“ONLY ALIVE FOR A SHORT TIME”: This old house in Florida is full of strange messages – and secrets

GAINESVILLE, Florida. – Thousands of words are scribbled on the walls of a historic Gainesville home.

Today, the Historic Haile Homestead is owned by the Alachua Conservation Trust and the Haile Family Trust, but its roots date back to the 1850s.

According to the Historic Haile Homestead website, it was at this time that the Haile family – led by husband and wife Thomas and Serena Haile – moved to Florida to establish the Kanapaha Plantation.

However, family and friends regularly scribbled messages and drawings on the walls of the house.

The museum says more than 12,500 words were found scribbled in the rooms and closets of the house, which have since become known as “The Talking Walls.”

Some of these messages are disturbingly cryptic, such as one that reads: “THE HOUSE WAS AVOID FOR A SHORT TIME.”

Others are more comedic in nature, including this poem, which comes from “Party Days,” weekend parties held on the homestead in the early 1900s:

“A girl can flirt, a girl can dance, a girl can play croquet. But she can't light a match on her pants because she's not built for that.”

Message on the “Talking Walls” in the historic Haile Homestead

Another message describes how 22 rats were trapped in the house on December 29, 1889. Another contains a rhyme that goes, “When love is cold, do not despair. There is always flannel underwear.”

There are also pictures engraved on the walls, including a cameo painted by an unknown party guest in the early 20th century, Kirkman says.

According to the museum, the house was abandoned in the early 1930s, but was finally restored in 1996 with the help of government funding.

Years later, historian Karen Kirkman, president of the nonprofit organization that maintains the house, discovered even more writings that had been covered up by plasterers during restoration.

“In the office, a crack started to form in the south wall. At some point, some plaster fell off and some pencil marks showed up,” Kirkman said. “I talked to one of our board members, Jay Reeves… He gave us the go-ahead to chip away at the plaster to see if there was any writing underneath. And sure enough, there was!”

Despite this story, no one is quite sure why the family and their friends wrote so much on the walls.

However, Kirkman told News 6 that she has a theory that goes like this:

“After transcribing the walls and Serena Haile's diary, my theory is that Mrs. Haile usually wrote in her diary until she ran out of paper. Then she wrote on whatever she could find, including the walls. Her diary is mostly divided into neat sections – writing packets, if you will. Ruled horizontally, folded in half and threaded through the fold line and tied on the outside with a pretty bow. Then there are days when she wrote on the back of a steamship schedule, a seed order form, or the walls. Then when the new writing packet came, she rewrote the entry in the new packet. But she kept the slip of paper or wall writing she had made in the meantime. There is a record of a freeze in January 1886 when the temperature did not rise above 36 (degrees) for four days. It is written on the wall next to the south window AND in her diary. That is my theory anyway. The oldest dated writing dates from 1859 and was made by the 7-year-old son Ben. Perhaps it was his mischief that started it all?”

Karen Kirkman, President of Historic Haile Homestead, Inc.

For those who would like to see The Talking Walls in person or learn more about the plantation, the nonprofit organization offers tours for guests.

Kirkman says the homestead is open Saturdays and Sundays, with tours available at the following times:

• Saturday: 10:15 am / 11:15 am / 12:15 pm / 1:15 pm

• Sunday: 12:15 pm / 1:15 pm / 2:15 pm / 3:15 pm

Admission to the museum is free, but tours cost $5 per person. Anyone under 12 can take these tours for free.

The museum also offers educational videos on the history of slavery in the region, including the names and supplies of some of the people enslaved on the Kanapaha Plantation.

“Besides the Talking Walls, we are known for our truthful interpretation of slavery,” Kirkman told News 6. “We even help the descendants of the enslaved make connections with their ancestors.”

For more information, visit the Historic Haile Homestead website by clicking here.

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