The house at 835 Crest -- then a dirt road -- started out before World War II as a four-room house. Kelly Parrish, working at the Rock Hill Printing & Finishing Co. textile mill in the dye room, on his time off with the help of friends, added on to the house after serving in the war. He had to because his family had grown to six kids. Betty, the oldest of the five girls, Ann, Cindy, Arlene, Terry and son Tim.

With he, his wife, Margaret, the six kids, and Margaret's parents, 10 in the house.

"Sure seemed normal to have 10 people in one house," recalled one of the five daughters, Cindy McCrory. "When your house is filled with love like ours, what else would anybody expect."

The Bigger family owned the garden property until 1958. Then, the garden became city property. The Parrish kids, like all neighborhood kids, enjoyed the garden. In what people then called 'Lovers Lane,' the kids would peek at the teenagers showing up for a smooch across a bench seat in a hardtop Ford or Chevrolet coupe in the dark of a Rock Hill summer night.

"That was a time when no doors were locked and the kids would play hide-and-go-seek after dark," remembered Margaret Parrish, now 87 years old.

The kids grew, became adults, moved out and started their own families. The garden became a focal point of sightseeing and the Come-See-Me festival, and the city always sought to buy nearby lots.

"The city came to my mother long ago, wanted to buy the land, but that was home," Margaret Parrish recalled.

About a dozen years ago, after she was widowed, Margaret Parrish sold her home to the city and moved out.

Over the years, family would drive by the old house. The oldest daughter, Betty Carroll, now a retired grandmother herself, would look to see if the flowers still bloomed from her childhood.

"They did," Carroll said.

The plan in recent years has been to expand the gardens, said Matt Clinton, supervisor for the city gardens. All but five of the properties along the block are now owned by the city, and a couple of the old houses have been removed.

This week, a third house, that house with 10 people in it for all those years at 835 Crest St., was hammered into dust by the wrecking ball. The creekbed, so close to the old house, that separates the property from the garden, needs work to make it stable and safe. The house had to go.

Sure, there were tears from the children and grandchildren who either saw it demolished, or heard that the house was nothing but rubble.

"That's progress," Margaret Parrish said.

"But what memories in that house," said Betty, the oldest.

None of the family could forget that 16 years before to the day Monday, Kelly Parrish died right there at the home he toiled so hard to build.

Margaret Parrish, who raised all those kids at 835 Crest St., stopped by the spot Tuesday to look at what was left before all of it was carted away.

"I still drive, of course," she said.

Of course, she does.

There, she met Clinton from the city garden.

"It was tough for her to see it, knowing all the memories she had there," Clinton said.

Clinton went into the rubble and pulled out a brick. He gave it to Parrish. All the family got a piece of the foundation that was underneath a home that is gone, but will forever live in memory.