Detective: Summit County, Utah

I married a detective. We're always looking for dead buildings,and the story of how they got that way. The cases are mysterious and the techniques are fascinating. For instance, there's a special kind of DNA to identify age: this broken-down old soul had personal, hand-made nails holding her together. (It's a little like having natural nails in an age of acrylic.)

At the autopsy, Dee modestly lifted up her floor boards, exposing private clues: old newspaper petticoats with dates like 1927. The tongue and groove herringbone boards, laid in specific patterns, were as time-specific as stocking seams.

He had to pronounce this old girl dead on the spot. Exposure, lack of fluids and no loving care had done her in. She collapsed right where she stood. Witnesses stood back and waited for help but she was old, gray and unbalanced. Her family run business dried up and blew away with the sheep industry, and she must have felt unnecessary like many folks do in old age. We paid our respects.

Dee attracts Ghosts and this week we're off to do some ghostbusting. Don't worry about me. I'll be with a history detective. I think of gathering history like gathering autumn leaves. We are finding the brightest examples of a former glory that beautified now barren places with life and growth. The people who created something from nothing, who raised huge families filled with hard working, inventive folks, while feeding vast numbers of citizens from the food they produced; these are the unsung heroes who built our country. Did they make any less of a contribution just because we don't know about them?

We've got our maps and our magnifying glasses and we'll bring home some news!