Children in the Closet....Chapter 19

 

Chapter 19

 

          It was in the winter of 1967 that Jesse and I started looking for a house. I was 18 and Jesse was 23. Jesse was now making decent money with his own masonry company Stone Creations. The name of the company was perfect as it suited his talents as a stone mason. He laid stone with what is called a hidden joint meaning the wall, or water fall, or chimney or fireplace all looked as if they were stones just stacked up with no mortar showing. Jesse worked fairly steady and had one and sometimes two helpers or laborers.  

         We lived within our means so when we didn't have work, we didn't spend any money. When we did have plenty of jobs, we stocked up on pantry items to hold us through the times we couldn't buy groceries. We always have something to eat and by this time I had learned to cook a pot roast, make chicken and dumplings and a dozen ways to make a meal from a pound of cheap hamburger. We were very frugal with our money. We continued to attend church at Northgate Baptist in Irving and continued to tithe. Jesse had professed Christ as his Savior and was baptized that spring.

              Since Irving was centrally located between Dallas and Fort Worth and since we had family in Fort Worth and most of our work was in Dallas, we decided to look at houses there. We began to look at houses whenever Jesse wasn't working.

               It was July when we found our home, located on a curved street that twisted like a snake with a luscious green lawn of St. Augustine grass (which I thought only wealthy people had having grown up with Bermuda grass all my life) and a huge elm tree in the back yard as well as an ash tree at the side and two pecan saplings in the front yard. We loved the way this house looked.

               Inside was as beautiful to my eyes as the outside was. Three bedrooms and two baths, a small den and a nice kitchen, it also had a covered patio outside the sliding glass doors of the den.

               Built in 1959, most of the homes in the neighborhood were occupied by the original owners at that time. Ours, however, had two previous owners and carried two small second liens on the property.That’s what made it affordable for us. We were thankful that we had established a good credit rating and bought the house on July 11, 1967.

              We were thrilled! Both of us had moved from house to house in our childhoods and we wanted a forever home that our children could grow up in and that we could make our very own. It was an exciting day when we moved in.

          Summer had the larger of the small bedrooms and we made the smallest one Baby Jesse’s nursery. Our bedroom had the bathroom and I thought that was the best thing in the world. We happily settled in and even bought some furniture for the den. We bought a couch that made down into a bed because we wanted to be able to have family over to spend the night.

               I believe I was born with the gift of hospitality and always loved homemaking and now I had a real home. That summer we invited our siblings over and it felt wonderful! Mother would stay for awhile when she dropped the kids off and I loved to show her all the new things we had done to the house. We put up curtains and I waxed the floors until they were so shiny, they looked wet. Pine Sol was always under the kitchen sink and I used it every day. Keeping a clean house was important to me and I loved doing it.

          Summer turned into fall and I had my 19^th birthday and then celebrated Jesse and my sister, Lanita’s birthday on November 5^th.  That was on a Sunday so I baked a cake and we had a party. Growing up we didn’t always get to celebrate birthdays and I think only Lanita had ever had a party. That was when she was four or five years old and we were living with Aunt Ruby.

              We invited Mother and my siblings along with their spouses and children over for Thanksgiving. Mother came early and helped me cook. It was wonderful!

               Our first Christmas in our very own home was a real celebration. Early in December we picked out a Scotch Pine tree and strung it with colored lights. And once again we made Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve.

               In the spring of 1968, Lanita got married. We invited all our siblings over for Easter that year and we grilled hot dogs in the back yard. In the summer we made homemade ice cream and ate it on the front porch. And in September Lanita gave birth to a baby boy. She was only 14 years old.

                Lloydine got married that winter. She was 16. Mother could not understand why she did that. She wasn’t pregnant like Lanita and I had been. Turns out, Lloydine just wanted an escape. She and I both married guys that had just as dysfunctional a childhood as we did, while Lanita married into a warm, loving family. We were so happy for her.

               Only Lonnie was at home with Mother now. He married before he was 20 and, like us, he married a girl who was just as messed up as he was. Between his crazy wife and his jealous mother, they made his life miserable.