The Move to Bradleyville

When I was 9 years old, we moved from "the place" to the town of Bradleyville. I didn't want to move. I don't think Ginger or Steve wanted us to move from the place either, although they were both grown and gone from the house by then. It was home to them, and the only home I remembered, although I was born in Kansas City and lived there until I was two. I have some faint memories of living there, but "the place" was certainly home to me.

We moved because Dad had a garage in Bradleyville, well at that time he worked for Lewis Albright in his garage, but Dad  bought the old Gott store building and decided to live in the back in the living quarters that was already there and open his own garage in the other end of the building. So, we moved. Also, Dad sold "the place" to Gordon Cavner who had wanted it for a long time. He and his wife Mildred were neighbors of ours and friends with Mom and Dad and had always loved the place and really wanted it.

We moved into the old store building. When we first moved in, there was a small living room, a small bedroom, and a small kitchen/dining area. It had a basement that was under the living area and it had a small bedroom at the bottom of the stairs, then a large room in the middle and on the other end there was a very small room in the back corner, another very small room with a toilet in it, and beside the room with the toilet there was another very small "room" that held the water tank and someone had also installed a shower head in it. That was our shower. It was huge for a shower. 

Dad always did like to remodel wherever we lived and this place would be no exception.

The building wasn't really all that old when we moved into it but the basement was damp and I did not like that basement. I don't know if Mom and Dad ever planned for me to sleep in the little room at the bottom of the stairs, but I never did. It was creepy to me, damp and dark and part of the basement which was damp and dark and I did not like damp, and I was terrified of dark. 

Back up one or two years when I would go with Mom to visit my Grandma Sloan and take her to the store to get a month's supply of groceries. Mom and Dad had lived with Grandma off and on when Ginger and Steve were young, and Grandma still had several comic books that Steve had while he lived there. Comics about VAMPIRES!!!  At that time I was only around 8 or 9 years old but I liked to read, even old scary comic books. I would sit on the porch while we were there and read those comics, then go home and lay awake at night, covers pulled up around my neck, listening to every creak and groan of that old house, knowing that any minute a vampire was going to pounce upon my neck and suck every drop of blood from my body. I know I drove my mom crazy, I would wait until I couldn't stand the terror any longer, then call for Mom. She would come in and get in bed with me until I went to sleep. She would tell me over and over that there wasn't anything to be afraid of, but I knew better, I had read those comics! hahaha!

Anyway, Dad started remodeling about a year after we moved in there. At that time he had partitioned off part of the front of the old store building and I had a bed in there, and if brother or sister and families came to stay overnight that is where they slept too.

First Dad partitioned off a room in between the space we were living in and the front of the building that would be his garage and made a large living room and his and Mom's bedroom there.  Dad did all of the work himself, and laid down hardwood floors in both rooms. Mom always wanted a big living room. Dad had remodeled at the place before we moved and had made a big, long living room on the end of the house. Mom got to enjoy that a few years before we moved to Bradleyville.

In the back part of the house Dad made a bedroom for me out of what was the living room when we moved in. Sometime during that time, Dad, Mom and I went to an auction down by Rockaway Beach at the Cedar Point Resort. They had a big auction and Dad bought a dark wood bedroom suite for me for $63. It was heavy and had the bedstead, a large chest of drawers and a vanity. I still have the same bedroom suite and use the chest of drawers. The rest of the suite is in storage, waiting for me to stop writing, get it out and refinish it. I started on it a few years ago and it was much harder than I thought it would be, so I stopped. I have new ideas for it so in a month or so I am going to attempt to finish it again.

Dad built new cabinets in the kitchen area which made much more storage area. Our kitchen table sat in the kitchen which was very common then. The other room was another bedroom, which Dad later partitioned off and made into a more modern bathroom and laundry room.

We lived in the house like it was for a few years then Dad got the remodeling fever again. He partitioned off a little more room in between the living room and garage, and made a hallway leading to the garage, and a bedroom for me on one side of the hall and a bedroom for Grandma Mary on the other side of the hall. Dad had gone to Grandma Mary's house while there was snow on the ground and demanded that she come live with us. He had worried for a few years that she would fall or something would happen to her while she was alone. Her brother, Brown lived with her but he was gone a lot and that made Dad uneasy.

Now since I had a new bedroom, my old bedroom was remodeled into a dining room. Dad enlarged the door between that room and the kitchen and it looked very nice. It was about then that Dad had the shop teacher at school build a china cabinet for Mom for their 25th anniversary. He also bought Mom a set of china, white with a gold rim, a set of silver plated silverware and a silver tea service. He loved Mom so much and was always trying to do things like this to please her. And it did please her, although she would have been just as happy in a hut with nothing as long as she had Dad and her family. In fact, she told a story once of moving into a cabin and when they awoke the next morning snow had drifted in between the logs and was covering the bed they were sleeping in.....stuff for another story. Anyway, no one on earth was easier to please than my mom. And she was so overwhelmed and loved everything Dad had gotten for their anniversary.

Enough for now...



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