Esto’s Lizzie Pearl Watford Wells and James Omer Wells on their 50th wedding anniversary

THEY SOLD THE FAMILY HOME after their mother died at age 87, only a few years after they’d lost their father, also at 87. And the nine children in Esto’s Wells family always regretted it.

“Well, we all had houses,” said Frances Wells Kirkland. “We did the wrong thing — we sold it. Then we wanted it back as soon as we sold it.”

“Even after we sold it, we just couldn’t let it go,” said Jeanette Wells Berry.

They watched the house waste away, in recent years sitting empty and silent, without the life and laughter of their big happy family or any other. By then the two Wells sisters lived together next door in a modern brick home. When the opportunity to buy back the house unexpectedly came along last year, they did not hesitate.

Their brother Billy, now 79 and the baby boy of the family, stopped by one morning, as he usually does, and announced the family home was for sale.

“So me and Frances high-tailed it down to Bonifay and bought it,” said Jeanette. The listing price on the home was $10,000, but they got it for $9,000. And then they faced the daunting task of what to do with it. “It was filled with trash from the front to the back,” said Jeanette.

A neighbor got to work and made restoring the house his pet project, refusing pay. Their sister Louise Wells McGowan, 80, volunteered her son, a skilled carpenter, to help out. Jeanette, 84, cleaned up the outside. Frances, 76, and a nearby neighbor did much of the inside painting.

“This was my retirement project,” says Frances. “We had to put in new everything. And we had a good time doing it.”

Other neighbors chipped in. Some donated furniture. Their preacher and his wife gave some things. Another sister, Martha Sue Wells Register, 86, persuaded her son to bring over a piano he’d bought for his daughter.

“We never ate by ourselves when we were growing up,” said Jeanette. “Everybody came by.”

And now they do again. Although there’s still work to be done, and no one actually lives there, the family home is once again a gathering place. On Tuesday nights the ladies from Esto Baptist Church get together there. The sisters also host game nights, with the card game they call 3/13 a favorite. The extended family will come for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

When a neighbor stopped by on a recent Saturday night, she gravitated toward the piano and sat down to play the old hymn, “What a Day That Will Be.” Jeanette and Frances sang along. “That’s the song y’all sang at mother’s funeral,” the neighbor remembered.

“It’s like being at home again,” said Frances.

“Life has been so good for our family,” said Jeanette. “You may remember: We had a good mama and daddy.”

A TRIP HOME to Esto always reminds me that some of the finest people in the world come from my little hometown of 215 people. I’ve had an opportunity to travel and meet many interesting people. But I’ve still never met a finer man than U.T. Kirkland, nor a kinder person than Jeanette Wells.

Jeanette Wells

U.T. Kirkland

Founder Lisbeth Kidd welcomes young patrons to Esto’s Little Free Library.

WHEN ESTO RESIDENT Lisbeth Kidd read an article about the Little Free Library movement — a drive to create book exchanges around the world — she knew she wanted to participate.

After all, she lives in a small community without a library, treasures books and has been a major promoter of children’s books among her circle of family and friends.

She enlisted the help of Jodi and Connie Moore, who are fellow members of Union Hill Baptist Church, where Kidd is music director. The Moores donated their time and labor to build the library, which is an impressive double-walled, weather-proof wooden box.

The little library — registered as charter number 12,475 in the Free Little Library movement — was officially opened with a gathering of neighbors and friends on August 9, 2014. A highlight of the opening was a time of reading stories to the children in attendance by Esto residents Betty Treadwell, a retired Holmes County assistant librarian, and television executive Ben Tew.

“One of the stated missions of the Little Free Library movement is to ‘foster a sense of community and connection as we share skills, creativity and wisdom across generations,'” says Kidd. “With my brother Gary Jacobs as my chauffeur, I gained a bit of that connection while spreading news of the library throughout our community, greeting old friends and meeting new folks who were excited about the library and donating books.”

She was especially moved by a neighbor whose grandson, battling health issues, loves dinosaurs.

“I came home and discovered a book filled with dinosaurs hiding behind moveable flaps that open to reveal a T-rex, pterodactyl and friends,” she says. “I can’t wait to deliver that one.”

The world’s newest Little Free Library is located in Lisbeth Kidd’s back yard on Fourth Avenue North in Esto.

Photographs by Sara Heijkoop

Read More: “The Low-Tech Appeal of Little Free Libraries”