As I was working around the house on Saturday, the doorbell rang. Turns out it was a lovely woman (and her very embarrassed husband), who lived in my house in the 60's!! The husband couldn't believe his wife just rang the doorbell of a stranger.
I got a good feeling from them (you know, that one that says it is ok....), and invited them in. Now, my house wasn't dirty, but it was still a work in progress....so I was rather proud of myself that I put those feelings of "OMG, my house isn't perfect" aside to let them in.
It was a trip! She was telling me what everything looked like then, where things were (like their TV was in the opposite corner from ours), where the Christmas tree went. We were standing in the kitchen, and she said "there is a bathroom over there." Yep. Well, it was a pantry when she lived there! (We suspected that.) She remembered when her parents made it into a bathroom.
She used to play "house" on the front porch. And "dolly-ies" in the attic.
Her old bedroom is now Sassy's (and there was a big walk in closet back then, which got sacrificed to make the bathroom bigger). Bossy's room was her parents (and when I told her about the laminate floor we found when we changed the carpet a few weeks ago, she told me her parents put that down!). My bedroom was the "junk" room.
There were trees that are now gone. But found out that some of the plants (like our forsythia bushes) were there back then! Apparently so were the Mountain Laurel and the Dogwood Trees. Go figure!
She told me about the neighbors back then, and riding bikes around the neighborhood. There was a school next to the post office, which has since been torn down. A group home around the corner (it is a large house), was a Convent for the neighborhood church. And there was a hill across the way that they used to go sledding on in the winter.
All the neighbors were friends, and the kids used to just wander from house to house. Sounds like the 60's to me.
It was neat taking a walk down memory lane through her eyes.
I live in the same town where I grew up. My parents sold the house I was raised in back in 2001. The people that bought it are a lovely family and added on almost a whole other house to it. They have a daughter who was in my daugther's graduating class, so I've been able to see the changes on the inside over the years. Now, they are selling the house, and with that goes my connection to "my" house. I wonder if I'll ever have the guts to knock on the new owners door.
ReplyDeleteNot sure I would have the guts to ring the doorbell either.
DeleteThat is so lovely...a friend of mine just knocked on the door of her childhood home, and the elderly couple now living there seemed thrilled to see the photos and hear about the home's history. I hope you enjoyed the visit as much as the original owners probably did!
ReplyDeleteOh, they weren't the original owners...my house is 100+ yrs old! But I did enjoy it.
DeleteNeat story! I took a drive by an old childhood home awhile back. It was neat driving down the street, having so many memories of playing and riding my bike on the sidewalks. Everything seemed so small, LOL.
ReplyDeleteLOL. It is all about perspective. :)
DeleteOne Family is SO right. I have a very strong memory of playing "Queen of the Closet" with my sister in the bedroom we shared--we would climb up into the closet and defend our territory. What a surprise to go into that home as an adult and realize the 'climb' was over a single drawer!
ReplyDeleteAlso, after my parents died, I sold the home we had lived in since high school. I apologized to the new owners for my mother's appalling taste in colors--the lime green bathroom and the pink living room. Later, they invited me in to see how they had redone the house--all in ORANGE!
I wanna play Queen of the Closet!!!!
DeleteMy grandmother painted her whole house orange....it was hideous.
I bet you totally made her day by not treating her like she was a weirdo. Wonderful!
ReplyDeleteThat is just so neat!! :) What a surprise!!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great treat!!!!
ReplyDeleteSo neat. When I was a kid I lived in military housing. I always wondered about the people who had lived there before. What a cool experience.
ReplyDelete