A Big Change in the Making

It was during my second year at Olympus Jr. High that my parents decided to sell our house with half of the property and build a new one on the other. My brother, J.D., was going on seven years old and still had no bedroom of his own. I honestly don't remember where he was sleeping (neither does he) but I know it wasn't in us girl's room, so he either had to be in my parent's room or in the basement because we only had two bedrooms. The house was put on the market along with the "animal section" of the property. That meant no more pigs, lambs, or goats, but we did keep the rabbits. I was really sad about that because I have always loved animals of any kind. So my Dad promised that I could have a dog once we built and moved in to our new house.

When the house sold we had to move back to Grandma Knapp's house while work on our new house began. That posed some transportation problems. How would we get to school? Mom and Dad didn't want to have us change schools for the six months they anticipated it would take to finish the house and then have to change back. Both of my sisters were attending Granite High School which was located on 33rd So. and 9th E. and I was still in junior high school in Holladay. They just weren't that close together. So my sisters had to take the city bus to school which required a transfer, and Dad would take me to my old school bus stop when he could before he went to work. On days that he couldn't take me, I would have to take the city bus to my old house which also required a transfer. I would always have to take the bus home because Dad would still be at work. It was a real pain, especially in the winter months.

Remember that time I was asked to my first dance at school? It was while we were living at Grandma's. My first thought was, "How am I going to explain where I lived and expect mu date's dad to drive that far away to pick me up?" I just couldn't. So I gave Harry, my date, the address of our house under construction and convinced my dad to drive me there the night of the dance. I'm not sure what went through the mind of date when he saw me and my dad standing outside in front of a half built house that night waiting to be picked up. But he never said a word about it , not even when he returned me to that same spot where my dad was waiting for me after the dance.

Of course the house wasn't finished in the six months that had been promised (not much different back then than it is now) so we ended up moving into the basement when it was completed and the framing was up on the house. That was an interesting experience. The walls of the basement were cement and there were no rooms, just open space which we divided into a kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms in ingenious ways. The "kitchen" was to the side of the stairs, but since the source of water was on the opposite side of the basement, we had to carry pans of water to the "kitchen" to cook and do the dishes. The living room connected to the kitchen and was separated from the "laundry room", the source of water, by the couch. The two bedrooms on the opposite side of the basement were separated by a wall of clothes. Dad strung a wire between two support beams and that became a family "closet" as well as a wall. The worst part of living in that basement was the bathroom. It was upstairs in the unfinished part of the house with just lath (no plaster) for walls and no door. Besides lacking privacy, it was freezing cold in the winter.

Somehow we all survived the next few months in the basement until the house was completed. We girls got to choose the wallpaper for our new bedroom (all rooms were papered back then, not painted. I still remember that wallpaper to this day. All though what we picked was the "in" thing at the time, I'm not sure why my mother who was so conservative let us choose something so "radical". One wall was covered with huge white flowers with bright green leaves, on a maroon background. The other three walls were matching stripes of different widths. There were white, green and maroon stripes. I would describe it now as very "gaudy", but we loved it then. The best part of that room was the large closet which covered one whole wall which was needed for three teenage girls. Actually, we really didn't have that many clothes compared to youth today, but Claire was working and could afford to buy her own.

Compared to homes today, this one was pretty small. Family rooms and more than one bathroom had not even been thought about as necessary, or at least preferred, back in 1946. So we just had the basic kitchen with attached eating area, living room, three bedrooms, and one bathroom. J.D.'s bedroom was upstairs over the garage and the other two on the main floor of the house. I envied my brother having that "upstairs" bedroom. I always wanted to have a two-story house as a kid. Somehow, I thought it was really classy to live in a multi level dwelling. I loved the thought of being able to go upstairs to your room. I have no clue where I got that idea. But I know it was real to me then. I remember running up those stairs to J.D.'s room just to see what it would be like.

Life got back to normal as I began my third year of junior high school. But a big event happened to me that year. It was to change my whole world at that time and have a big part in determining my future. Tune in to my next "episode".