Mom Moved

After my father died Mom lived in that big house for a while. Then she decided that it was simply too big for a woman living alone.

She moved in with my youngest sister. They were still in Detroit so she was close to the rest of us. Our other sister had moved to Florida with her son. The oldest of our brothers eventually moved to Florida as well.

Mom had been complaining about the cold winters of Michigan and Nebraska (where we were from) for a few years. She decided to move to Florida where she stayed with my sister and her son.

Mom hated Florida. She said it smelled like fish and was always raining.

The sister she was living with is not easy to live with. We all love one another but there are some people you cannot be with all day every day.

Mom moved back to Michigan.

Mom and I had been talking for some time about seeing New England. We decided a road trip was in order.

She picked me up. Off we went to see what we could see in New England.

It was a great trip. We took turns driving. We stopped when we saw something interesting. There were even a couple of times we doubled back when we saw a sign about someplace we had passed and decided to see.

On the spur of the moment we decided to drive to Kentucky to visit my sister and her sons. I did not know it at the time but Mom was toying with the idea of living there.

Mom stayed with my sister for a couple of years. Then she wanted a place of her own. She rented a small place down the road from my sister.

Mom no longer had her own furniture. She built most of her new furniture. Using 2x4's she built a couch and chair that my sister still uses today. Of course the cushions Mom made have long since worn out.

After a period of time my sister needed help because of her job. Someone had to help her boys get ready for school and stay with them after school. Mom moved once again.

One morning she did not call the boys for school. The older one found her still in bed. He sent his little brother up the hill to their other grandmother's house while he called my sister.

Mom had died in her sleep.

We made arrangements for a funeral in Michigan. She is buried between my father and my brother.

The day of her funeral was a cold, cold day with a wind that cut right through to your core. Mom was a loving person who would never hurt anyone. But I think she must have had a wicked moment of glee seeing us all freezing at the cemetery.

My Parents' House

My parents lived in that house for a long time. Two of my brothers had been drafted into the Army. My sister finally returned home.  Two brothers and two sisters were married while they lived there.

My second son was born while my little family had the small apartment there. Then a few years later there was a baby boom in our family. In about a year and a half we had 5 babies in our family. My brother and his wife started it all with my loving niece. She also began a baby boom in her mother's family; they had 7 babies in the same amount of time.

Mom had her garden every year. Besides her vegetables she always had a lot of flowers. My dad had his grapevines and his roses. There were cook-outs which the kids all loved.

Our family flower became the snapdragon. Daddy would pick one blossom and squeeze it on the sides to show his grandchildren how the dragon's mouth would open and close. The kids loved it.

We celebrated holidays in that house. Mom would cook and bake. I mostly baked and contributed some of my goodies.

My niece was so full of love. She was sick all her life but she would take my daughter with her as she went visiting in the neighborhood. My niece had made friends with all the older people who lived in the neighborhood. She would knock on their doors and tell them she just wanted to say hello.

When my niece died my daughter continued the visits as a tribute to her cousin. She told me she knew those people missed my niece and that her cousin wanted her to still visit them. The brother of the woman next door found out that my daughter was making a ball of rubber bands. Any rubber bands he came across would be put on a certain fence post so my daughter knew where to find them. They would promptly be added to the ball.

My niece was 8 when she died. All of us were devastated especially the children who were born in the baby boom. There were 2 new babies in the family. She had pictures of them in her hospital room and was anxious to see them.

My brother was also killed in Viet Nam. It has been 50 years and it is still hard to comprehend. The people of the neighborhood were all so kind. It was touching.

My brother's death was especially hard on my father. They had worked together before my brother was drafted. It was the only time I can remember seeing my father cry.

There were 2 more grandchildren born. Then we began to be grandparents. The way it should be.

Unfortunately my father did not live to see them.

My brother and his wife thought they might be having another baby when my father had a massive heart attack and died.

I hate to end on a sad note. Please know that we all have such wonderful and happy memories of my father. He was a much-loved man.

Everyone from the neighborhood came to the funeral. Everyone from the plant he managed came to the funeral. Not everyone who came could fit inside the funeral home. They waited outside and accompanied him to the cemetery. He would have been proud.

Embezzlement

The stories of my family moving to Detroit is being interrupted. I have a humorous and sad tale to tell.

Quite by accident we found out some news about our little town. The former city clerk was the person available part-time to ask questions about city functions. She arranged meetings of the city council and mayor. She collected utility bills for electricity, water, and trash collection. She applied for grant money to make improvements on city properties.

The clerk also worked at the bank in the next town where we do our banking.

I thought there might be something strange when we were looking at a house across the corner from us that we were thinking of purchasing. The man we spoke to told us he was married to the city clerk.

The bank she worked at received notices of properties that would be foreclosed. She would tell her husbsnd and he would buy them as they went on the market. Then he would renovate them and resell them for a profit. That sounds similar to insider trading to me. Insider trading is illegal.

But that is not what this is about. It seems that she embezzled about $75,000 dollars from our tiny little town. Apparently she did not record all the monthly utility payments as being paid.

I jokingly said, "That is why that fire at the city hall happened!"

Guess what. In an apparent attempt to destroy records a fire was set. Investigation showed that the fire started on her desk near the computer.

Since I had been forced by the city to have some electrical work done outside my house I laughed when the fire happened. After all there was nothing wrong with my electricity but I faced severe fines by the city if I did not have it 'fixed'. It cost me $1800. It was Karma.

The city hall was closed for more than a year as they raised the money and made the repairs. It has re-opened and we have a new city clerk. I hope she is honest.

In the meantime the former mayor has moved away. We have a new mayor. We also have all new city council members.

How was your day?

The New House

My parents moved to a new house with more room. Actually it was an older home that was converted into a three family home. My parents had the whole second floor.

On the first floor lived a Mexican family with several children. I first saw them when they were playing on the porch. They had a snack of buttered tortillas. I felt so sorry for them having such a poor snack. Guess what was one of my children's favorite snacks when they were older... right you are. Buttered tortillas.

A smaller apartment on the first floor was empty. My husband and I rented it.

The neighborhood was so nice and extremely clean. In Detroit there are ethnic pockets scattered throughout the city. This was a Polish neighborhood.  Newcomers are looked upon with suspicion. We had lived there for several years before being accepted.

The house on one side was home to a family from 'down South'. They had 4 little girls. They were such nice people and became good friends.

On the other side lived an older woman and her brother. The older woman also had a boyfriend who lived with her. Her boyfriend was THE MAN FROM DOWNSTAIRS AT THE APARTMENT BUILDING!

The only times we heard him was when they were arguing. That usually happened when they were drinking. Most of the time he was too drunk to do anything much except get into the house.

A lot of people in the neighborhood drank to excess. Several times the man next door was so drunk he could not walk so he would crawl home. More often than not he had also wet his pants.

A man across the street would coax his imaginary dog to follow him home. When he reached the walk leading to his house he began to remove his clothes. After he went inside his wife would come out and quietly gather his clothes and take them inside.

The nice family with 4 little girls moved and my husband and I rented their house. My parents bought the house they were living in.  They converted the house into a one family home.

During all this two of my brothers were drafted into the Army. One went to the DMZ in Korea. The other went to Viet Nam.  Both were in active war zones.

Mom and Daddy had their back yard. There were flowers, a strawberry bed, fresh vegetables, grape vines, and lots of room for an occasional BBQ.

Shall we continue this later? I think so.

Living In The Big City

My husband and I decided to take the older of my siblings and show them around. After all there are a lot of things to see in a city.

There had been a recent snowfall. In rural areas snow sort of lays there or packs down a bit. In the city it becomes slush very quickly.

My husband was driving, I was in the middle of the front seat, and the oldest of my brothers was by the door. My sister and two other brothers were in the back seat.

As we were driving through downtown Detroit my brother had his window open and was trying not to miss anything. Suddenly SPLAT! A car drove by and threw slush up from its tires. My brother took it all in the face and down the front of his clothes.

Of course we all laughed. He was soaked so we cut our excursion short and went home.

My sister began dating a young man that my husband and I knew. It did not last long. She met someone we did not know and disappeared with him.

We searched for her for a long time but there was no trace of her. After a few years she finally wrote to one of my brothers in the Army. She was married and living in California. He gave her my address and she wrote to me.

She wanted to come home but was afraid. I told her to come to my house. I knew my parents wanted her home. The first day she came to my house I took her to see my parents. She decided to stay with them after all.

(By the way the young man she was dating married my brother-in-law's wife's sister. They divorced after having 4 children. By then my husband and I were divorced. My husband married her. Confused? We all are.)

My third brother had a rough time at school. Detroit has a well-earned reputation for being a violent city. Several days a week my brother was chased from school. They would take his shoes off of him to make sure he was not hiding any money. He never had any but that did not stop them.

The oldest two brothers were drafted while we lived in that apartment building.

My parents finally decided to move into a house. That story is next.

The Apartment Building

Our apartment building was in the Cass Corridor. Only three blocks away was the Masonic Temple which hosted plays among other events. Next door was the Employment Office. Across the street was a hotel of ill-repute. At the other end of the street was Woodward Avenue which is one of the main thoroughfares of the city.

My husband and I lived on the third floor... no elevator. We had a living room/dining room, bedroom, and bathroom. It was not a bad place to live even though the neighborhood was bad.

My son who was a baby slept in a dresser drawer atop the dresser. That way he was close when he woke up hungry and I was still in bed.

This was where my parents stayed with us when they first arrived. Of course it was crowded.  Besides my husband, baby, and me there were my parents and six brothers and sisters.

My parents rented an apartment on the first floor. It was much larger. So my family moved there. They enrolled the children in school. Daddy looked for work.

In less than a week my father was employed. The kids were in school. It seemed that things were working out well... for the most part.

The apartment directly below my parents was occupied by a strange man. Apparently he had been a merchant seaman at one time. He was loud and rude. One of his ears had been pierced.  During a fight his earring was ripped out leaving his earlobe split and separated.

He had a habit of imagining enemies outside his window. He would scream and curse at them. Then he would throw firecrackers and M-80's at them. This usually happened after he had been drinking.

On his good days he would place his radio in the window and turn it up as high as it would go.

My parents asked him nicely if he could stop with the fireworks and not play the radio quite so loud. He was congenial and agreed to be quieter.

The noise did not stop although he only played the radio loud when he knew my father was at work.

Finally Mom had all she could stand. She had a pan of water boiling on the stove. She took it and leaned out the window. She threw the whole pan of hot water at the radio. BULLSEYE! The radio sputtered and crackled and died. When he got a new radio he kept the sound down.

Next door to our apartment lived a man with his daughter and son. The daughter and my sister became close friends. Over the years they grew apart. However the girl married my husband's younger brother. They now have seven children and a whole bunch of grandchildren.

More next time.

Places To Live

When I first arrived in Detroit my husband and I stayed with his brother and family until we found an apartment on the East side. We lived just a few blocks from the Detroit River.

Our apartment was on the second floor. There was another apartment on the same floor. The first floor was occupied by a young family with several children. The husband was a veteran. The wife was from Germany.

The third floor was not much more than an attic. A strange man lived there. He drank to excess. When he was drinking he would play records of Hitler's speeches. He was sure that would attract the woman from the first floor.

The day he went out into the street and stopped traffic was the day they finally did something about him. Because the traffic was backed up the police came. He was delirious and violent. That was the last time we saw him.

Eventually we moved to another apartment. It was in the Cass Corridor near downtown Detroit.

The Cass Corridor is a bad area. Not the worst but bad.

Across the street from our building was a hotel. That was where the prostitutes took their 'clients'. Sometimes some of us who lived in the apartment building would choose a hooker and see how many men she would entertain in an afternoon. It became a game.

When the riots in 1967 happened that area was dangerous. We happened to be visiting my husband's brother and family that day. A mutual friend came into the house in the evening to watch the news to see what time the curfew started. We all thought he was crazy.

We stayed there for a week until it was safe to go home. In the meantime there was a high-speed car chase down the street as we were standing in front of the house talking to neighbors.

My parents were frantic. They had not yet come to the big city. They had no idea where I was or whether we were safe. They sent a telegram that I did not receive because I was not home. I had no idea that it was national news.

My family was relieved when I called them to let them know that we were all safe.

Later that year was when I took my baby to meet his grandparents. Then they came to the big city.

More next time.