My parents are hard workers—which is good, because there was
a lot of work to be done after moving into the old house. If my memory is
right, that first fall they hired a company to put white vinyl siding on the
house and to replace all of the windows with the highest-tech, best energy-efficient
windows available. Not long after that, the living room was painted white,
right over the old wallpaper, with a blue trim around the door and window
frames. We hosted Thanksgiving with my dad’s side of the family that first
year—which must have been difficult with the old kitchen, but it was great fun
for me. My mom agreed to let me wear an old maroon lace dress that she had made
for me (or bought at a thrift store and refitted for me). I thought I looked
very pilgrim-esque in that dress, which was convenient because my uncles and
aunts brought us pilgrim and Indian hats and weapons.
The
following summer my parents sent the four of us up to Seneca Falls, NY to spend
time with our paternal grandparents while they installed a modern kitchen,
complete with hard oak cabinets and cupboards, light-blue counters, a stainless
steel double sink, and a dishwasher. Hooray! Somewhere along the way the walls
were papered with a vegetable print pattern and the linoleum was ripped up,
only to reveal a beautiful hardwood! We spent a Christmas vacation in Phoenix,
Arizona and came home to a newly sanded and refinished floor.
The
next big project was the two kids’ bedrooms upstairs. It is truly a sign of
love to me that my parents decided that our rooms took top priority! The walls
throughout the house were made of lath and plaster, laced with horsehair. They
were not flat, but bumpy and uneven. They decided the best course of action
would be to lay wallboard on top, shrinking the already tiny rooms by a few
inches. These were exciting times! I don’t remember where I slept, or how long
it took, but with both parents working full-time jobs, a larger family, and a
house and lots of land to take care of—the remodeling was a huge
time-commitment and probably took months to complete, even with the majority of
the work taking place during summer break. My room was completed first. The
estimated finish goal was near Christmas. Mom and Dad sat us down one evening
and explained how our Christmas gifts were going to work: we were going to get
to choose how to decorate our rooms, and we could determine the amount we had to spend by how
clean we kept our rooms. Every day we made our beds=$1. Every day our rooms
were clean=$1. Because there were two kids in each room, there was a
possibility of $3/day. We started around September, so the maximum was probably
about $120. It seemed like an enormous amount of money.
Despite
our good intentions, we did not receive the $3 everyday, but I think we did
pretty well—over the 4 months Rene and I earned around $100. My parents paid
for the paint and carpet, and we spent the rest of the money buying a
bookshelf, a small wardrobe, a lamp, and a black mailbox—the kind that is hung
on the front of the house. Yeah, I’m not sure why I wanted a mailbox, but it is
a testament to me of my parents’ agreeable nature to let us spend money on what
we wanted, even if the things made no sense. It was a good lesson on earning
and saving money, and an eye-opener as to how much things cost.
The
house is somewhere around 1400 sq feet, with a dirt-floor basement (which I try
to avoid at all costs because it is stinky and full of cobwebs). My great-great
grandparents, John and Mary Faust, purchased the house in 1887 as a two-room
house, which included what is now the kitchen and living room. In 1900 they
added two rooms downstairs and two small rooms and a small landing upstairs. My grandmother, Evelyn, was born in that house in the 1930’s, and I
have always loved to hear about her life growing up on the farm. The story goes
that there was no bathroom—only an outhouse—until my dad (Douglas) was born in
1957. At that time, Grandma Evie told her parents, Ernest and Geneveive, that
she would not bring the grandkids to visit until a bathroom was added to the
house. Shortly after, a tiny bathroom was built, as well as a pantry and
mudroom, which now also includes the laundry room. The outhouse has only
recently been demolished, and when I was younger, I took great pleasure in
showing my friends the 3-seater behind the house. That bathroom remains the
only bathroom in the house.
Since
leaving home in 1999, the bathroom has been completely remodeled, the backroom
refinished, an upstairs wall removed and a game room finished, and my parents
finally got their own bedroom looking nice. The work seems never-ending: the
living room has been repainted several times, the ceilings in the kitchen and
living room replaced, and last summer they again updated the kitchen and had
the silver metal roof replaced by a beautiful red metal one. The upstairs of
the detached garage was converted into a small apartment for family and guests
to stay, a falling-down building across the street removed, and the painting of
the porch a continuous effort.
 |
| The picture my sister took for me today. Love that new red roof and my dad's ham radio antenna. My bedroom was the second story window on the left. This is home! And now you know why I want a colonial house with a front porch and a little bit of space out here in the city. |
Perhaps
the hardest part of living out in the country—the middle of nowhere—is the lack
of readily available friends and the limited things to do. I did a lot of
reading and hiking. There was a tree behind the house that I declared mine, and
I would pack a survival bag full of food, paper, pencils, and books and spend
entire summer days reading and dreaming in that tree. I may have shed a tear or
two when I was in college and my brother, Ben, called to tell me that he and
Dad had cut the now-dead tree down.
Somewhere
along the way my dad, a biology teacher, was given the opportunity buy some
Hampshire ewes from a farmer who was retiring. Another piece of his dream was
coming true, and we officially had a sheep farm. Sometimes I would change up my
routine and bring a blanket to spread out in a sheep pasture while I read Nancy
Drew books and snacked on Little Debbies. Along with sheep, we had chickens and
rabbits. That we ate. The animals were smelly and dirty (to me), and the idea
that we were eating meat from across the street was devastating (to me). To
make matters worse, my dad would go hunting and would occasionally come home
with venison or some mystery meat like squirrel. My parents like to brag that
we all ate whatever was put in front of us, but they have forgotten how much I
complained and cried about the meat on my plate. I was getting older—probably
around twelve or thirteen—and I was embarrassed that we were living on a farm.
The shame was to increase over the years as I began to notice that the little house I
lived in was a little cluttered and, well, old.
