This  shows the replacement new porch. (on the right)

THE NEW FRONT PORCH

In the late 30's the mines started working again and Dad felt able to replace the old gingerbread
Victorian screened porch on the south side of the house, whose foundations had rotted. This old
 porch had never really matched the rest of the house, a middle 19th century Southern
 Colonial design. Dad was a good engineer, but somewhat flamboyant at times, influenced perhaps by Stout
 and F. L. Wright.  The new porch was to be built to last through the ages.

After the carpenters from the mine came and disassembled the old porch, the masons
arrived and built a proper foundation. The new porch was to have a flagstone
 floor, so the foundation had to be filled with rock and gravel. Much to my surprise, a couple of big
dump trucks arrived from the mine and proceeded to fill the porch foundation with a bunch
 of tons of high grade ore. Beautiful pieces of pure Sphalerite and Galena are now re-buried there!

The carpenters came back and made round pillars to match the front of the house, and built
a flat roof. This roof was never going to leak, so was clad with sheet tin, two-foot squares soldered together.
This mind you was pure sheet Stannum, not the stuff used in cans, nor the Zinc-plated steel
commonly used at that time. Where Dad got some 400 square feet of pure tin sheet, with WW-2 looming then,
is now a major mystery.

It was very enjoyable to be able to relax in comfort on the new porch of a summer afternoon,
looking to the southwest across miles of Kansas prairie and watching the line fronts sweeping in. One
kept an eye peeled for funnel clouds too.