KFVS12 News & Weather Cape Girardeau, Carbondale, Poplar Bluff110-year-old home on the move
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BELKNAP, IL (KFVS) - Construction may be up, but one southern Illinois couple says they found the perfect reason not to tear their house down.
The George couple in Belknap say they were not looking forward to destroying their historic family home. Then, they found someone who desperately needed a place to live. So now, they are getting ready for a big move.
"There are lot of memories here," Preston George said. "I always spent Christmas here in this house."
He moved into his grandfather's old home with his wife 10 years ago.
But Winter Storm '09wasn't easy on the house.
"At our age rather than to redo the house like we would like to do, and put siding on it and a new roof, after we had ice damage, we decided be better to move into a modular home," Virginia George said.
The Georges decided the fate of the house after running into an Amish man when they auctioned off their furniture.
"He asked my husband what are you going to do with your home and my husband said tear it up and he says well I'd like to move it. My husband looked at him startled and says how can you move a house this big? He says I have a person can do it for me."
William Miller says he plans on putting his new home in Johnson County about 20 minutes away from the couple's home. Right now he and his wife and eight sons live in his workshop, and he says he hopes his new home which is 110-years-old will last his family another 100 years.
The contractors are expected to move the house before December, and Miller says he and his boys know they have their work cut out for them.
Still he's more than grateful to the couple, and Preston George says he's just glad someone else will love the house the way he does.
Preston George places the value of the house at about $30,000, but to the Miller family it's priceless.
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