Memorial Day weekend, my twin sister Mel and I trekked around Hot Springs, Arkansas, checking out locations where we once lived. I drove and took us to a house on Bower Street near downtown, just off Central. I parked the car in front of a lot where steps led to a vacant spot where our house one sat just a year ago. I remember glancing at the old house with broken windows, with the wood rotting last summer, only now the home was gone.

The house which used to sit there, with the oddshaped rooms an...