grown up passing the house and remembers being fascinated by it. Even as a child, the house seemed larger than life.
When the Bedfords purchased 101 Walnut, they became only its third owners.
Today, the house retains many of the features that first captured Karen’s imagination: large rooms, high ceilings, abundant windows, and the gracious proportions of an older home that are increasingly difficult to find in modern construction. Original wood floors run throughout much of the house, including areas where later flooring had been installed. When the linoleum was eventually removed from the kitchen, the original wood was still underneath.
The windows are original as well. A painter carefully restored them, preserving the old hand-made glass, which gives the rooms a character that modern replacement windows simply cannot reproduce.
Much of the wallpaper had been removed during the 1940s or ’50s. Beneath it was an older construction technique—wallpaper had originally been applied over cheesecloth.
The kitchen, however, had undergone more significant changes. The Bedfords remodeled it down to the studs, creating a more functional space while preserving pieces of the house’s history. During the Cartwright years, the kitchen had been remarkably bare-bones, with few built-in features. Patty employed a cook named Lurlene, and according to family stories, she was about the only person who regularly used the kitchen.
One of the most charming remnants of that era is the old kitchen bell. A button on the floor at the head of the dining table once rang the bell in the kitchen, summoning the cook. The Bedford children discovered a very different use for it and loved ringing it. Today, the button is tucked beneath a rug, and, fittingly, the family pets seem to have claimed that particular spot as one of their favorite places to lie.
The kitchen also contains a more recent piece of the house’s history. Mary Margaret Meredith hand-painted the tile backsplash, as well as angels on the fireplace, adding an unmistakably personal touch to the room.
The house holds stories beyond what can be seen in its main rooms.
A daughter of the original owners, Jane Henderson, visited Karen once and pointed out something Karen had not known: the room above the garage had once been inhabited. It had an old wallpapered interior and a wood-burning stove. A woman who worked for the Henderson family lived there. There was a toilet beneath the stairs, and she was permitted to come into the main house once a week to bathe.
That small detail offers a glimpse into a very different era of domestic life—and into the complicated social history contained within an old house.
The Cartwrights also employed a longtime yard caretaker named Robert Preston, whom Patty considered an exceptional steward of the property. When Karen purchased the house in 1983, Patty insisted that Robert be allowed to continue caring for the yard for as long as he wished, and he remained until he was ready to retire.
Some traditions, however, did not require a caretaker to preserve them.
Patty Cartwright was known for having a live evergreen wreath at Christmas. When Karen purchased the house in 1983, she continued the tradition—and it remains part of the house’s Christmas celebration today.
The Bedfords raised two children at 101 Walnut and especially loved the large yard and the many spaces the house provided for children to disappear into. Their son Brandon was particularly good at hiding. On one memorable occasion, he managed to hide so thoroughly that the police were called before he was finally discovered tucked away in a small cedar closet.
After more than four decades in the house, the Bedfords have added their own layer to its history without erasing what came before.
That may be the greatest charm of 101 Walnut. It is not a house that has been repeatedly remodeled into something new. It is a house that has accumulated lives.
The large rooms, original floors, hand-made glass, old bells, hidden closets and remnants of the people who once worked and lived here all remain part of its story.
In architectural terms, the house has been described as having a "Mount Vernon-style" character—formal, symmetrical and gracious, with the generous scale associated with an earlier way of building.
But the real character of 101 Walnut is found in the smaller things: a Christmas wreath that has been hung for generations, a bell hidden beneath a rug, a painted angel on a fireplace, a cedar closet where a child once disappeared, and windows whose glass was made by hand.
Three families have called 101 Walnut home.
The Hendersons came in 1930.
The Cartwrights came in 1940.
The Bedfords came in 1983.
And the house has been keeping their stories ever since.