Turning a Historic House Into a Home: A 300-Year Journey
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 24 December 2025
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, when Ruth McKeaney and her husband stepped into a historic home that was falling off its foundation, they had no idea it would be the first of many. Over the years, they’ve raised five kids while flipping one broken house after another, including a 300-year-old home once tied to William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, himself. Ruth shares how trial, grit, and grace turned a collapsing structure into a space where others could feel real belonging.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed human. |
| 0:13.8 | And we continue with our American stories. |
| 0:17.5 | Home isn't just a place. |
| 0:19.6 | It's we hope the most important place in our lives, and there's just something special about the American home at what it means to all of us. Up next to tell her story is Ruth McKinney, author of Hungry for Home. He's lived in over 30 different houses herself. Here's Ruth with her story. |
| 0:48.7 | Well, I was an assistant DA in the state of Virginia for several years, and then I became an assistant attorney general, and up to that point, I think I'd moved about 23 times. So moving and home and a sense of |
| 0:59.0 | stability were really important to me. I got married when I was right about 30 and my husband announced |
| 1:05.9 | to me we're going to be moving up to the Philadelphia area. I get pregnant right after we move, and that first year, Bob and I lived in nine different |
| 1:16.5 | homes. |
| 1:18.1 | And I'll tell you what, for somebody who had been practicing law for several years and then |
| 1:24.0 | starting to stay home and moving around nine different times, that was my first real |
| 1:30.9 | identity crisis. And I think a lot of women who have done that can probably say the same thing. |
| 1:38.7 | You go from feeling a sense of accomplishment and purpose to what am I doing all day but cleaning up something that |
| 1:45.8 | keeps getting messed up. And I'm all of a sudden out of my lane when I had felt very in my lane |
| 1:51.7 | before. The end of that first year, Bob and I contacted a realtor who took us and sat us down |
| 2:00.2 | and said, how much can you afford? |
| 2:02.6 | And we told her, she burst out laughing. |
| 2:06.4 | And for any realtor out there, I would advise that's the last thing you should ever do. |
| 2:11.6 | Well, she called us two weeks later and said, |
| 2:13.1 | Are you afraid of hard work? |
| 2:15.4 | We didn't know what that meant. |
| 2:16.4 | She took us to a home about 150 years old |
... |
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