Price Thrower & Mary Wilson Adams photograph by Brian Gomsak

As the Great Depression weighed heavy in the 1930s, a mother in Gaston County dreamed of giving her daughter an unforgettable Christmas surprise. Ninety years later, Mary Wilson Adams still recalls the rumble of the truck that woke her one night as a carpenter delivered a playhouse — a tiny home just big enough for the 3-year-old to call her own.

“It was grand!” she says, remembering that Christmas morning surprise. “Mother designed [the] two rooms and drew flames on the plywood fireplace with wax crayons.”

Though Adams married and moved away in 1950, she returned to Gastonia about 20 years later. At her home church, St. Mark’s Episcopal, she befriended Bill and Price Thrower, who were new to the neighborhood.

Meanwhile, the tiny home changed hands and moved from backyard to backyard, sometimes used as a playhouse and other times as a garden shed. After its fourth move, the Throwers’ neighbor bought it at a charity auction.

For caretakers like Mary Wilson Adams and Emmy (pictured in 2013), the memories are eternal. Photography courtesy of Mary Wilson Adams

On neighborhood walks, the Throwers’ granddaughter Emmy would often peek into the playhouse windows and say, “I wish it was my house.” When that neighbor moved away, Price surprised Emmy by bringing the little house home.

For years, Emmy staged birthday celebrations and tea parties for friends, who dressed in hats, gloves, furs, and heels. Grandmother and granddaughter shared decorating fun on holidays: giant eggs in the spring, flags in July, spiders in October, and a front porch Christmas tree in December.

Emmy is now off to college, and the Throwers sold their home to a young couple — another family in a long line of playhouse keepers. In her years of tending to the little house, Price often invited Adams to revisit her favorite Christmas gift — one that left her yard, but never her heart.