the big house

[franksolich]

The big house.  The house was as big as a large barn, although in shape it in no way resembled a barn, being of some plain unadorned vague architectural style that has no name.  It had been built in 1910, by the local banker, and had obviously been designed more for social entertaining, and not for the usual domestic sort of life.

This was my childhood home alongside the Platte River of Nebraska, from the time I was a year old, until we moved away into the heart of Nebraska, the Sandhills, when I was ten years old.

The house was perhaps the largest house in this town of 3,000, but that in no way implied great wealth of my parents, both registered nurses and my father additionally the administrator of the local hospital.  In fact, they had purchased the house because it was so cheap, there being hardly any market at the time for such enormous dwellings.

My older brothers and sisters at times betrayed disdain for the house, at the time being teenagers who wished to be hip, cool, trendy, with it, like most of their friends, who lived the northern and western parts of the town, in newer, but much smaller, houses.  My younger brother and I had no opinion; this was where we lived, right in the center of town, next to the city park, two blocks from the hospital and two blocks another way from the grade school, four blocks north of downtown, and the two of us simply accepted it as being wholly natural and reasonable.

That the house was located near the center of town does not mean it was in a congested area; in fact, the property covered a great deal of terrain, and far in the back had a stable (older than the house itself) half-converted into a garage.  There was a small orchard of lilliputian cherry trees beyond that.

The street that ran in front of the house was one of the very few streets in town that was gravel, although it had concrete gutters.  It was gravel for the length of the block, and no more.  At various times the city had wished to convert the street from gravel to concrete, but was blocked by homeowners along it, who understood all too well they themselves would be paying for this civic "improvement."

The street is of concrete now, but it was still of gravel when we moved away, and for several years thereafter.

There is a general tendency for people, when recalling sights of their childhood, to recall such sights as larger than they really were.  In this case however, I saw the house many times after we moved away, and later when already an adult, and so there is no distortion of size here.

I visited the owners, the people who had purchased the house from my parents, a few years ago.  They were by then getting up in ancient age, but were content with staying in the house until they would have to be moved to the funeral home.

But they were not so sure they would ever recover their investment in the house--mortgage, interest, and substantial improvements--when selling it, because there still exists no market-demand for enormous old houses.

The house was--"was" is the incorrect term, because the house still is, but whatever--rectangular in shape, one of the short sides facing the street.  It was two stories high, but nearly as high as a three-story edifice; no attic.  Its roof sides slanted down at a precipitous angle, unusual for roofs in wind-blown Nebraska.

The front of the house was surrounded halfway around by a large "U" as a porch, a veranda, with entrances at each end of the "U".  In the front was a very large picture window, and then the sides curved a little, on both sides each being two other large windows.  Then two more, smaller, windows, and then the two front doors.

From there, the house was a solid wall--windows, of course, and not small ones--clear to the back.  The house had originally been constructed with an enormous open-air back porch, where it was said that during Prohibition, garden party guests sat back there, so as to avoid being watched by passers-by in the front.

But by the time we came along, the back porch had been built over, enclosed.

to be continued

[franksolich]

The downstairs.  The front entrance on the eastern side, at the end of the "U" of the front porch, was used as the main entrance.  There was a vestibule inside the door, somewhat bigger than just a small room, where one hung coats and hats, and wiped the shoes.

Then one had the choice of going through one of two doors; one leading to the living room in the front, and the other leading into the dining room on the side.  The living room in the front was large, but the dining room was even larger, and even had its own picture window, facing the east.

Built-in 5' high bookshelves with glass doors in front.

It was in the dining room that one ascended the staircase to the upper floor; an open staircase with two landings, and open all the way to the ceiling of the second floor.  The staircase railings and banisters were rather ornate carved wooden posts.

Because the accomodations in the kitchen were so spacious, even for formal dining, the dining room, in the earlier half of my childhood, was given over to the electric trains of my older brothers, laid out on two 4' x 8' sheets of 1" plywood.

When the older brothers grew to the age of tiring of electric trains, the trains and boards were stored away, and a second dining-room set installed in their place.

Past the dining room, one entered the kitchen, which was actually two rooms; on one side was an "alcove," although it was more than large enough to accomodate a 4' x 8' dining table and ten chairs, leaving about 4' between the backs of the chairs and the walls, which were wainscoated halfway up their height.

On the other side was the kitchen, built in a manner and size so as to employ a couple of cooks and at least one helper.  A six-burner electric stove.  Cupboards that reached to the top of the 12' ceiling, requiring a special "kitchen stepladder" if one wished something from the top two shelves.

Way up there was where my parents kept a bottle of Haig & Haig whiskey, a three-sided bottle that had been given them upon the birth of an older sister of mine.  Not being drinkers, my parents thanked the recipient, but stored the bottle away, unopened for more than two decades.  Also kept up there were the Christmas china and crystal, and the china and crystal for other special events.

The house had been built without a "laundry room," in 1910 it being common for wealthy people to send their laundry out to be done, but sometime before our time, a niche had been created in the kitchen, for a gigantic washing-machine.

The cupboards underneath the kitchen counters--and there were feet and yards of them--held a special fascination for my younger brother and I, as toddlers.  There are scores of photographs of my younger brother and I as toddlers, crawling into them and hauling out dozens of pots and pans, and playing with them.

By the kitchen was a walk-in pantry, about the size of the vestibule up front, and again, with shelves, but open ones, reaching to the top of the 12' ceiling.

Past the kitchen sink and more cupboards was an entrance to the room used by my parents as the "master bedroom."  I have no idea what the back half of that particular room had originally been, but the front half had once been a separate room, obviously the parlor.  The outside entrance from the other side of the "U" of the veranda, the western side, was there.

Also a medium-sized bathroom.

There was a "master bedroom" upstairs, but it was apparent why my parents had chosen to use this lower room as their bedroom.  If there was an emergency at the hospital--and such emergencies tended to happen in the middle of the night--one could get out of bed and leave the house without disturbing anyone.

to be continued

[franksolich]

The upstairs.  The turning (at right angles; not curving) stairs leading upwards from the dining room, as already mentioned, were open clear up to the ceiling of the second floor.

On the second floor, one was surrounded by several bedrooms, and kept from falling down the open staircase by railing and banisters circling the open area.  Bookcases lined all walls on the outsides of the bedrooms and the large bathroom.

At the front end of the house, at the top of the stairs, directly above the living room, was a room once used as a small ballroom; that was the bedroom of my younger brother and myself.

And then one went around, to the various smaller bedrooms of the older brothers and sisters, and the large bathroom.

The bedroom of one of the older sisters had apparently once been a maid's bedroom, because there was a small room attached to it, with small sink and a two-burner electric stove.  My younger brother and I used to spend hours in that miniature kitchen, because outside its windows were some large trees whose branches brushed against the house, and which provided comfortable nesting quarters for birds.

All the other bedrooms were ordinary bedrooms, walk-in closets, large windows.

There came a time when my parents threatened to move me downstairs--somewhere downstairs--because at the age of 4 years, I was trying out gymnastics, using the staircase.  I laid lengthwise across the top step, and then rolled down into the dining room, turning at the landings, popping up on my feet at the bottom step.

This drove them, and other concerned people, nuts.

I disremember what measures were used to discourage it, but by the time I entered kindergarten, I was no longer doing it.

to be continued

[franksolich]

Summers in the big house.  The house was not air-conditioned, and because of its sheer size, to try to do so would have been exorbitantly expensive.  But as the house had all these very large windows and good screens, and plenty of General Electric brand electric fans and the trees and the wind outdoors, one assumes it was tolerable.

There exists a photograph of one such summer.  My mother is sitting on the couch, reading the Sunday Omaha World-Herald, obviously enciente, which would have made myself, sitting at her feet on the floor, "reading" a book as she read the newspaper, about 18 months old.

There is an electric fan spinning, and atop my own head, a damp washcloth.

I always wondered if that was a means of keeping young children cooler in hot weather, this damp washcloth on top of the head bit.

I do not recall being uncomfortable because of the heat, but I do recall that the summer temperatures made the bedroom of one of my older brothers intolerable for me.  This older brother was a baseball fan, and collected Topps baseball cards from panels of chewing gum.  He bought the panels of chewing gum, took out the cards, and then tossed the candy into the bottom drawer of a bedside table in his room.

Then as the days got hotter, the unchewed chewing gum emitted a particularly sickly sweet odor.  The family pets slept with this older brother, but I never knew how they could endure that sort of stench, which was not a light aroma.

It did a damned good job of keeping me out of his bedroom.

It rained a great deal during the summer, and one of my older brothers--not the one beforementioned--once told me it was a problem sleeping at night, because of the constant pitter-patter of the water on the roof, and there being no attic in between to insulate one from the noise.

Of course, I would know nothing about that.

Perhaps summers were made more tolerable because we all spent most of the day outdoors.  Television of course had been around for a while by the time I came along, but for some reason, the parents never bought a television, every single one of their many children, from the first to the last, growing up without that appliance.

I have no idea what was up with that, and there's nobody left any more to tell me, but that's the way it was.

Usually the sisters left early in the morning, to do their girl stuff all day long; swimming, tennis, whatever else teenaged girls did at the time, keeping them away from sun-up until sun-down.

The older brothers and their friends spent much of the summer alongside the Platte River, a mile south of the house.  One could not swim in the Platte River, due to certain sorts of perils and natural traps, but one could camp, cook out, hike, and fish there, which is what they did, hauling along my younger brother, then a toddler, with them.

I was supposed to accompany them, but I raised such a stink about it that after the first time, I didn't have to.

Unbeknownst to me, this created a "baby-sitting" problem.  My parents were especially nervous about leaving a child alone, especially a child who had the propensity for unwittingly running out in front of moving automobiles.

This was resolved, quickly, by acquiring the services of an ancient widow, who spoke Lithuanian but no English.  Which of course in my case was no problem at all; she could've spoken Chinese or Bantu, and we would've gotten along just as fine as if we both just spoke English.

Much of what she did was outdoors, too; hanging laundry on the clothes-lines, weeding the garden, walking downtown to the grocery store, sitting in my grandmother's rocking-chair on the front porch sewing and embroidering.

Summer evenings, seven days a week, were "open house" at our house.

Somewhere along the line--it certainly wasn't a Pennsylvania habit--my father had acquired the custom of, after supper, going outside and sitting on the front porch, and would inevitably attract passers-by into coming over to sit and talk with him.

All sorts of people; people from other places staying with us, neighbors, acquaintances taking an evening stroll, friends coming by for specific purposes, strangers who just wanted to talk, lonely old people and children.

An evening without more than twelve such stoppers-by was considered a wasted evening.

I dunno what they all talked about, but alas it was not until many years later I realized I had been eyewitness to a vanishing American tradition, that of spontaneous, long, and animated conversation among people.  I never saw such a sight again, until I was wandering around the socialist paradises of the workers and peasants with free medical care for all, in which I watched people engage in chit-chat for hours and hours and hours.

Air-conditioning and television, both of which encourage people to stay indoors, killed front-porch social intercourse, and one quite reasonably supposes it a tragedy.

to be continued

[franksolich]

Visitors to the big house.  It must be only coarse, crude, rude people who think too much of themselves, who consider Nebraska, especially rural Nebraska, "fly-over" country, as our house seemed to attract a great deal of traffic, most of it from the northeastern states.

Classmates of my father from Fordham and Bellevue, professional associates of either parent, bishops and social workers, and--unknown to me, and it was to have dire consequences later--scholars and professors interested in issues of "communication."

At times, I used to get greatly aggrieved; there were always these strange people around, to whom one had to be polite.

I still have many photographs taken of these visitors when they came to our town, but alas I can identify only one, a then-prominent anesthesiologist from Ridgefield, Connecticut, who stayed for the longest time.

When such visitors came, they usually stayed at the hotel downtown, but some stayed with us.  Those who came in autumn, I assume partially came to hunt, and my older brothers and younger brother usually went along with them.

The worst nuisances were the Eleanor Roosevelt types with the large overbites; social workers.  They oohed and aahed over my younger brother and I, as if we were two cute little kids put on exhibit especially for them.

Oftentimes comparisons were made between the two of us, myself coming out on the short end.  My younger brother was blond-haired, brown-eyed, and had a healthy flesh color.  I was dark brown-haired, grey-eyed, and pale as a bleached bedsheet.

Very few people knew at the time that my younger brother was actually very frail, and no one knew at the time he was destined to live an all-too-short life.

My problem at the moment with these Eleanor Roosevelt wannabes involved communication; they wished to communicate, and I didn't.

Some time when I was still very very young, a physician in Omaha had suggested to my parents that, when attempting to communicate with me, they stretch out their two hands, and take my two hands, as if playing "London Bridge," so as to keep my rapt attention on what they were trying to convey to me.

It apparently worked.  I did this easily and comfortably with the parents, the older brothers and sisters, friends of the older brothers and sisters, my two grandmothers, neighbors, the butcher, the gasoline station mechanic, the cops, physicians, nurses, local farmers, men of the cloth, the grocers, the druggists, the railway agent, and even the ancient Lithuanian widow.

But I did not enjoy playing "London Bridge" with Eleanor Roosevelt lookalikes.

Men of the cloth were no problem at all; they instinctively recognized that I was okay with God despite my limited understanding, and so after courtesies were exchanged, they intruded no further than I wished them to.

First-rate company, and men of grace and class, the clerics.

And then there were the visitors who specifically came to see me, although I did not know that at the time.  Professors and scholars of "communication."  They usually stayed three or four days, and using my younger brother as "bait" for me, took the two of us to soda fountains of the drug stores, small town baseball games, candy stores, the zoo, rodeos, carnivals.  Even the movies, for at least the cartoons.

I had no idea.  In later years, when going through old letters and diaries the parents kept, I discerned that two of them came from Chicago, three from Kansas City, and one from Denver.  But not all at the same time; separately.  And three of them came more than two times, to spend most of a week with us.

About the time I was 8 years old, one of the older brothers spilled the beans to me; that these people always came to see me, because I was a "phenomenon."  I had no idea what a phenomenon was, but just didn't like the idea.

I protested to my father, threatening to run away from home, after which I was only ever "examined" in professional clinical settings, where I knew what was going on.

Relatives visiting us were few and far between, if ever.

Apparently--this was w-a-a-a-y before my time--when the parents and older brothers and sisters left New York City for Nebraska, it created a rupture in both older families, a rupture still visible, and unbridgeable, when I lived in Pennsylvania and New Jersey some decades later.

It must've been really big, but there is no longer anyone around to tell me about it.

And to add insult to injury, when my parents and older siblings grew to like Nebraska, to where they didn't wish to live anywhere else, the discombobulations tremoring from the east got even more convulsive.

And so relatives came out only rarely, if at all.

One of my grandmothers, the mother of my father, did actually stay with us for a little over a year, being feeble and blind, enriching my childhood beyond measure, but even the pleadings of her favorite grandchild refused to move her; she did not like Nebraska, she was lonely for Pennsylvania, and so back there she went.

When my mother was getting ready to push out my younger brother, a younger sister of hers, married to a man in the U.S. Air Force, came to stay with us for a month, so as to keep her eye on the teenagers and myself.  And herein lies one of my earliest distinct memories.

My mother, when cooking, always allowed me to stand on a chair on the other side of the stove, watching her.  But this strange woman, in her late 20s at the time, would allow no such thing.  I remember the fuss very well, and it went on for a long time, until my mother finally returned home some weeks later.

This same aunt came exactly a year later, but I didn't have to deal with her, being encased in the hospital after an involuntary collision with a moving automobile.  She had again come to stay a month, to watch the teenagers and my infant younger brother, so the parents could deal with the problem I had created, albeit unwittingly.

For almost two years of my childhood, the big house was a church, too.

My father had converted from his original Methodism to the Episcopalian church, but the town had no Episcopalian church.  There were about 50 others in town (according to church rolls of the time) who wished to join an Episcopalian church, but whoever it was in charge of Episcopalian matters said that the need, the demand, to build a church in this town had to first be proven.

And so for about two years, the local Episcopalians met in our living room.

It was all very gracious and formal, my mother doing up the coffee, tea, rolls, whatever else, in the kitchen for after the service.  The rest of us were Roman Catholic, but as those services were held in early morning, and these in late morning, it caused no disruption in domestic life.

It was at this time I discovered a phenomenon heretofore unknown to me.

There was a large rectangular archway leading from the dining room to the living room.  And large doors which slipped out from inside the walls.

to be continued

[franksolich]

Christmas at the big house.  One of my older brothers once complained that the furnace in our house banged and clanged incessantly, but again, that was something beyond my capacity to notice.

I have no idea how the house was heated during our time; the furnace was in the basement, where I never ventured after being assured by an older brother that "Purple People Eaters" dwelt down there.  In the nine years we lived there, about five of those years that I can remember with clarity, I don't suppose I was ever in the basement more than two times.

There was nothing wrong with the basement; it was a standard concrete basement with more-than-ample natural and artificial lighting.  I recall being considerably upset that my old high-chair was stored there--I'd hoped it had been destroyed by a nuclear blast or something--and immediately ran back outside.

I was never told how the house was heated, but it must not have been by natural gas, considering the house still stands.  I do know that the heating bills during winter usually exceeded the monthly mortgage payment.

Christmas usually began immediately after Thanksgiving, and carried on through New Year's Day.  The first Sunday evening after Thanksgiving, my parents held "open house" each week from then until the Sunday after New Year's Day.  No invitations were issued; just a general reminder that anybody and everybody was free to drop in.

In the very first part of this, I had mentioned the big house had been built more for social entertaining, than for domestic ease.  What this meant was that it took ten, fifteen, minutes to set up the living room, dining room, and kitchen for the open house, and then after it was all over, a mere ten, fifteen, minutes to clean up.

I dunno how many people showed up for these things, and some of them showed up for more than one or two of them, but since the living room held circa 50 Episopalians with no cramping, I'm guessing usual turnout was between 75 and 150, every Sunday evening.

Food and drink was freely handed out, but no liquor.

Most of the time, guests just sat around tables, chitter-chattering a mile a minute for hours.  My younger brother and I spent most of our time playing on the first landing of the staircase, so as to be nearby when someone wished to meet us.

And then that tiresome "London Bridge" thing again with strangers, in my case.

The house was decorated to celebrate the season, but there was no Christmas tree until December 21.  I have no idea why December 21.  One year, a Christmas tree was put up early, on December 18, an event so remarkable that I still remember the exact date.  But for whatever reason, now lost to history, excepting for that one unusual exception, a tree was never put up until December 21.

The elaborate Nativity set was put up way before then, and the three Men from the East, camels, and camel tenders, started their journey to the stable from the other side of the room, being moved a few inches closer every day until January 6.  The manger was empty of the Christ Child until late on December 24.

That was a pretty awesome Nativity set, hundreds of people and animals.

Some time in mid-December, the older brothers and my younger brother would take off for the Sandhills, far north of town, to procure a Scotch pine which, according to specifications of my father, had to have at least 10' of usable tree.

I never went along; as I pointed out, it seemed silly to drive "to the other side of the world" (actually, a 300-mile round trip) to get a Christmas tree, when the grocery stores had lots and lots of them right out in front.

I could be a real prig about this; common sense and practicality was instilled in me at a very young age.

But the brothers always went anyway, and it was always snowing heavily when they went.  My favorite photograph of my younger brother as a toddler is one where he is being carried, Tiny Tim-like, on the shoulders of an older brother through knee-deep snow, the other older brothers following behind, dragging a tree.

Me, I stayed home.  It was snowing out there, and cozy in here.

This necessitated procuring the services of a baby-sitter for that particular Saturday, given that the sisters were out spending the day doing their girl things.  This was always an ancient married couple.  While I did my stuff, she was in the kitchen, cooking and baking.  The old man spent most of the day slumbering in a chair.

The windows of the house were not only large, but they extended clear down to within a foot of the floor, meaning that while I was laying atop a furnace grate, using Legos to build hospitals and hotels on the carpet, I could also see the snow falling heavily outside.

On December 21, the tree was put up, but I never hung around for that.  My father and older brothers were all of the perfectionist nature, and it could get uncomfortable.  Even a deaf child can sense conflict.  I was usually in bed, long asleep, by the time the elders had decided upon placement of the first string of lights.

Christmas of course is generally observed on December 25, but in our family, it was observed on a day other than that, some day between December 25 and December 31.  The older brothers and sisters went to midnight Mass on December 24, and the following morning, one of them would take my younger brother and I to a morning service.

Our parents always spent holidays at the hospital, so that all other employees could have the day off, at least up until suppertime.  The hospital had 45 beds, but most patients were dismissed to spend the day with their families, leaving maybe 12-15 still there on Christmas, and both my parents, being registered nurses, could handle that by themselves, including the cooking and laundry and whatever else needs done in a hospital.

After which our own Christmas.

the end

[Chris]

I dunno how many people showed up for these things, and some of them showed up for more than one or two of them, but since the living room held circa 50 Episopalians with no cramping.

I skimmed past the part about the house being used as a church and thought, "That sure is a strange way to measure the size of a room".

Sounds like Christmas must have been very pretty there.  But lighted trees and decorations always make a room seem nicer.

[franksolich]

An excerpt of this is posted at

http://www.freerepublic.c...chat/2303270/posts?page=1

in case anyone's interested in reading comments, if any comments given.

[Chris]

The zoo here has a restored plantation house on its grounds.  It was closed last time I was there, but looks very nice: Grassmere

When the city expanded the airport about twenty years ago, the land they bought had a couple old houses on it.  We used to ride our dirtbikes out there during the summer since it was the best place to go.  The houses were mostly left alone until they were torn down a few years later.  We used to camp out in the front lawn of the house... that way we'd have shelter if it started to rain.

[FGL]

Frank always has good stories to tell, kind of like my late father

[Chris]

My family doesn't tell stories.  "You want a story, go read a book.  What do I look like, your personal entertainer?"