The Big White House on Main Street

I wrote about this topic for my college entrance essays, but here I go again...

As an Army Brat, there are some questions I cannot answer:

Where are you from?

I can answer questions like: Where were you born? Where did you graduate from High School?

Also, HOME takes on a bigger meaning when you are an Army Brat.

Growing up, I always considered "New England" as where I was "FROM." We would go visit all our relatives every summer, spending time at "Camp."

(Read about CAMP Here, and Here, and Here, and one of my favorites: Here)

Another place I remember was the Big-White-House-on-Main-Street.

The house belonged to my Nana (my maternal Great Grandmother). We lived there off and on for the first 6 years of my life. My Grandmother and Grandfather lived in the house taking care of my Nana during that time. Whenever we were between a move or in need of family, we lived there. We lived there before we moved to Ft Lewis when I was 2. We lived there when my mother was pregnant with my brother and my father was going to OCS. We lived there when we came back from Germany before moving to Oklahoma. I even started first grade in that house.

I remember different things about the house. My Nana was elderly and mostly stayed in a upstairs bedroom. I would eat breakfast with her in her room. I would have half of her banana = "Nana Banana." I would sit in the hallway and look at the curio cabinets that held all her statues and trinkets. I even have a couple still. I remember going in to the basement where my Aunt Patti lived and dancing around a pole while Uncle Mike played the organ. I remember walking to school past milk-weed and a big weeping willow.

Years ago after my Nana died and all my aunts had moved out, my grandparents sold the house to a doctor. Now, the house, apparently, is for sale again. Too bad we aren't moving to Maine...

PS: To those who read this blog and remember this house, post your favorite memories in the comment section or email it to me and I'll add it to this post...

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EDITED TO ADD NANA's Memories of the house

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I remember every single thing about that house. I really can't say that for houses I actually lived in.

The attic was my favorite place. I would get there by going up a narrow wooden staircase and then pushing open a "hatch". The attic had eves that were stuffed with wonderful things like old chests of drawers with sewing notions -- ric-rac, spools of thread, tins of buttons, craft paper, sewing patterns..... stuff upon stuff. I could pour over it for hours. And the attic had such a far-away and private feel to it.

The second floor had the bedrooms and the main bathroom. The front bedroom was the one where my first real memory occurred. I remember visiting my great grandmother Drake while she was laying in her bed (I think I was about 2.) That bedroom later was my Nana's bedroom.

The other street side bedroom was Papa's room. I always was amazed by the way Nana placed the beds "kitty-corner" in all the bedrooms so that they stuck out into the room at an odd angle. That made a little triangle of nothingness behind the headboards.

The next room was "Uncle Richard's Room." I'm not sure if the rose wall paper and pink woodwork was there when Richard was growing up though! When I was a teenager in Braintree, MA, and was allowed to pick my own wallpaper I chose roses similar to Uncle Richard's room (and also chose a Waverly rose print for our room in Springfield, VA a few years ago. I always loved that paper.)

The fourth bedroom must have been my mother's room as a child, but we knew it as "the Sewing Room." As a child, I remember that room with a pull out sofa. For some reason unknown to me, I was petrified of sleeping in that room as a child. I remember laying in bed afraid to go to sleep because I was convinced that the "boogie man" would come out of the closet or out from under the bed.

In the upstairs hallway was a wonderful barrister's bookcase with books and knickknacks.

When Nana was elderly and disabled, there was an "electric chair" to carry her up and down the stairs. You, Becky, loved riding in that chair!

The front hall had small matching bookcases on either side of the front entryway. Those are now on either side of my bed as my nightstands. They hold lamps that were in one of the bedrooms. There was a glass door into the entryway (just a small closet sized room) that led to the front door that was never used.

The living room spanned one whole side of the house and had a fireplace in the middle on the outside wall. There were bay windows on either end of the room and a regular window to the left of the fireplace where Nana had one of her birdfeeders -- on the side of the house where she had her rock garden.

The dining room held the dining room furniture that has traveled with me for years now, and where all of my grandchildren have eaten with family.

There was a cool downstairs hallway that would be considered wasted space by today's standards. There was a radiator (as there were in all the rooms) and a nook that held a telephone if I remember correctly. The hall contributed to the many doors leading into the kitchen -- one from the hall, one from the dining room, the basement, a bathroom, and finally the "breezeway" room between the garage and kitchen that functioned as an entry way and a family room. The counters were a pebbly gray color and there was a wonderful booth kitchen table (similar to ones in Germany.) There was a black cat clock with a ticking tail.

The breezeway room was where most of the time was spent -- watching TV soap operas or making crafts with Nana, reading National Geographic magazines with Papa, feeding the birds out the back picture window....There were built-in closets (one filled with National Geographics sand one that held coats and Papa's 'fez" hat from the Masons) and a built-in desk with shelves above it. The shelves held wonderful odds and ends. On a shelf in my dining room I have a tiny black rocking chair with a tinsy ceramic cat that once rocked on those bookshelves.

There was a massive basement. When you were a child it had been "finished" and housed your aunt, Patricia. When I was a child it held old furniture, plant pots, and many more treasures. There was a section, under the breezeway room, known as the "coal cellar."

The basement opened out onto the most spectacular yard! Do you remember how the yard sloped down from the house? It provided a wonderful sledding hill from one point behind the breezeway. The spot where the door opened out had a slate walkway and a beautiful white arbor. Slate steps led to the lawn where my grandmother had landscaped with garden rows leading to a small pond under two weeping willow trees. (A shame none of us were married there!) Beyond the pond was a massive outdoor stone fireplace that had fallen into disuse as I remember.

Tommy and I used to make little boats out of styrofoam meat trays and toilet paper rolls that Nana saved for us and float them in the pond.

There were more wonderful pieces to the house and yard -- the crabapple tree, beautiful pine trees, and deciduous trees that dropped what seemed to be acres of leaves each fall. When we lived there once, when you were little, I remember raking piles of leaves and jumping in them with you. Mountains of leaves, really! A day or two before Tim was born I took you sledding on the hill. You flew over the crusty top of the snow and I had to plod knee deep for what seemed like miles to get you and the sled.

I loved every inch of that house and all the people in it -- my Nana and Papa best of all. It felt like Mayberry. My aunts and uncles visited. Uncle Danny was the mailman. I could go on and on.

I'm not sure how to end, except to say that I wish I could just buy and and store it for the memories.

Love, Mom