Standing stronger

When Evan and Whitney Williamson’s house in Saratoga Springs, New York, was built, Abraham Lincoln was in the White House, and Ulysses S. Grant was slugging it out with Robert E. Lee in a struggle to shape the nation’s destiny. There were no telephones, automobiles, or refrigerators. Electric lighting was rare. Most homes in town lacked indoor plumbing.

Over the century and a half since then, six generations of Evan’s family have lived in the house, making a series of changes to it along the way. The first kitchen was added in the late 1800s; around 1914, the house was widened and became a duplex, with a series of additions that introduced new bedrooms, another kitchen,