To own a home

Every house before 1958 didn't belong to us we were temporary residents. When we returned to Pueblo we started looking for a house to buy. Having left the military and hubbby spending one year in school and no job. My father purchased the house we wanted and sold it to us on a contract of sale.

This was a bugalow house with the living room, dinning room on one side and a bedroom with bath between the second bedroom on the other side of the house. The kitchen was a small tacked on item behind the dinning room. This was a fun house and one we were living the Cleavers from Leave it Beaver life in. Lots of fun things to remember happened in that house. My boys both started school, school was 3 blocks away so the boys walked to and from without a parent. Bruce knew all the names of the little girls in his class. I was beginning to think he was in a class of all girls. Also a teacher told him he couldn't sing and to just mouth the words to this day he won't sing. Pat first discovered he wasn't his big brother, teachers kept saying why aren't you like Bruce, because he was almost two years younger but following only one year behind him in school. This started the competition of all competitions.

I decided to paint the kitchen, the boys turned over the gallon can of paint. I spend the rest of the day sopping up jade paint with a rag and wringing it back into the can. I needed the paint to finish painting the kitchen. I also decided one time to paint the railings and floor of the front porch. I enlisted the aid of two little boys to help. What can go wrong painting the floor of the porch. Wrong even the dog in the back yard had paint on her and she never left the back yard. That is still a mystery. Then there was the time I decided to lay flag stone in the area in front of the garage. Bruce got his finger stuck under one of the heavier ones and almost pulled his fingernail out. A trip to the emergency room to remove the rest of the nail. To make Bruce feel better Pat and I decided he needed a dog. We went in search and found a darling little toy fox terrier. Promptly named Hector. The boys loved that dog so much he slept with them. Every time I started one these projects was when Hubby was out of town so it was just the boys and I. Both the boys got bikes for Christmas while we were there and learned to ride them. Pat got hit by a car and had his foot in a cast.

Does this sound like June Cleavers life well it wasn't. The nation was going through a resession and there wasn't enough money to go around. Hubby and my arguments were all about money or the lack of it. During one of arguments hubby ask me why I didn't get a divorce and marry someone that had more than he did. I seriously considered that and in all honesty answered. Why would I do that I would just get someone worse than you. This of course tickled my hubby and we both wound up laughing our selves silly. About that I time I decided I needed to go to work to help with the finances. Now my mom and dad were in our business constantly. My sister could work and run the music store but I had to stay home and take care of my kids. It's funny my sisters and my kids were not delinquents and are functioning and respectable adults now and we both worked.

One of my most pleasant memories of that little house was laying in bed watching the snow falling on the pine tree outside our bedroom window. That house was pleasant and warm and very friendly to a small disfunctional family.

Silly things your kids remember from that time. One year for our anniversary there wasn't money for a babysitter and a dinner out for hubby and I. I decided to celebrate at home. I bought steaks to broil, frozen strawberries for strawberry shortcake. I had the boys help set, I thought elegant table. I made them dress up like going to church and I dressed up. We had a great dinner all four of us to celebrate our anniversary. The boys kept asking me to do it again for a long time.