Next home (#3): suburban Kansas City Colonial style

Our family was blindsided back in 1969 by a sudden need to uproot from our beloved Oklahoma City home and move to the Kansas City area because of a job change for my father.

Tough Times for Dear Old Dad

Thinking back, I take pity on him in my mind as he must have been terribly burdened by (1) learning that his company was moving to Texas . . . where he did not want to go; (2) the job hunt that landed him the Kansas City job; (3) taking care of all that needed tending with regard to both his job and the household in both places . . . the place we were leaving and the place we went to.

Parents With Their Hands Full!

Of course, my parents had a one-income, two parent marriage which meant that my mother could take care of many details regarding the family and houses in both places . . . but she also had a toddler. I honestly don't know how they did it all. They were in their mid 40s; there were four of us kids to contend with, each of us with very different losses in the old place and challenges in the new place.

Looked at 20+ Houses Til They Found "the One"

Sigh. Anyway. Move we did . . . and I think my parents said they looked at more than 20 houses in one day. "Looked at" usually meant going inside. I don't know how many days they had for the house search. I do know that they ended up with a two-story red brick house in a large suburb of Kansas City which, housewise, was an amazing find.

Four (later five) BR, four baths, corner lot, swimming pool

Four bedrooms. Four bathrooms. SWIMMING POOL. Large corner lot . . . again! (We have a thing in this family for corner lots!). Large basement with lots of potential for creative uses . . . and indeed, in our first few months there, my father worked hard to build a bedroom for my oldest brother down there. It was a functional and cozy room . . . . but had no window. I'm not sure why he didn't build the room on a wall with a window. Anyway, the rest of us found it to be a novelty, and often used it in later years for such things as watching movies (since it could get totally dark). I don't remember feeling that the air was stifling or stale or anything like that.

Blue Carpet!

OK, I'm getting off topic. The house was full of wall-to-wall blue carpet, which we liked! Unfortunately, it was beginning to age, so over the next ten years or so, one by one, that carpet was ripped up and either replaced or the floors left bare. Still, it made for a nice feeling house to move into when we first arrived.

A Room For Everyone

With the new bedroom in the basement for my brother, there were now essentially five bedrooms, so we each had our own. (In those first few months, my 2-year-old sister shared my room, using the trundle bed, which I thought was cute . . . but I also thought it was cute when she moved into her own room, which had a pink patterned wallpaper.)

Ground Floor

On the ground floor, there was a large kitchen with a dining area; a dining room with big windows on two walls; two bathrooms, neither of which had a bath or shower, but each of which had a designated function; a living room which was OK but had nothing special about it, a family room with a fireplace and a sliding glass door opening to the swimming pool area (and a door to the garage), and a front entrance hall with a nice light. My mother put a spring rod floor to ceiling thing by the door for us to hang our coats on, which was a good idea.

Bathrooms With Purposes

Anyway, back to the downstairs bathrooms without baths . . . we were told that one was to be the "guest powder room," and the other the "pool bathroom" since it was right by a back door which led out to the pool.

In the guest powder room, care was taken to display interesting hand towels, novelty hand soaps and the like. We were discouraged from using it on a daily basis if we could help it. (That made it enticing to use, I might add.) The pool bathroom was tiny, but had a linoleum floor and a window which looked out to the swimming pool. My mother hoped to contain any drippage of swimming pool water solely to that room, so that chlorine wouldn't drip around the rest of the house.

Swimming Pool Was Fun For Us, Headache For Father

The swimming pool provided great fun for us . . . and many headaches for my poor father. He worked hard to keep the water Ph and chlorine just right . . . . and to keep the pool in a state of good repair, without a large budget to pay some swimming pool upkeep company to do that.

This meant that when the pool liner got a rip in it, he repaired it himself. This happened more than once and turned out to be a risky endeavor, since he rented a SCUBA outfit to go underwater and do the repair. I don't think he had ever done SCUBA diving before . . . and just thinking of how dangerous this could have been still gives me the creeps even though he survived it. We won't talk about how he broke a rib, though . . . !!!

Plenty of Room, But Still Missing Oklahoma City

Anyway . . . . the house was big and spacious. The main problem about living there at first was that we teenagers were very much out of our element. We belonged back in our Oklahoma City world . . . and it took us a long time to adjust . . . if, indeed, we ever did.

Baby of the Family Grew Up There

Our younger sister, however, got to spend all her school years there, from preschool through high school graduation. She ended up moving to one of my brother's rooms after he left home. I hadn't realized that this means she actually lived in three out of the four upstairs bedrooms at one time or another!

More Bathrooms With Specific Purposes

Oh, I forgot to mention that the upstairs had two bathrooms, too. The one with a bath and shower had two sinks with a long counter between the two, and a long mirror. The master bedroom had its own bathroom, but that one had just a shower in it.

Flying From the Nest

It was a lovely house with lots to offer . . . . . but one by one, we kids moved away as soon as we could. I think my parents enjoyed themselves there most when we had all left, in fact! Because they no longer had to deal with our teenage stuff.

Some Fun Times

Anyway, when I think of that house, just from the point of view of the house itself, I remember the large corner lot with lots of flowering bushes (which I think my father planted and nurtured); the stairs with their wrought-iron railing going halfway up; the swimming pool where we frolicked with friends and visiting relatives; the basement bedroom where I held 8-mm movie showings for my siblings and friends; and the cul-de-sac street that it was on, which offered opportunities for adventures for us kids in a number of ways.

Wallpaper Was Pretty But Not "With It"

I'll add a paragraph here about my own bedroom, since it holds some memories in my mind! When we arrived, it had lovely, fancy, floral wallpaper. I don't know WHY I wanted that wallpaper removed before too long . . within a year or two. I guess because I wanted to be able to put posters on the wall .. . and with wallpaper, that was not a great idea.

A Room of My Own

Anyway, I started out sharing the room with my almost-3-year-old sister, until the basement bedroom was completed, allowing my older brother to move downstairs so my sister could move into his room. Our time sharing a room (she and I) was short enough that I thought it was a cute novelty, not a nuisance. I was 12. We had already been sharing a room back in Oklahoma City for about a year so I did not see it as a big deal. But a few months later, she moved out and the trundle bed was put back underneath.

Teenage Stuff

Shortly thereafter I started wanting to do teenagey things with my room like hanging a dramatic orange flower lamp above my bed (loved that lamp!), and put colorful posters and big flower decorations around.

Parakeet

My brother David bought me a parakeet for $1 at K-Mart, and I had a lot of fun taming and playing with that bird, whom I named "Mr. Guy" until we determined that it was a female, at which time we changed the name to "Mrs. Guy."

Cork Wall

I told my mother I wanted to cover one whole wall with cork . . . and she immediately liked that idea and helped me do it. It was a tough and messy job to remove the wallpaper and then glue cork panels all over the wall, but we did an OK job! I realized later that she was keen on the idea because it was the wall between my room and my parents' room . . . and I think my mother was often worried about me hearing voices, etc., coming from their room . . .which I never did . . . (and maybe music of mine going to their room?) -- but the cork-covered wall did insulate our rooms from each other.

Homemade Thingy Hanging From Ceiling

During my first year in that room, I got an idea from a magazine or something to make a "bitetrahedrin" (need to check the spelling) which was a 20-triangle-sided ball so to speak made out of colorful circles cut from magazines and glued together. I was very proud of that and loved having it hanging in my room for many years.

Long, Long Shelf For Dolls (Thank You, Daddy!)

I also wanted to display my dolls high near the ceiling . . .and for that purpose, my father put up a shelf that consisted of brackets and a VERY LONG piece of lumber, as long as the room itself, which was quite spacious! Maybe 15 feet long or so??? I have no idea how he got such a long piece of lumber home but I do know it was all in one piece.

My Room Was a Sewing Room

Another memory of that room was of my mother's sewing machine, which she allowed me to keep in there. At the age of 17, I made plans to go to Mexico for the summer to a mission where girls were required to wear long dresses or skirts -- below the knee or longer. Skirts near or slightly below knee length were not fashionable at all in those days (the 70s) so I made all floor length dresses and skirts! I made about 4 or 5 of them on the sewing machine. Some were favorites of mine for several years. Those were the glory days of my sewing life! Once I went to college, I never thought I had time, and never did much again.

Family Memories at Home

So all in all, I have to say that the room holds memories for me of connections with my parents, my sister and my older brother who gave me the parakeet! I always felt fond gratitude to each one who had given me something to make the room special (father -- shelves; mother -- cork wall and sewing machine; brother -- parakeet; sister -- some fun when we first moved there.) I have no memories of my other brother in connection with that bedroom. I think he rarely if ever came in. I would sometimes go to his room down the hall to admire his purple walls, weird posters and other unique stuff there. I do have memories of being in that bedroom once each with 3 or 4 different beloved males in my life later on . . . just for brief moments with each one, but I do remember those moments clearly! A whole 'nother story with each one -- but part of the history of that room in my life.

Visitors From Out of Town

Oh, just thought of two more things to tell! Or three! (1) My first years there, I had friends from Oklahoma come to visit during summers. They would come by Amtrak, which in those days was the Santa Fe. They would spend the night in there with me for several days, sleeping on the trundle bed. Later this included visits from cousins and from my Minnesota friend, too. (2) A couple of times, I got locked out of the house after school . . . and remembered that my bedroom window was unlocked. So I took my father's very tall ladder and climbed up to get in! My mother was horrified, of course! But I thought it was resourceful and fun! And no one got hurt! I don't remember any thoughts of my father's reaction. I guess he was OK with it since all went well! (3) We had a backyard swimming pool, as I mentioned above. From that bedroom, I could see the pool clearly . . . and often thought it was fun to watch people swimming if I had the opportunity!

So you see, I have quite a lot of memories of that room!

When I find a picture of this house, I'll post it here!