735 N Eleventh Street

 

I doubt that we moved as often as most people. Mom and I Dad live in a little house on Eleventh Street in Miamisburg from soon after their marriage (1945) until 1956 when Bob was born and we moved across the street. Really.

That first tiny house, all of 831 square feet of living space, wouldn’t be big enough nowadays for people to use as a storage building. It had no outbuildings but for what was once an outdoor toilet in the southwest corner of the back yard but which had been converted to storage before I was born.

Luckily we had an indoor bathroom by the time of my birth but I doubt it predated me by much. My maternal grandfather was a plumber and I understand he did much of the conversion work. It was similarly small, barely bigger than the outdoor toilet, but it did have a toilet, a bathtub, a sink and running water. Even hot.

Mom always told me that was an unspeakable luxury in the early years of her marriage. I never knew life without hot water and a flush toilet and I’m sure it was a real plus for my parents and diaper changes. It makes me wonder how our forefathers ever existed with any degree of comfort when they were trudging through snow drifts to go to the bathroom. It gives credence to chamber pots.

I suppose they saw a place that was enclosed – with a roof over it – was enough of an improvement that they though they were living a luxurious life indeed. But not my mother. A tub was her minimum requirement for existence and she’d have never been happy with less.

The house itself was purchased with the help of my paternal grandparent’s assistance. Without that, I doubt my father’s job as a grocery would have allowed them to afford it. Mom worked at an insurance office until she was married and that was the end of that. Her boss, Mr. Garlow, once told her, “Use your noodle, Mary Catherine” and it was a lesson she carried for life and commented on often.

Mom - 1943

Besides a single bathroom – for who could fit another in that square footage? - there was one bedroom, a living room, a dining room and a kitchen. A porch covered the front of the house and I seem to remember some sort of enclosed area at the back of the house. It was probably large enough to hold a few pair of shoes and maybe a place to hang a coat. I mostly remember watching flies on a screen.

Halfway through their eleven year ownership of that house I was conceived and the number living beneath that roof increased from two to three for the final six years. I often told Mom that I could  remember farther back than most infants and I remembered where my crib was, where their bed was, and how warm I was in that small confined space.

Do a new mothers over-swaddle their freshly-minted infants? Or did I simply have a hot constitution (which I’ve surely outgrown)? That’s the same memory I have of when I was taken to my grandparents to stay in another crib. Maybe babies cry as much for comfort as for attention.

In the backyard we had a rabbit hutch which held one bunny. I wonder if it was purchased for me and where it came from? A child just realizes some things are simply there and there’s no need to reason why. At some point my parents had enough of it. I imagine cleaning the hutch wasn’t a pleasant project and they determined to get rid of the rabbit. When I finally realized what was happening I remember crying in a deeply-hurt rage. My mother wrapped her arms around me and showed the tenderest compassion so that I was almost (though not completely) embarrassed that the loss of the rabbit hurt me so. I had never played with it or showed any interest at all. And yet I felt a sudden loss and was barely consolable. But the loss came with a more early lesson: someone cared.

I have a number of vivid memories from that house, even though I’ve now been gone from it for 65 years. I remember searching for four-leaf clovers in the back yard and the plethora of dandelions. The lawn was awash in waves of yellow and when they bloomed, white wisps drifted about like cast-off foam.

On the right side of the back yard there was a trash barrel and we burned our refuse there. It was certainly still in the days before ecological considerations because we burnt everything that could be burnt, and a few that couldn’t. Once Mom had emptied the trash into the barrel and had set it ablaze while I played in the back yard. Suddenly there was an explosion and the air filled with white foam. A can of shaving cream had exploded. Looking back now I see how dangerous that event was. Had someone been standing over the barrel they’d surely have been blinded.

I remember learning to ride a bike in that yard and how difficult balance was. I had a small bike with training wheels but once removed the bike became useless to me. I worked on that project much of a summer and conquered it with only the greatest determination.

I have warm thoughts about sitting on the front porch one night with my parents as a severe thunderstorm passed nearby. I marveled at the lightning and thunder and rather than respond to it fearfully I learned to welcome it. Even today I find nothing so comforting as a severe thunderstorm.

I heard my first sonic booms there, too. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was close and in those days after WWII there was little concern for breaking residential windows. For a child, though, it was great fun to hear something so powerful and unexpected.

Just as our earliest fears are learned; so, too, are our earliest pleasures.

I learned early on the incredible joy of gardening and having flower beds. What child wouldn’t be amazed at realizing the power within a dry seed? We come face-to-face with the miraculous when we encourage mere dust to grow into marvelous plants. Every child should watch a sweet potato placed in a dish of water become an adult plant. Or a bean seed tucked in a little soil conduct the age-old miracle of germination. All that life tucked in something so apparently dead.

It was at that house that my mother had a miscarriage and I remember one night the commotion when she got up, fell in the kitchen and hit her head on the edge of the stove. Was she pregnant more than once before my brother arrived in 1956? I think so, though my mother would have shared this with me many years later. A child does not care much about the illness of others.

And doesn’t having a goldfish offer the teaching opportunity for the reverence of life? I’d be daily reminded to drop small pieces of those flat, white wafers into the water and watch the fish come up to eat.

Perhaps the most startling memory of my few years in that first house was that we had a television. My aunt, perhaps better off than most, bought my parents a TV. The potential was realized early on, just as we did the same decades later with the Internet and cell phones.

I had ready-made entertainment: Amos and Andy, The Honeymooners, I Love Lucy, The Life of Riley, Leave it to Beaver. Of course even earlier I enjoyed programs for children: The Mickey Mouse Club, Captain Kangaroo and locally -produced shows.

The Lone Ranger was a favorite and my grandmother once took me to the Montgomery County Fair to see Clayton Moore, watch Silver gallop across the track and carry home a plastic “silver bullet” which I cherished until I lost it.

A small record player offered my first opportunity to gain some manly stature. It was placed on a stool between the dining room and the kitchen, where Mom was cooking. I’d listen to various children’s records there. Gene Autry was a favorite. One day I noticed an unusual smell and called for my Mom. She praised me profusely when I prevented a sure fire.

My other introduction to electronics was the gift of a small toy Geiger counter (it was the Atomic Age, after all). I was enthralled with how it lit up and was surely destined to become a scientist. But when I took it apart, I found just a switch, a battery and a light bulb and thought less of its sophistication.

Towards the end of our life there I was called by Mom to meet my brother. He wasn’t born yet but she lay on the bed, pulled up her shirt and let me watch him thump on her belly from inside. Dad stood nearby and watched, too. I was amazed to actually see the skin move, to imagine the tiny fist inside testing for a way out. Soon we would become four and the house would become too small.

I was only three when the field across from us became the site of another house. I watched it being developed from the day the ground was being cleared to the first stick frame standing above the basement hole. I didn’t know it then but I was watching my next home being built.

© 2021 William G Schmidt