They All Just Went Away

Joyce Carol Oates was just a young child when she began exploring desolate homes and barns. Joyce would trek miles through fields to find that one empty home. A few of the homes were abandoned for so long that they began to decay and become over grown with weeds. Joyce was particularly attracted to the homes that were most recently deserted. The most recently deserted homes had lost remnants of past owners that really caught her attention. When Joyce entered the home she would often imagine that people were still living in the desolate house. In the homes, that Joyce explored many of the once treasured belongings of the families, that had resided there, now where thrown all around like trash. The homes now had a moldy smell to them along with broken windows and overgrown weeds. Joyce often wondered why were these homes abandoned? Behind Joyce’s farmhouse deep through the potato fields there laid a home the community called the “Weidel house”. This house, which wasn’t actually owned by the Weidel's but rented, was quite infamous in the community. Mr. and Mrs. Weidel lived in this rundown home with their six children. Four boys and two girls. It was said that Mr. Weidel would beat them and abuse the girls. The community would often wonder as to why Mrs. Weidel would stay with such a man. All of this would change one summer day. One summer day, when Joyce was eleven, she could hear the Weidel’s dog whining and crying for hours. When Joyce’s father came home from work he went over to the Weidel’s to see what was going on with the dog. Mr. Weidel had shot this poor dog. Joyce’s father spoke to Mr. Weidel and convinced him to put the dog to rest. Finally one of the Weidel boys shot the dog. Joyce would come to discover the dog’s grave while exploring the Weildel's abandon home years later. The Weidel’s home was quite different from Joyce’s. Joyce had a solid built home while the Weidel’s home was a rundown stick built house. The Weidel’s