William Tompkins House

"Very beautiful place always doing things for the community!!"

"It's got a lot of History. They did a great job keeping it open"

"Amazing place with nice kind people"

"I spent many days of my childhood in this house, back when Patty ran an in-home hospice care on the property. My grandmother worked for Patty, and I would tag along to help - Patty even made me a little official name tag when I was around five or six years old. I couldn't do much, but I felt so good being able to bring snacks and drinks up to patients in their rooms. I didn't really know what a hospice home was at the time, and as far as I was concerned, they were just sick old people that needed some company. Once, I wanted to go in the hot tub since I had never been in one before, and without hesitation, Patty jumped in with me in a full length gown. It made me giggle with delight and joy as a child to see an adult do something so silly and against the rules I knew. Patty always made me smile, and was someone I aspired to be like when I grew up. She and my grandmother always showed me what a strong, independent, and hard working woman looked like. When I "worked", I would bring my blocks to build castles and forts for the patients, showing them how I could build up above my head. I'd act out plays with my dolls and try to entertain them with my tales. Other days, they told me stories of their lives and painted pictures in my head of times long ago. I loved their stories about the fantastic lives they lived, the places they traveled, and all about where they thought they were going when they left the hospice home. I didn't know it then, but they were trying to give a little of themselves to me, to live on with me after they were gone. A few of them still live on inside my heart, and I think of them fondly- gone, but not forgotten. I remember the kitchen was always filled with Hershey's kisses, hidden in the back of the drawers. The sweetest of all of the patients was Boo-Boo, and she would ask me to bring her kisses everyday. I would sneak the kisses up to her when she asked me to bring her some chocolate - tiptoeing up the stairs, pretending to be a spy on a secret mission. She'd ask, "did you bring me my kisses," and I'd pull out the chocolates from behind my back like they had been hidden the whole time. Thinking back, the adults all knew what I was doing, but allowed it so that I could bring a smile to Boo-Boo's face and because it made me happy. The day that I went back to "work" and her room was empty, I asked my grandma where she went. My grandma told me that she went home, to provide me with some level of comfort, and all I remember was feeling sad that she didn't say goodbye before she left. I'm sure Boo-Boo wouldn't have wanted a formal goodbye though, she was the type that believed in "see you later". I'm really thankful for the experiences that this house gave me as a child. It allowed me to exist among some of the most precious members of society - the frail and nearly forgotten, the ones most close to death's door, and most importantly, the ones that provide our hearts with some of the best memories that can last another lifetime."

"This is the remains of the Tompkins Plantation in one of the first settlements in the Kanawha Valley. From Wikipedia, "It was built in 1844, and is a two story, five bay, "double pile" rectangular brick house. When built, it had upper and lower verandas across the rear, but these were enclosed about 1892. ""