Godfrey-Singleton House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just along for the ride. There's a house sitting in Marion County that has seen more chapters than most novels, and the marker lays them out plain as a summer morning, so let's walk through it together. It starts in 1892, when a schoolteacher named Margaret Godfrey bought the lot and had this place built for herself.

A teacher's house. You can almost picture her choosing the details, and the details she chose were something to see. Folk Victorian style, the marker calls it, which means the bones of the place are simple and honest, just good folk house forms, but then somebody went and dressed it up with Victorian decorative detailing.

And the porch. That Queen Anne style turned spindle porch is the kind of thing that makes a person slow down on the road and take a second look. A gabled front facing out at the world like the house has something to say.

Margaret Godfrey had herself a proper home. But she didn't stay long. She moved away, and by 1899, she had died.

The house passed on without her. In 1901, a doctor named Robert Moseley bought the property, and the house changed hands again, quiet as that. Then came 1910, and with it the family of an attorney named John Singleton.

They moved in and they did not leave. From 1910 all the way to 1987, the Singleton family lived inside those Folk Victorian walls. And they didn't just live there, they grew the place.

An east bathroom went in. A large sitting room to the north got added on. The house stretched and settled and became something larger than what Margaret Godfrey first commissioned.

That is the thing about a house that outlasts its builders. It keeps accumulating. A teacher's dream, a doctor's purchase, an attorney's family home for the better part of a century, all stacked inside the same gabled, spindle-porch walls.

The Godfrey-Singleton House, Marion County, Texas. Some places just hold on.

What the marker says

This house was built for teacher Margaret Godfrey, who bought the lot in 1892. She moved away and later died in 1899. It was bought by Dr. Robert Moseley in 1901. From 1910 to 1987, the family of attorney John Singleton lived in and expanded the home. The house is Folk Victorian Style with a gabled front along with a Queen Anne Style turned spindle porch. The house style is defined by the presence of Victorian decorative detailing on simple folk house forms. Expansions over the years include an east bathroom and a large sitting room to the north.