On the Move

Not long after my youngest sister was born in 1952 the economy went into recession—now known as the Recession of 1953. Dad was out of work for a time until his brother-in-law found him a spot working for DuPont and we left the apartment at 4102 and began a series of moves in fairly rapid succession.

The first stop was the roughest on mom and dad; it was an old house outside Circleville, Ohio, known as the Ogle farm. It had no running water, no indoor toilet and no central heating. Not only was that a challenge but it was doubly hard on mom since dad was gone Monday through Friday at work.

We kids had a ball with a huge yard to play in—something that was entirely lacking in the city. We had excitement, too. We watched as a tornado blew the neighbor’s barn into smithereens and saw two bulls fighting, butting heads across a fence.

While we were having all this fun Mom pumped water for drinking and heated water for bathing. We bathed once a week in a wash tub. We all learned the pleasures of an outhouse—at least I did. My sisters were judged too small and used a bucket indoors. Mom also washed clothes by hand and fed wood into the fireplace; our only source of heat. In the winter we had only two heated rooms: the living room with the fireplace and the kitchen with the stove. The other rooms were closed off by blankets mom hung to keep the heat in.

My sisters and I on the Ogle farm

It had to have been a miserable life for her. She never complained—even years later. There is an old Elvis song True Love Travels on a Gravel Road. I think of that now when I think of how mom handled everything that was thrown at her over the years.

Note: I know this is heresy, but I think the Highwaymen (Waylon, Willie, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson) did the song better. I’m not an Elvis guy too much.

Both mom and dad were eager to get back to the East End (and out of the Ogle place!) where they had lived since moving to Cincinnati somewhere around 1941 or 1942. From the Ogle place we moved to an apartment—really half of a house—in Circleville, then for maybe a month to another ancient, huge house near Coney Island and then to a summer cottage quite a ways out of town on the Ohio river.

It was built on stilts in case of floods, and the area beneath the house was great for playing. A couple of boys about my age, Chatzie and Mike and I dug roads and built gas stations, etc. so we had our own highway system.

We were still pretty broke—probably really broke since dad’s job at Dupont had ended and he only had the work at Coney Island—and that led to the first big argument I ever witnessed between mom and dad.

The place was heated with fuel oil by a burner in the living room. Mom sent dad for oil. Dad stopped by somewhere for a beer and found a card game. He didn’t come back (we didn’t have a phone) for two days. By the time he did the oil was gone. The house was cold and mom was burning. When he did show, no sooner did he open the door than she was chasing him around the kitchen table swinging the broom.

Dad, as he dodged the broom, was pulling money out of all his pockets and throwing it on the table. “I couldn’t leave, Helen, I was winning too much! Look! Look!” 

Mom’s response, which I am going to clean up, went something like. “You’d play cards while your kids froze, etc.” Eventually she calmed down, and after dad had filled the oil burner and re-lit it, she saw how much he had won and things mellowed somewhat. By then things had reversed: the house was warm, but mom was icy.

We had a blonde cocker spaniel that we kids creatively named Blondie. Mom wasn’t big on the idea of pets, but soon fell head over heels in love with Blondie. Mom was nearly deaf, Blondie seemed to sense that and she became mom’s ears. She would alert mom to a kid crying or someone at the door, or the ringing of the phone we got shortly after the great oil disaster. And, to mom’s glee--Blondie wouldn’t let dad into the bedroom until she had awakened mom first. “Damn dog,” dad would say.

I felt mom’s wrath when I let Blondie out while she was in heat. I didn’t like the spanking much, but we kids loved the puppies that resulted from my error. Mom did not and she quickly had dad find homes for them.

I had attended first grade at Mt. Washington. The biggest adventure I had there was to break my collarbone playing at recess. It hurt a bit but I didn’t say anything. Finally mom noticed I wasn’t using my left arm very much and she took me to see Dr. Flagge. He told her it had already begun to mend and not to worry about it.

Second grade was spent at Anderson school. I had my appendix out that year. Hospitals were so much different then—even parent visits were limited and no kids allowed at all. Nowadays they remove an appendix and send you home. Not so in 1955. I spent seven long and lonely days before they let me go. I remember one  nurse who was especially nice telling me I was such a good boy she would let me have some ice cream. I wolfed it down and then threw up on her.

We will leave things here until the next post—and the next time dad ended up in a mess with mom.