It was the profile of a woman. Can you imagine the worker standing there and penciling this on the wall before hanging the wallpaper? It's hard to tell if it goes back to the date of the house construction (1858) or later. My guess is that, though this is an original wall, it's a bit later. The profile reminds me of pictures of my two young grandmothers, born 1891 and 1902.
This is on the north dining room wall. Only on the east dining room wall was Tom able to salvage even small sections of the original wallpaper, some of which covered this sketch.
It's hard to envision a large section of the wallpaper but suffice it to say it's a natural pattern with crude leaves and flowers. The flower reminds me of a Tiger Lily, indigenous to this area. However it was applied, the glue (flour paste?) is hard to remove and takes quite a lot of scraping. It comes away (usually) in small strips. Once removed, Tom is scrubbing the wall with various chemicals. Fabric softener seems to work best.
But the sketch of the lady isn't all he found on that same wall ...
Tom thinks this is a date. Perhaps May 5 and then a 2. 1902?
There are figures, too, as though measurements were transferred to the work surface where they'd be safe and readily available.
In any case, these penciled marks are old, certainly from more than a century ago ... and maybe quite a bit longer. I'd like to think they were placed there when the house was first built, but I think that's probably a stretch.
As these marks are above where we'll place the wainscoting we'll be covering them with paint and they'll be gone forever.
But we have to ask who made them and whether they made these marks in a fit of boredom or with thoughts of the future? Soon they applied paste to the wall and pressed wallpaper there and the drawings sunk beneath the surface. And then, in 2020, a man they could not have imagined, unearthed them again.
The past always speaks but often with a soft, whispered voice.
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