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My younger childhood home in St. Louis was my grandparents' home beginning around 1910. It was a 2-story shotgun frame with upstairs bedrooms. This is in the Clifton Heights area if you know west St. Louis. When I lived there the bathroom was in the basement -- something added instead of the outhouse that my mom talked about as a kid. My family, the four of us, lived in one bedroom and my grandma had the other bedroom until 1953. She died that year and we moved to the suburbs and my aunt moved into the house from an apartment. The house went through some various renovations over the years and began to fall onto hard times as my aunt became elderly. She eventually only lived on the lower level three rooms, but the bathroom was still in the basement. When she died in the 1990s we cleaned out the place and sold it. We figured it would be torn down, but it was rehabbed and looks pretty good. I'd like to see the inside today.
My house from 1953 still exists and it had a couple owners since the 1970s. It is boarded up and has an obvious hole in the roof and the storm door has fallen off its hinges. It looks awful and is probably not livable. From what I learned; it is caught up in an owner's estate conflict, but this has been going on for a long time. The back fence is the city limit for Ferguson, Mo. The Michael Brown shooting was not far away, maybe a half mile. The neighborhood and other homes look great and aged well.
Before she died Mom asked me to drive her down to see it. We sat in the car a long, silent while and then she said, "I don't recognize it anymore." I felt the same.
It was a large Victorian, well-maintained to the end but in a small town. People who couldn't afford homes other places were buying in the town and didn't/couldn't keep the homes up.
I found out later they were making and selling meth out of it and they had put up a cheap high wood fence all around it. Eventually it was foreclosed upon. Such an undeserved ending for a good house.
What was really sad to me was that it had a large backyard with climbing trees and a grape arbor, fun for children and it was Mom's hope to sell it to a family with children. The people who bought it brought children along with them when we closed but those people apparently never lived there. I'm glad she didn't know.
On my honeymoon with my first wife, went by the house I lived in from age five to eleven years. It had burned down. I now live a mile from the house I lived in from age 11 to 19 years. My father lived in that house from 1960 til his death in 2008. The new owners maintain it very well. It is a distinct pleasure to see it when I make my daily drives, our family had some great years in that house.
I've driven by my childhood home, which is about 40 miles away and was sold 25 years ago. The front exterior looks almost exactly the same. However, a couple of my siblings have been inside and described the remodeling that was done, and some years ago I looked at Google Earth to see the back yard. It was totally destroyed. We had a big rose garden with roses my mom planted over the years, a big lawn, orange trees from an original Orange County orchard, and lots of other fruit trees and established plants and bushes. Everything was torn out to put in a swimming pool surrounded by concrete. That breaks my heart. I have no desire to see that in person.
IF you lived in your childhood home till you moved, do you ever want to return for old times ? Good memories, not so pleasant, whatever reason, or let the past be the past ?
Acknowledge, times have pass, it won't be the same. Sorta a farewell ?
My parents continued to live in their home until they both passed, so we continued to visit year after year with our kids. After they were gone, my wife encouraged us to keep the house, so I took ownership, did some updates, and made it our retirement home. We have been here full time for almost 4 years now.
The house is a 1920s-built 2 family home. My grandparents bought the house in the 1940s and lived in the upper unit (along with my mother and her brothers), and when she married my father they lived downstairs and had us kids.
So the house has now been continuously occupied by family for 80 years, and lots of history and memories, good and bad. We didn't buy it especially for the "memories" as many of those are of a rough neighborhood near active railroads and a coal company terminal, but for what it is today. Its a great house, and the neighborhood has greatly changed for the positive in the last decades and has now become a highly desirable part of town. The good memories are just a bonus. One thing that has not changed is that I am still 2 short blocks away from the corner ice cream stand, which still operates every summer, although there are no longer 10 cent lemon ice cups or 15 cent ice cream cones.
It's still almost too new in my mind. My mother died in 2020 in the house my parents built and moved into in 1957, nine months before I was born (I am kid 4). My father died in the kitchen in 1999.
I finished cleaning it out and sold it in early June 2021. It was so weird, dreams night after night of telling my parents, grandmother, and late brother they had to leave because the house was being sold, and then afterward telling them they had to go because someone else lives there now. Finding so many things in the house while cleaning it out, including the original land survey and the contract for building the house. Dad paid extra for birch kitchen cabinets, apparently. Found the manual for the original boiler, which my parents slways maintained and that still heats the house.
I took photos, inside and out. Walked through the yard and said goodbye to the trees.
otterhere, moved, if you did move from your parents home, the years you resided in a resident till you possibly moved into your own dwelling.
Myself, childhood home, left at 19, returned a few times till I married, age 24. The home was an arts and crafts home, middle class?, north Oakland, California. My parents lived there from 1950 to 1990. Bless my husband took pictures of the interior before they moved.
Built in 1909, it has had only 4 owners. Shocked to see something of a similar interior, in the movie Made in America.
What prompted this Thread, wanting to visit San Francisco, after not been there in 30 years Know it's not the same, from the 1950's, 1960's; cannot imagine the Bay Bridge with only one deck. Remember when trains traveled on the lower deck.
I grew up in a sunny 5th floor walk-up apartment in a big city northeast of just about everywhere. I moved out at 21 (just across town), and at 29 I moved to CA, but my parents stayed in the apartment all through the years, because it was a really attractive location, and walking up those stairs every day probably added years to their lifespan. After they were gone, both in their 90s, I had 7 weeks to clear the apartment, with six decades of collectibles and memories piling up. That is one of the most trying tasks I have ever had to take on. The stuff nightmares are made of. I didn't have time to get a decent price for all the antiques, or even go through everything in the attic before the movers cleared it. In the end I was able to hand the keys over to the landlord on the last day. For years afterwards I couldn't go to swap meets or yard sales because I kept seeing collectibles I had to let go...and we still have 16 plastic bins of irreplaceable family stuff shipped from my childhood home sitting in our hallway and garage...
During the last walk-through I found one of my mom's address labels on the floor. I took it with me, of course, as a final assurance from beyond that I'd done a decent job. Oh, and I also found my dad's lost wedding ring in the attic...
Our old neighbor sent me pictures of the renovation before the new renters moved in, but I have never, ever wanted to go back.
On the other hand, I inherited my folks' tiny lake cabin where I spent all summers until I moved away from home, and many a summer after that, coming to visit. Very little has changed. Still no indoor plumbing. As long as I can afford it, I'm keeping it, even if I can't go back every summer. It is a time machine.
I grew up in a one-story, 1200 sf brick home built in the 1950’s. My father did a lot of the masonry work on the house. It was quintessential suburban with a nice yard, maples, swimming pool, and a grape arbor in the back yard. We had fields and wooded areas within a 5 minute bike ride. I walked to school for the first seven years.
When my mom passed some years ago we sold it and the new owner painted all of the white trim work brown. He removed all of the neat yews and hedges and put in ornamental grasses. He tried to modernize it, but it looks awful.
When my mom passed we spent some time sorting out the years’ worth of possessions. What a task. It was also maybe a bit therapeutic. I took pictures. Every once in a while I drive the ten minutes out of my way to cruise down my old street. The woods are gone as the area has built up, but the area is decent.
Lots of memories, but the property has changed.
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