The Little House

I should probably fill you in on the small house we moved into out on the "straightline". It was really small, a kitchen, living room, bedroom and bath. it also had a small room where coal was stored for the old wood kitchen range.It was a basement home that Hutchings had built and were going to finish it with a floor being built on when one of their sons grew up and got married. Well they decided to rent it to our family in the meantime. The kitchen was small and had the big old wood stove that we cooked on, heated water on and bathed in a washtub in front of the oven. there was a sink where we did everything. Washed the dishes, prepared meals, washed our hands and faces before school, brushed our teeth. etc. It had a small drop leaf table that served for everything too. we ate from it. did school work there, ironed our clothes there. a small cupboard that we used for the dishes and pans.
Then there was the bedroom that had just enough room for a full bed, a set of bunkbeds for Richard and Jim, a chest of drawers, one drawer for each of us (5) and my dad put up a piece of pipe in the corner for us to hang a few clothes on. (mostly his) Then in the living room we had a small couch that I slept on, a bookcase, dad's desk, a cabinet radio, and another small oil stove for heat. In the bathroom it was hardly a real bathroom, it had shelfs for food storage, a place for the old hand crank washer, and a toilet. later my dad jerry rigged a very small shower for us.
I have to tell you I was scared to sleep at night most of the time because I was afraid the Japanese would come back and get us and there was only one way down the stairs and that was the only way out of the house, so many nights I would stay awake and just watch those stairs.
After a few years there the house began to leak water into it in the winter time. It was because the ground could not drain the water away from the house. When we got home from school it was we three's job to clean up all the water in the house and dry the floors. Since there was not heat in the house during the day, we also had to take wood and coal in and make a fire in the old kitchen range. We would use a big scoop shovel to gather the water and shovel it into the toilet, then we would mop up what was left and hope the heat from the stove would dry it out before our mom and dad got home from work. One day when we was shoveling the water we missed and hit the side of that old toilet and the bowl of it broke clean into. We were in real trouble when our dad got home, and sure enough we were! He really let us have it, with the old razer strap and alot of words I won't use here. so now we were also with no toilet and had to use the privy out in the back yard.
Life was not always pleasant back then, we did not know different and thought everyone lived that way. NOT!!! Our ages were Richard 11, Me 9, Jim 7. We grew up fast during those hard years. We did not have much time to fight between us, we were too busy just keeping everything together. Such a blessing to have had good friends and neighbors that accepted us even tho they never knew how bad things were.
Sometimes it seemed like the hardships really molded us into being compassionate and good human beings.