Firefighters burn 1830s farmhouse so family can save on property taxes

Right on schedule, the firemen arrived to burn down a much older and abandoned farmhouse about 100 feet away, a brick structure dating from the 1830s, with a large, wood frame addition from the 1850s. Until Saturday, it sat about 50 yards from the couple's current home. Ruby Widicus was born Ruby Seibert in the old farmhouse 83 years ago and grew up in it. The familiar old building loomed just behind a knot of firemen, busy laying hose. Their decision to destroy the old home, where Ruby's earliest memories were born, didn't come easy to the couple. It was based on unrepairable termite damage and property tax bills that never went away. Just this fall, a county assessor visited the property and spent more than an hour measuring the old homestead, which has been vacant for years. "It didn't matter to him that nobody has lived there since my mother died 20 years ago. You still have to pay taxes on it," Ruby Widicus said...more