Chapter 2

Wolf Junction may not have been as advanced both socially and economically as the rest of the country, but it was filled with history.  To me, this made up for a lot. 

The home I’d rented was an enormous Victorian style house with a gorgeous wrap around porch.  It was far too large for one person, but it had a two-room office set up with a space to act as the waiting room and its own entrance. I was of the frame of mind that having my office under the same roof where I lived would reduce my overhead.  After all, I’d built up a considerable amount of debt putting myself through school.  Fortunately, my holistic care skills paid for most of my living expenses during my years of education, but there was still the loan for the actual cost of schooling looming over me.   As luck would have it, the place came partially furnished.   So, I lived in a one-hundred plus year old house that was the size of a mini-hotel with enough décor in it to make it look occupied.  Had the place not come with furnishings enough to soften the interior of the grand house, my bank account would have allowed me to select a room or two to furnish while leaving the rest to the ghosts whose voices echoed off the walls some nights.

I’m not being dramatic when I say the walls echoed voices. It was my own fault for going through a realtor and renting the place from the recommendation of the realtor and the photos I saw on the website.  Had I inspected it in person, I would have found the set up in the basement for the mortician to embalm and prepare the bodies to be laid out upstairs in the viewing rooms.

For some reason unbeknownst to me, the realtor left the fact that I was renting a former funeral home out of all communications.  Since there was no law stating that its former use needed to be divulged, there was nothing I could do about it but remind myself that I was a woman of science and medicine.  The residue of death didn’t, shouldn’t, and wouldn’t bother me.

For a small community, the town of Wolf Junction managed to keep two funeral homes in business right up until Jack Crowley, the mortician who owned my home, died a quiet and peaceful death three years earlier.  Running a funeral home had been a Crowley family tradition right up until Jack’s death ended it. Jack’s wife pre-deceased him by ten years. Sadly, they were childless and not one of his relatives felt obliged to pick up where he left off.  The house was one of the few things left in the estate that the relatives hung on to.  Whether it was for sentimental reasons, since it was a Crowley who’d built it, or if it was for investment purposes, I couldn’t say.  They tried to find another funeral director to take the place over, but, after three years of no interest, they put it with a realtor to rent and, well, you know the rest.

Business was slow at first.  Some of the townspeople were leery about patronizing a doctor who lived in and worked out of a funeral home, while others worried about the fact that I was so young.  It didn’t help that the doctor I replaced -who had died of old age in his sleep- treated the townsfolk for over sixty years.  His shoes were tough ones to fill.

What went to my advantage was my knowledge of alternative remedies.  I quickly discovered that the locals were more trusting of things that came from mother nature than they were with what came from the pharmacist at the neighborhood drug store.  So, I started out peddling the holistic side of my services and slowly slipped the medical into the mix.

By the end of the third month, things looked like they just might work out for me.  Although there was still room for plenty more, I had enough patients to fill up at least three days out of the week; although I spread them out throughout the five as best I could.   I used my free time to explore the area, as well as my enormous house.  

Wolf Junction was a small town amidst other small towns that were nestled in the hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I was delighted to discover the myriad of antique shops these towns possessed. History abounded.

It was in one of these quaint shops that I struck up a conversation with the woman behind the sales counter.  She was old enough to qualify as an antique herself, but she had the feistiness of a young woman in her persona.  Her name was Megan Hastings and I found her delightful. 

Megan was a walking encyclopedia of just about any topic that came up, or so it seemed.  She also had a great head on her shoulders when it came to pragmatic subjects; such as the fact that I was rambling around in that grand house when I could have the company of a boarder or two.

What a great idea!

As luck would have it, Megan even knew of a few professionals who would appreciate living arrangements like that.  One was a social worker who traveled through the area regularly checking on her cases.  Megan was sure that she would appreciate having a steady place to stay where she could keep a few belongings. 

The other would probably be a more temporary situation. He was a novelist who believed he wrote best if he planted himself in the geographical area that he was placing his characters in and exposed himself to the environments or situations that were similar to what he created in his story lines.  It was her understanding that he planned on staying for at least a year. He’d visited Megan’s shop and struck up a conversation with her enough for her to feel confident in recommending him as a boarder.  She had no doubt he’d be thrilled to leave the boarding house he spoke so poorly about.

It took less than two weeks to interview these two potential boarders, check their references, and set them up in one of the many bedrooms that my house had.  In fact, a few of the rooms had Jack and Jill bathrooms so I was able to rent out the two rooms to create a little private living space as well for each of them.  Megan was not only a feisty old gal with a winning personality, she was a genius.

I took the rent from the boarders and designated it to help pay off my innumerable debts from school.  This allowed me to re-invest money that I earned from my health care practice back into it.

Life was good.