Sad but True

I really didn't want to put a damper on this subject of travel, but I've waited long enough to give the details of what it was like coming through The Great Depression.  So many families lost just about everything they owned: house, car, job and even their health suffered.  My family wasn't so different. In 1934 the bad times caught up with us.  Although father didn't lose his job as 'Stone Cutter Artist' with the Gray Granite Company, the house, three rental properties, the Ford V-8 were lost. 

The only house we could then afford was three miles away on West Fourth Street: one bedroom, living-dining, one bath, kitchen, front and back porches.  The bonus was the place was shaded by a huge Acacia tree and a chicken shed/coop on the alley.  My parents did their best to make it a home and put up drapes to divide off the dining room for my new bedroom which was fine for a four year old.
         
Oh yes, the health issue did arise when mother came down with pneumonia.  I remember her lying in bed with warm mustard-plasters on her chest prepared by father morning and night.  I don't remember any complaining of course since both parents have always been positive thinkers.  Also, those were the days when doctors did make house calls.  Time passed quickly and everything was finally O.K.  Father now had an old used Hudson and drove to work where before he had only to walk two blocks.  Driving home to help mother at lunch time must have been difficult, but I never knew if it was.
       
It seemed only a short time before father moved us a few houses over.  That house was so dirty that he wouldn't allow us inside until he had literally washed the inside with a garden hose and painted everything inside with white-wash.  The Navy gave away battleship-gray paint for house exteriors and that was topped off with white trim.  Father even sanded and finished the old hardwood floors.  Fortunately the former renters had not taken the fixtures with them as happened with our previous property renters.
         
Wouldn't you know, once we were settled in our new house I was firmly established in kindergarten at Hamilton School and mother was pregnant.  My paternal grandparents moved from Idaho into our former house down the block, cousin Eddie's family moved in next door and father's oldest brother and family moved in to the house on the corner so I was firmly ensconced in a family circle that was absolutely the best.
         
As mother noted:  "It's an ill wind that doesn't blow some good."  Amen.