Posted by request of Judy. This photo shows the house after it had been abandoned for years. The siding was applied after our family left it. Our parents bought this house and the small orchard covered lot on which it stands by trading for it. I lived in this house for the first nine years of my life. I have the happiest memories of living here. Two rooms, uninsulated, coal stoves for heating, no running water or inside bathroom, no electricity until 1939 when I was seven years old, no refrigerator, no bedroom for our parents. Dad was often gone during these lean Depression years looking for a days' work here and there while Mom coped with raising two, then three, then four children. No car while Dad was gone. No telephone. The yellow roses speak volumes. This was home.
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When we left this house to move first to Cody for a few months, return for a short time, and then to Ralston for 3+ years, we were disappointed to see the ugly faux brick covering on the brown boards. Perhaps it was warmer - who knows. We were happy there, and spent wonderful times in the old orchard, digging in the soil, swinging on the swing, or sitting with Mother on a hammock that was slung between two cottonwood trees. It is a lesson for all of us who want to move up in the world and have "finer" homes and things for our children than we had. The security of a loving, but firm Mother, a Father who was magical when he came home - sisters and a brother (Steve and Ann came later)to fill our days with work that was play (who ate the most strawberries when we hulled them?), and the closeness of Grandparents. The shared poverty of the Great Depression did not extend to our sense of security and well-being. Thanks for posting this, Dwight.
It wasn't until I was older that I realized the magic of the little house among the trees that sat to the north of our white house in Penrose. Thank you for a neat reminder.
Oh Dwight. You did it. Thank you so much. I don't know why I love this picture so much. Maybe it is the yellow roses. While I was born in this house, I do not remember living here, only through the wonderful tales told and retold by those who are fortunate enough to remember.
Maybe it isn't the yellow roses, maybe it is the way I feel when I think about the love that grew here.
I ran across a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes that might fit here: "Where we love is home. Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts."
Perfect quote.
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