The Tale of a House

Vaughan Family Home, LaGrange, Georgia
personal collection

 Once upon a time, my Great Grandfather, Albert Bell Vaughan, decided it was finally time to build a house for his family.  After years of living in various church parsonages and temporary homes from Georgia to Texas and back, LaGrange, Georgia, became their home in 1902.  At that time Dr. Vaughan was called to be the pastor of the First Baptist Church in LaGrange and served the church in this capacity for a number of years.  In addition, he was also the president of Southern Female College in LaGrange for several years.

A 1912 city directory listed the family residence as being on Vernon Road.  Sometime between 1912 and 1920, the family built this home located on Park Avenue in LaGrange; the family was listed as residing at this Park Avenue house in the 1920 census.

As the photo above shows, Dr. Vaughan's study was originally in the right front corner of the second flour.  Later, the family expanded the porch at the left and turned the enclosed area into his study.

Vaughan Family Home, ca 1970s

Dr. Albert Bell Vaughan's study

Following his death in 1930, the family kept his study just as he had left it.  The house, in turn, was left to his widow, my Great Grandmother Georgia Camp Vaughan, who lived in the house until her death in 1934.  According of copies of LaGrange City Directories accessed through Ancestry.com, sisters Clara and Louise Vaughan then lived in the family home until Louise's marriage in the mid 1940s. 

In the early 1950s the other children of Albert Bell Vaughan and Georgia Camp Vaughan appeared to have each released or sold any claim to the house.  Through a series of warranty deeds and quit claim deeds signed by her sisters, sister-in law, sister's children and brother, Clara Vaughan became the sole owner of the house.  These transactions were all recorded in the Troup County, Georgia Grantor/Grantee Deed Indexes also accessed on Ancestry.com.  The entire process took almost two years for the documents from all parties to be signed and recorded.

The Legal Dictionary found on FreeDictionary.com proved helpful to me as I read over the recordings of the various documents.  These definitions clarified the transactions:

Grantee  An individual to whom a transfer or conveyance of property is made (buyer).

Grantor  An individual who conveys or transfers ownership of property (seller).

Quitclaim Deed  A legal instrument by which the owner of a piece of real property (grantor) transfers his or her interest to a recipient, called the grantee.  The owner terminates his or her right and claim to the property, allowing the claim to transfer to the grantee (buyer).

Warranty Deed   A type of deed in which the grantor (seller) guarantees that he or she holds clear title to a piece of real estate and has the right to sell it to the grantee (buyer).

Clara continued to live in the family home until her death in 1979.  Following her death, the home was sold in the 1980s.

Like many old family homes, just looking at pictures of this home brings back many memories of time spent there as I was growing up.  The researcher in me also appreciated having a reason to learn a little more about the transfer of property.  And, I was especially glad I looked at the new records section on Ancestry.  Otherwise, I would never have found all the digitized records from Troup County, Georgia which enabled me to explore property records concerning the Vaughan family home.