Built by Hand, Held by Love
When we met Ms. Brumfield, she was still basking in the glow of a party. Her 100th birthday saw her matriarchal magnetism draw relatives from all over the country: California, Florida, Washington, Oklahoma, and beyond.
Everyone gathered to celebrate the woman who had become the pillar of generations. They decorated with photos spanning her life and stories told through a lovingly assembled slideshow.
“You look like Queen Elizabeth,” one great-great-grandchild told her.
For Ms. Brumfield, home has always meant one thing: family. For her, home is rooted in decades of deep connection, resilience, and love. Her journey through many homes, each imbued with care and purpose, reveals how physical places and the people in them come together to create something enduring.
Ms. Brumfield spent four decades in Norwalk, Iowa, which she describes as her longest and most meaningful home. It was there her husband built three houses.
The first came just after World War II, when materials were scarce. Undeterred, he salvaged lumber from an old country house, measuring and counting each board foot to craft a 24”-by-36” two-bedroom home.
“Anything he built was for life. It had to be as near perfect as he could.” His perfectionism made every detail count, right down to measuring the grade in freezing March temperatures to be precisely eight feet from the line. "It was just three-sixteenths of an inch off,” she recalled. “I said, just move the stakes. ‘No,’ he said, ‘That’s not the way you do it.’ ”
From Iowa to the Pacific Northwest, Louisiana to Mississippi, Arkansas to Virginia, Ms. Brumfield has lived in many regions of the country, adapting to each new place. She and her husband moved several times, and each time he built them a new house with the same dedication. Even after his passing and her move to an apartment in Des Moines, her idea of home remained tied to the spaces they meticulously created together.
Eventually, Ms. Brumfield moved in to care for her father in Washington State. He lived to be 101, and this was a special chapter in her life built around three years of family caregiving and companionship. “You don’t think you’d get that time with your father at that point in life,” her granddaughter said. This was an extension of home for Mrs. Brumfield, shaped by care and unexpected time with her father.
In 2003, at 80, she moved to Richmond, Va., where she’s remained since, now supported daily by her family. When she thinks of her hopes for the future, Mrs. Brumfield is flexible. She hopes to stay right where she is, enjoying her outdoor space, perhaps with a new gazebo cover for her next birthday. She is open to change and anticipates her family’s needs. “I don’t want to wear them out,” she said. “I’ll go wherever I need to.” But her granddaughter jumped in to remind Mrs. Brumfield: She is already where she belongs. "You're not going anywhere," her granddaughter says.
Full transcript (currently undergoing revision)