My childhood home(s)

Question: Tell about the house you lived in as a child. Do you remember the addresses or phone numbers?

Well I can start out first with the last question. I do not remember the phone numbers. I seldom remember my cell phone number that I have now. I don't know why but numbers and I are not good friends.

I have two homes that are dear to me from my childhood. My first was on South Water Street in Idaho Falls Idaho. I do not remember the number. I did not remember it was South Water until I Googled it. I remember we lived near a park and across from the park was our church that I was baptized in. I think if someone took me there, I could take you to the house [if it is still there, of course].

That house was a neat house. It was an older home. It only had two bedrooms and one bath. Of course since there were three kids, we all slept in the same room. From what I have been told, we all slept together in the same bed. I know that was problemmatic from my siblings. I was the youngest and Mom always placed me in the middle. I also was not totally potty trained and would occasionally wet the bed. Needless to say my brother and sister were not happy about that.

We had a porch on the front and just a stoop at the back door. We had a nice backyard with a garage that faced the alley way. Behind all that was the railroad tracks. I remember the train and how powerful it was when it went by. I loved to sit in the back and watch it go by. Dad was worried that I was too interested in the train and someone would always come into the backyard when a train was passing by to keep an eye on me. I don't think I would have ever left that yard to see it closer, but I did stop everything I was doing when one went by.

We lived there from the time I was two until we moved into our own home in Ammon when I was six.

Two strong memories from there were one when I stepped on a bee. Dad fixed a bowl of mud for me to stick my foot in to take out the poison. I sat on the back stoop with my foot it in for a long time. The family had their dinner while I sat back there. It made me sad that they did not wait for me, but I loved having my toes in the squishy mud.

The other memory was coming home one day and running up the front porch only to be greeted by my mom yelling to go to the back door. "Don't come in this way," she yelled. "Go around. Get away." I just stood there looking at her. Soon Dad came around the house carrying a broom and told me to get away. He ran up onto the porch. Then I saw my mom's concern. There was a bat on the front screen door. Dad knocked it down and stepped on it. To this day, I fear bats. My mom was really freaking out that day.

The other house I remember really well was our house in Ammon. The numbers of the house was 2330, but for some reason I cannot remember the street name. Odd, but that is how my memory works these days. Afterall that was in the 1950s.

To me it was a huge house on a huge piece of property. When Gil and I went back to see it thirty years later, I saw a small house one an average size property. Funny how kids visions of their past is different from reality. The house was only a two bedroom with a den that could be closed off into another bedroom. It also only had one bathroom. My brother got the den. Anne and I got the other bedroom. It did not have a dining room like our house on Water Street did, but it had a big kitchen with room for our dining table.

After a while Dad built out the basement to have two more bedrooms, a tv/rumpus room and a washroom and pantry. I got one of the bedrooms downstairs after that, as did Bob. Anne had the one upstairs and when Kris came along, they shared that room.

They planted a weeping willow to the north of the house. It was small. When we saw it again in later years, it was finally big. Big enough to swing from it by then.

We had a huge garden in the back, which we harvested enough vegetables to be canned for the winter months.

The rest was all grass. I mowed that grass often, so I know how big it really was. It was huge!

I loved that house.

We moved from there the summer before I entered seventh grade. We moved to San Diego for a year. We moved back in the spring of that school year. We stayed there until after my sophomore year in high school. Then we moved to Pocatello for my junior year. Moved to Idaho Falls for part of my senior year. Moved to Cody Wyoming for the second semester of my senior year. Not a lot of stability during those years. I wouldn't give up my experiences in each school, though. I guess it didn't hurt me any to move around so much.

I loved living in Ammon. It was a great, small community. It was very religious oriented. The church was a big part of all our lives. All the teachers in our school were Mormon. All the activities in the community were school and church combined activities. I loved it all.

My sisters, Anne and baby Kris, in the front room of our house in Ammon in 1960.