What is the drawing of? It is the layout of my grandparents’ home. Is my most excellent drawing accurate, it is the way I remember it. This memory is from about 60 years ago. The old house is no longer there, as a matter of fact all the houses in this area which was known as, “Smelter Ville”, have been demolished. Most of the area was flood prone.
This house had running water, but no bathroom, no indoor toilet. Yes, it had an outhouse in the back yard. I never thought of this before but, the outhouse was next to the back fence which was as far from the house as possible. On the other side of the fence was another house, but I can’t remember how close it was to the outhouse.
There was a large cottonwood tree in the back yard and they had a fence around the yard.
I have very few memories of my grandmother. I never met any of my grandparents on my dad’s side of the family.
Grandpa lived several years longer than Grandma and I have two basic memories of grandpa. One is that he always seemed to be sitting in his rocking chair which was located next to the wood burning stove. The other memory is, every Sunday morning we would go pick him up to take him to church with us. Dad drove the car, I often sit in the front seat next to dad, and Grandpa would get in the car’s front seat passenger side. In those days all men wore hats, and almost every time grandpa would get in the car he would knock his hat off. Grandpa had hair growing out of his ears, and I mean lots of hair.
Grandpa was, the “Reverend Bede Wyatt”, I have no memories of him preaching.
They basically lived in two rooms. The so called living room had a couple chairs, their bed, a Wardrobe, or it may have been a Chiffarobe (look it up if you aren’t sure what that is). I know they had the wood burning stove, actually it was probably coal burning in that room. I assume they had a radio but I can’t remember that.
The kitchen had a wood burning stove which later may have been converted into gas, a table, a sink with running water. I do not remember a refrigerator or ice box, but I am sure they had one or the other. There was an old copper cup that sat on the sink and it was there as a drinking cup for everyone to use. I do not remember seeing any other cups used for drinking.
That memory came up when I was walking this morning, which was cut short due to some sprinkles of rain. The memory I had was of my mom and sister trying to talk me into giving up the bottle (not a bottle of booze, a baby bottle). As I remember I was between the bed and the wall and they were telling me that my nephew Paul, who is three months younger than me, did not take the bottle and I should stop. I don’t know how old I was but I couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9 years old (that was supposed to be a joke).
May all your memories be good!
Don Ford
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