There is no longer a yellow, thatched house to stand in front of here. The place in Østergade is precisely about absence: a small home and workshop that today must be imagined, while the current school marks where part of old Ansager has disappeared.
Karoline and Niels Johnsen lived in the house, which was locally called Karen's House. Niels worked as a saddler and made harnesses for the farmers' horses, a craft closely connected to the time when the horse was still everyday power.
The preserved memory describes the house in a plain and very physical way: workshop in the outbuilding, pantry and kitchen facing the street, and small rooms where family, work and practical necessities were close to one another.
According to the memory, the name Karen's House came from a woman named Karen, who was said to have built the house and reportedly collected the bricks herself from around the area. Such details are hard to verify fully, but they show how local place names can outlive the building itself.
The story of the house is also a story about Karoline Johnsen, called Grandma in the memory. After Niels' death, she is remembered as a woman with a garden, a home and room for the young people who liked to stop by. The little house is gone, but the tone of the memory is still unusually vivid.
