Today on ST, we speak with Daniel Riedemann, a contractor based in Lawrence, Kansas, who owns and operates the firm known as 19th Century Restorations. This is a company that's restored the childhood homes of Johnny Carson, Nina Simone, and others. About a year ago, Riedemann initiated the non-profit Woody Guthrie Family Home Reconstruction Project, which is raising funds in order to re-build the home of Woodrow Wilson Guthrie in Okemah, Oklahoma --- using, for the most part, the original materials. Guthrie's home --- the London House, as it's commonly called --- was demolished well over 30 years ago, as Riedemann tells us, but amazingly, the disassembled home has been stored in a building in Okemah for all these years. He adds that the London House will, once it's reconstructed, function as a music venue as well as a museum, and that Kris Kristofferson will offer, in October, a one-night-only concert here in Tulsa at the Mabee Center, on the ORU campus, with all proceeds benefiting the Woody Guthrie Childhood Home. Riedemann also notes that, if all the funding and construction fall into place properly --- as it seems they will --- then the newly re-built home will be open to the public by the time of the next Woody Gurthie Festival (in July of 2014). For more information, please see the Woody Guthrie Memorial website as well as its corresponding Facebook page.
Daniel Riedemann, of 19th Century Restorations, on Rebuilding Woody Guthrie's Childhood Home
