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My mother said, "Someday this house will belong to someone else, and another family will have their own stories of living here to tell."
And she was wise.
This thread caused me to look up my childhood home which was built in 1971 and was sold about 15 years ago. Luck would have it, it changed hands last year so there were pictures on Realtor.com. It's a small house (1100 sq feet) in a still decent working class neighborhood and I'm guessing the subsequent owners haven't had the money to make many changes. The avocado green tile is still in the kitchen as are the original cabinets and the Sears ceiling fan my parents had installed in the early 80's. Hanging chain fixtures in the main bathroom are still there too.
It was a very solid little house, on a spacious corner lot and I'd happily buy it, if I had any desire to live in my hometown again, which I do not. Once you've lived someplace that's a lot better, it's hard to go back.
I've wondered that for the longest time; then a year or two ago got curious and looked up my old childhood home - and saw that it was for sale.
Thanks to everything being online now, I got to see all the interior & exterior photos that the realtor put up.
It was interesting to see what had & hadn't changed in 40 years.
It didn't feel like "home" - those childhood memories just live in my head now.
I got curious and looked up the house again - my memory was a little off (the last time I had looked it up was actually in 2018);
anyways - it looks like it sold again in 2020, and thankfully photos from that are still online.
Whoever bought it in 2018 did quite a bit of remodeling during the two years they were there.
One of the things I find a bit humorous is that during my childhood (from the 1960s to 1980), there was a large cutout/opening in the wall between the dining area and living room.
That got filled in sometime between 1980 and 2018.
As part of their remodeling, the new (as of 2018) owners re-opened up that wall, and made it look, essentially, how it originally did when first built in the 1960s. I guess what was once old is new again : )
My parents built their one and only house in 1951. My father designed it. Made the down payment with his WWII War Bonds. My parents substantially remodeled it in 1963 because the family had gotten too big - Baby Boom and all.
It was a Ranch-style house with just a small bit of South Pacific Tiki vibe. It had very unusual bamboo wood paneling in the hallway, and my immigrant grandfather sawcut all of the square wood panels for the living room wall. The morning side of the house was covered with a bank of large plate glass windows with views of two snow-capped mountains, until the neighbor's trees got too big about 40 years later.
They died in that house in 2003, and it was sold to a new family in 2004 who live there still. When I'm back (rarely) in my hometown I studiously avoid going by it, though via street view, I can see that the yard has been changed. Nothing horrible, but it's different, and the yard was my mother's special project. When neighbors complimented her on it, she was quite pleased.
I don't want to see the interior. I don't want new images to intrude on the pictures of my memory.
My grandparents home is now occupied by my uncle, so I could technically see it anytime. As a kid I thought it was huge, as an adult it seems small with a choppy floorplan. It had a formal entrance, living room and staircase we never used, everyone came in through the kitchen and used the rear staircase.
My parents built a brand new house in the 70s, I've seen pics online and driven by it a few times. At one point it was worth about 8-9 times what my parents paid for it. Today it looks rough, whole neighborhood does.
The last home I lived in as a kid has traded hands 3-4 times. Someone that knew my family ended up buying it so they offered to show it to us anytime, one of my siblings toured it. It looks the same from the outside with the exception of paint color and new driveway.
They are all just concrete blocks and wood. The real estate isn't what is important, the memories are (if they were good)
I looked on google maps at my childhood home once and was delighted to see it. The photo caught the magnolia tree in the front yard in full bloom. It was beautiful.
My brother and I planted that tree in '63 and it is still alive and faring well. The grape arbor in the back is gone and the crab apple tree on the side (whose fruit was great for slingshots!) is gone, too. My farm-raised mother made jelly out of those blue Concord grapes we had growing in the back yard and the jars were sealed with a top coating of wax. I wouldn't touch the wine she made from those grapes because it was too sour.
One funny story about the house where I grew up: In January of '56 I was three. The youngest in my family, I was shuttled off to babysitters each day when my parents went to work and my siblings went to school. For several days I had been at my grandmother's house, which I liked. Their house was about two blocks from the house my folks had been renting.
Finally, about 5 o'clock my grandmother said that my mother was home and I could go home. "How?", I asked. "Someone needs to pick me up. I don't know the way." My Nana said: "Silly boy! You live next door."
My father had built a house right next to his father and never told me! Sure enough, I went next door and knocked on the door and my folks and all my stuff was there.
I remember having to move out of my childhood garden apartment because they were tearing the building down. Years passed and it sat, until it finally started collapsing on its own and had trees growing up through it. I drove my daughter past it whenever I wanted to remind her how good she had it, compared to me.
I've driven by the three houses I grew up in: my grandparents' house where we lived with them until I was two, the house my parents built, and the house they bought and moved to when I was 10, in which I lived until I got married.
My grandparents' house and the first house are both in bad neighborhoods now. The third house has been remodeled extensively but strangely, but the neighborhood has gone downhill.
I looked on google maps at my childhood home once and was delighted to see it. The photo caught the magnolia tree in the front yard in full bloom. It was beautiful.
My brother and I planted that tree in '63 and it is still alive and faring well. The grape arbor in the back is gone and the crab apple tree on the side (whose fruit was great for slingshots!) is gone, too. My farm-raised mother made jelly out of those blue Concord grapes we had growing in the back yard and the jars were sealed with a top coating of wax. I wouldn't touch the wine she made from those grapes because it was too sour.
One funny story about the house where I grew up: In January of '56 I was three. The youngest in my family, I was shuttled off to babysitters each day when my parents went to work and my siblings went to school. For several days I had been at my grandmother's house, which I liked. Their house was about two blocks from the house my folks had been renting.
Finally, about 5 o'clock my grandmother said that my mother was home and I could go home. "How?", I asked. "Someone needs to pick me up. I don't know the way." My Nana said: "Silly boy! You live next door."
My father had built a house right next to his father and never told me! Sure enough, I went next door and knocked on the door and my folks and all my stuff was there.
People don't always inform the children of basic information. I can remember sitting in my grandmother's kitchen and asking her if she had any children, and she started laughing. I was shocked to learn that my father was her kid!
I was also curious when I went to school and became friends with the new girl who had moved in around the corner. The idea of "moving" to another town and another house fascinated me. I asked my parents if we could move somewhere different, too. We never did. They both died in that house!
I just learned that my 1920s' era childhood home, where I lived from age 10 to 18, has been torn to the ground. Swimming pool filled in, all trees cut down etc. Just a flat lot now.
They never even listed it, although it was beautifully restored, modernized, and valued at 2.3 million. Nope, even at that price, complete teardown, to be replaced by a $4 million glass box built on spec.
My 50th high school reunion was scheduled for 2020 but was pushed ahead due to covid. I decided to fly back for it from L.A. sort of as a final "goodbye" to Ohio. My plan is to visit all of the places I lived while I was there around the Cleveland area and then drive down to Columbus to say goodbye to my alma mater. I know I'll never have a reason to go back to Ohio again. As for my childhood home, I plan to contact the owner and try to arrange an interior walk-through. I found an old photo of me standing in front of the house as a child so I hope she trusts I'm not crazy. The reunion has been pushed to 2025 now, so we'll see. I have also done all the Googling, all the places look about the same.
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