The Old House

When Uncle John was put into the hospital, Barb (Shannahan) brought Aunt Jenny down from Toledo to visit with him and to make sure all the paper work was in order. I had the pleasure of taking her back up to Toledo after my class on Monday. While we were riding I asked Aunt Jenny some questions about her childhood and family. The following is what she had to share with me at that time.
“When I was little, I lived a very different life than kids do today. These kids have a lot of toys and games and TV and the computer. I am just now starting to get the hang of the computer, and I am still not very good at it. Tina’s (Katie’s grandchild) girls can do so much on it that I can not. When I was a young girl, we didn’t have but one or two toys to play with inside and most of the time, mother kicked us outside to play. And when we were old enough to work on the farm, we did chores.
“I always remember that the view of families and marriages in particular, was the man was the strong one in the relationship. But my mother was a very strong woman. She took care of the family and the house while my father was alive. When he passed in 1932, I was only five years old and don’t remember much about him. But when he passed away, mother had to take care of the family, house, and now the farm too. She took care of the money and the labor when needed. Of course, we all helped out when we could. But we all had to finish high school. That is one thing that mom really wanted, for us all to finish high school. We could not afford college, but that was not as important to her as a high school education.
“She did not speak English very well. Some of the things she said made me giggle. (I can not remember what she said that was so funny to Aunt Jenny, but it made her giggle just thinking about it. That feeling of watching my 80+ year old aunt giggle was a very good emotion. So I am not sad to say that I was caught up in the feeling to be able to remember what she said.)
I then asked her about how 9 people (10 with her father) lived in the farm house. I am slowly exploring the farm house in my endeavor to help clean it up for Aunt Jenny because if she has to sell the house and land, it will have to be cleaned out eventually and as of now, it is not livable. She never really got to how so many people lived in this small 6 bedroom, 1 bath house. I know it doesn’t seem like such an impossible feat but when looking at the size of the rooms and I am amazed and awestruck. Granted, they did not have nor need the things we have today for storage.
“The house that is there now? Well, that was not the original house. That house was built after the boys came home from the war. The original one was further from the road that the one that is there now. It amazes me sometimes how lazy those boys were. Look at John. He was a carpenter. And he could not fix that house unless it was to the bare minimum,” said in disgust.
“He would only clean if I told him he had to. There were times when I would come down and call ahead of time to tell him to clean up so I could stay there and he told me I couldn’t stay there! I couldn’t stay in the house I grew up in because he didn’t want to clean it!!! That is when Barb and I started staying in hotels or with family. But I don’t like staying with family because I don’t want to burden them.”
I can attest to the workmanship of the Haluczik boys. That house is amazingly built, and when I think more about how it was the family that built it, I am even more amazed. My mom, Sophia’s daughter, told me that the boys lived upstairs and the downstairs was for the girls and their mother. To give a little lay out of the house, the house is built into a hill. The basement is where the family area is; the kitchen, living room, furnace room, and canning room.
The next level is technically the first floor, and this floor has 3 bedrooms, a formal living area, and the bathroom.
And the second floor/attic has 3 rooms and some storage spaces under the rafters. This area was never completely finished. The drywall is not all the way up, and none of it is covered.
As we go through the house, we are finding more and more things that have their own stories. I really wish I could get some of the stories out of the furniture and walls. The show “If Walls Could Talk” seems more and more inviting and realistic.
There is still so much to do. We have started at the ground up and have only gotten a little over half way through the basement, and we have been at it for almost four weeks. No matter how hard it will be, I am actually looking forward to cleaning the rest of the house too. Pictures, papers, documents, clothes, books, it all has a story that is just waiting to be told.