One day a neighbor stopped by and asked me why I was spending all that time fixing up that old rundown tenant house, and without thinking, I blurted out, “I’m making a museum for Shorty Lawson.” Before that all I wanted was for Shorty’s house not to fall down, but at that moment we started making a museum. Jamie Hughes helped Randy raise the house enough to replace the rotten sill and make other complex repairs, then Randy did the remainder of the restoration himself, reusing materials he found on the farm: discarded roofing tin, oak and pine that Shorty and Randy had timbered and stacked years before, and nails, paint and scrap metal left in the shop.
“When I decide the way I want it, I can make it. You can do things in your head. You can do things out your head. You ain’t got to have a book for everything.” (Creola Bennett Pettway)
The Lawsons lived in a simple four-room house, across the road from the Big House where Jasper and Irene Fergus lived. Much of the family’s domestic life, however, was spent outside. The outhouse and rain barrels served necessities without plumbing. Across the road mules were stabled in the feed barn. Beyond were fields, ponds, and woods, each providing essential resources. As his family grew, Mr. Lawson added two rooms, one off the kitchen and a big living room, doubling the size of his home to over 1100 square feet. As the Lawsons gained more expendable income, Shorty and Annie bought a television, a deep freeze and an electric stove.
