The old brick house.
When I was growing up a part of my childhood was spent living in a big old house on the corner of East Smiley Avenue and Third Street. My mother rented the bottom half of the old Victorian brick home. We had 2 bedrooms a living room dinning room and small kitchen. Four porches, two side yards a back yard and front yard.
I shared the bedroom with my brother, and my sister. Brother's bed was on one wall a single bed with an old iron bed frame and headboard. My sister and I shared a double bed on the other side of the room. My brother was 6 years older than me born in 1942 when our dad was in W.W.II I was born in 1947 my sister in 1950. Beside my brothers bed was a Big Oak shelving unit with cubby holes for storing things and a large built in closet, well at least it seemed large to me but was probably only about 2 foot wide. He kept his things in that old piece of now antique furniture.
My sister and I's old double bed had a fluffy mattress, which sat on a set of springs that would squeak and shiver every time we would climb into it. But it was warm and cozy in the winter. The walls of that house were about 3 foot thick and it kept the cold out in winter and the cool in during the summer. The ceilings were tall probably at least 13 or 14 feet maybe more. My Mother's bedroom was small and had an outside door that led out onto one of the porches. We had linoleum floors. In our room it was gray with little pink splashes on it. My Mom's floor was a dark yellow gold with red and blue flowers; I remember that floor as if it was yesterday because I used to lay on that floor and try to count all the blue flowers.
While my mother would lay on her bed before bedtime and tell us a story or read to us from a book. Sometimes it was a fairy tale others a famous poem or stories of our family and memories of her childhood or her grandfathers childhood. Tales of the Great Depression and of my Granddad catching a freight train open car. He and a neighbor would walk across the top of the cars until they would come to the coal car which they then would lift up the big rocks of coal and heave them over the side in to the back yards doing this all the way the Crestline Ohio which was about six miles up the track where the freight train would stop to get water for the engine.
And while it would slow down jump off into someone's back yard. They would soon be making their way up the tracks walking until they were near home when they would begin to carry a big coal rock into their back yard and break it up with a sledge hammer. Then into the kitchen where the old heating and cooking stove and the family of 10 would be warm for a while.
My little sister who was 2 years old at the time would nestle up next to her sucking her thumb, And my brother would sit in a blue velvet chair stuffed with excelsior which is kind of prickly as pieces of it would stick you through the velvet cloth. She would read until my sister Cathy would fall asleep. And then carry her quietly into our bedroom and put her to bed and I would get under the covers. She would always listen to us say our prayers. " Jesus Tender Shepherd,
Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me:
Bless Thy little child tonight;
Through the darkness be Thu near me,
Keep me safe till morning light
God Bless mommy and...........
.. We moved into that house the year before my daddy died when my brother was 11 I was 5 and my sister was 2 years old. They paid 19 dollars a month rent. And all the utilities. We would live there until I was 12 years old. I never knew about the problems my mother faced after my daddy died but I am sure there were many, but we never went hungry and we were always greatly loved. ......to be continued.
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Tags: Childhood Memories People I Knew Growing Up
