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Mary,
Thanks for sharing your wonderful story. As I read each
line, it sparked so many other memories with me and the
old house on McCracken Rd. I don't recall anymore my
first telephone number, but I do remember that the exchange
was MOntrose-2. And when I was six, we moved out to the country and that exchange was CHestnut-7. In fact, when I finally moved out to start my career,all the way across the country, the phone number there was EXbrook-7. Funny how those things are remembered. And my mom ended up staying with that CHestnut-7 number for 42 years.
As I had stated earlier our house on McCracken was a Sears
house kit, that sold at the time for $850, and that the neighbors helped my dad construct it. It had a living room,
dining room, kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms. It also had a basement and an attic, where my two brothers had carved out their little private bedrooms on opposite sides.
Dad would have to get up in the morning and go downstairs and shovel coal into the furnace to get the heat back up.
My dad owned two lots, so our back yard went back some
distance, and we had an army quanset hut and another out building. They also had some goats,chickens and rabbits.
And we had a vegetable garden and various fruit trees.
They also had an old livestock water trough that eventually
became a swimming pool for the kids.
Throughout the Depression, trips were out of the question
and even afterward, we rarely went anywhere except for the
annual trip out to the county fair, that signaled the end
of summer and the beginning of school. Then there was the
annual trip to downtown Cleveland for the Christmas holiday.
In fact, the movie called "A Christmas Story" about the kid
who wanted a B-B gun, became a family favorite years later,
because the family in the movie did the same things and the
scenes shown in the film were actually shot in Cleveland
and one of the highlights shown in the movie was true and
that was looking forward to seeing the animated window displays at the Higbee department store. And yes, at some
point I did get a Daisy "Red Rider" B-B gun.
My dad was always looking for good deals, even with doctors and dentists, which resulted in a few stories that I'll have
to leave for another time.
I remember my mom's ringer washer and the clothes line out
back. Even Earl Shieb. And like your dad, the effects of
the Depression left my dad constantly worrying about money
and making ends meet. After the Depression ended, its impression lasted for decades. It took 25-30 years before
he finally began to loosen up a little bit. It was that
traumatic on him.
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