Investigating the Porch

I said the other day in my last post that I'm going to start investigating the front porch to find out why it looks like there is a porch post missing when there obviously was never one there. At least not for a very long time any way.
This is what was sitting under the center of the porch. It looks like it may have been part of a post that maybe broke or was never needed. It's not finished and it's broken.
This is the right side of the gable overhang. It looks like this in the same place on either side. With out getting a ladder out (which I can't do) it's one of 2 things. Either something has been removed, or the gable is heavier than it looks and it's breaking. Which really wouldn't be good. Or it's a combination...something was supporting it and was removed, therefore the overhang is now falling.

So the point is that I'm really no closer to figuring it out. And now I'm worried about the roof. I may have to go talk to the neighbor again and see if she may know anything. Her parents owned the house from about 1940-2006 (when we bought it as an estate sale) so if something was changed in the 66 years before we bought it she will probably know.