From Timothy Leary to Melkite seminarians, my house has a storied history of occupants

Boston Globe

14-02-2025

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But what drew us to the house wasn't its history. We saw it as an ideal place for our blended family. Though our six kids — three of mine and three of his — wouldn't always be at home, the ample space the house offered meant that they'd know there was a place for each of them here.
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That night, we brought the volumes upstairs.
The long-lost Timothy Leary journals,
I thought, as I dusted them off.
Nope. Inside were ledger pages, filled with tiny handwriting recording a decade of financial records from St. Gregory's. Every donation was listed, as well as columns detailing cash disbursements, mortgage payments, retirement funds, and household expenses.
I tried to reach the seminary but got no leads. I occasionally studied the volumes in search of what clues they might divulge about this house and its onetime inhabitants. I read about Leary and thought about him sleeping in what was now our bedroom, or him writing in the small adjacent office where I now worked.
The house as it looked when it was the St. Gregory The Theologian Seminary in the 1970s and '80s.
from Tova mirvis
While my interest in the past was an occasional hobby, the actual needs of the house were more pressing. All too regularly, I called plumbers, electricians, and critter control. But as this steady stream of repairs was taking place, we were busy living there. We had Thanksgivings with all six kids, and on Sunday nights, enjoyed barbecues on the porches the seminary had added as prayer chapels. I still groaned when the latest problem cropped up but came to feel like I was not just the house's owner: However unlikely it might be, I was a caretaker of its history. Timothy Leary, the Melkite seminarians, and now me.
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One day there was a knock on the front door. An elderly man wearing black pants, a black shirt, and a clerical collar stood on the doorstep. 'I used to live here,' he said.
I invited him inside and offered a tour. 'It looks different, but feels like yesterday,' he said, upon seeing his old bedroom, the quirky upstairs bathroom, and my son's room, painted in bold shades of Bruins yellow and Red Sox blue and red.
Back downstairs, I showed him the ledgers. Startled, he stared at the faint blue pen lines. 'That's my handwriting,' he said, his veined hands tracing the words his younger self had written.
Relieved, I offered them to him, but he shook his head.
'They've been here all this time,' he said. 'They might as well stay.' He handed me a stack of photos from when the seminarians had first moved in.
In the kitchen, he took one last look.
'That stovetop always caused trouble,' he said.
'It still does,' I replied.
After a decade in the house, we're thinking about selling. As bittersweet as this upcoming change feels, in the long view, we're but one more set of temporary inhabitants in this house in which we became a family. The house and its history will once again be passed on.
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Tova Mirvis is a writer in Newton. Her new novel We Would Never was just published. TELL YOUR STORY. Email your 650-word unpublished essay on a relationship to [e-mail]. Please note: We do not respond to submissions we won't pursue.