Remembering the stories: A Place to call home: The first edition

August 2023 Editors Note

As I was looking over the blog contents- I see this one was still in draft mode. Hmm...no idea how or why that is...blame it on Covid perhaps?

This is part of a series I hope to complete in the coming months- taking each of the various homes our parents owned and reflecting on the experiences we enjoyed while living there.

Unfortunately- Richard is no longer around to spin the tale- you're stuck with me I suppose..

This post features our house in Menomonee Falls. It would be the first home owned by my parents and the first house my sister and I would call home.

Join me as we take a closer look at A Place to Call home!

April 2020

During a recent trip back to Menomonee Falls, Richard and Martha took a little drive down memory lane. We drove by our home on Queensway and snapped a few pictures. Martha spotted the current owners peeking through the curtains- so, on a whim, we rang the doorbell and Richard identified himself as the original owner of the home-

After that drive by, Martha asked that Richard write down some of his memories of that first home-and here is what he had to say.

Well yes, I have lots of memories and mostly fond ones of the house in Menomonee Falls.
We moved from Cudahy to Menomonee Falls during the 1962-3 school year. I was a member of the first faculty at Hamilton High School in Sussex. We had lived in Cudahy but did not want to commute from Cudahy to Sussex as at that time there was no I 94 or I 694. The route was Layton ave to Highway 100 to Silver Spring Rd. So we rented an apartment on Silver Spring and Appleton Ave.

I do not recall why we left that apartment, we had been burglarized that summer while away on vacation, a case knife job.

Spring 1963

Well anyways we had been house hunting and found this one on Queensway. It was new construction but the builder had gone bankrupt, 1200 square feet, with 3 bedrooms and 1 1/2 bath (well really a toilet and sink only just inside the kitchen door and the stairway going into the basement). Bedrooms were 9’ x12’, hardwood floors, patio door but no patio, full basement, but no lawn, no garage, curtains, no landscape planting, and a gravel driveway. My recollection is that the trim on the front was a pale blue (Audrey’s favorite color).

We paid $12,000 for the house. We had been saving up for a down payment. Mortgage companies required at least 10% down (or was it 20%). I think my salary at the time was maybe $7,000 a year, and I know we lived pay check to paycheck. I have never been as nervous as at the closing when I signed for more money than I had scene. Anyway we were short and so we borrowed $500 from my father. We were careful and made it a point to pay him back as soon as possible. When we did it was with a cigar box full of banded $1 bills, yes 500 of them. He had lots of fun showing them off to his friends at Gilbert’s service station in Holmen.

The Backyard- circa 1963

The first task was to put in a lawn as soon as the soil was workable. I used Royal's rototiller and tried to break up the clay clods. There was a lot of raking, rock picking, and rolling and finally we were ready to seed. The second spring we planted shrubs and trees. I recall Japanese yew under the living room window, and a magnolia bush on the bedroom corner. Later we planted a flowering crab and the birch tree in the picture.

We had a garden in the back yard and planted three Colorado spruce behind the garden. The spruce were bushel basket size and unfortunately under the power line. Years later I drove by and they were 20 feet tall and i assume had to be removed as they are gone now.

From one of the "year's later" visit

So I and friend, fellow teachers from Hamilton, particularly Harold Delfose, a shop teacher, made improvements over time. We built the garage, the whole thing. We hired a slab poured for the floor, but framed the building, put on roofing, siding, painted, put in the overhead door, layed the brick veneer to match the house. The gravel drive kept being tracked into the house so the drive was paved.

Hi Mom! 1963

Audrey was pregnant with Laura who was due to be born in March. And I recall Laura's birthday which was Palm Sunday, 1963. We went to church as usual at Holy Crosse Lutheran. While in church Audrey had an accident (water broke) but we were so ignorant we didn’t know what had happened and went home and prepared a meal for Fraederich’s, Irene was there I believe, anyway we ate a big meal. Royal and I went for a walk, and someone came running after us shouting, “It’s time”.

New house, new baby...Laura snuggling with her aunt Phyllis

Oldest cousin meets her first and only cousin...Lynn and Laura 1963

One of the other things about the house which I did not pay attention to was the sump pump in the basement. It ran every 5 minutes or so. The site had been a farm or orchard and it had been tiled and apparently an old tile line lead directly into our basement. We soon got used to it. I think we had to replace the pump once and of course had to try and lead the water away from the lot. At one time there was marsh with standing water and cat tails between us a the neighbors to the west.

Somewhat later (1967), I was attending summer school at the University of Arizona. Wayne Shade, aHamilton teacher was renting a room for the summer, and he and Audrey were there, I suppose with Martha and Laura too.

Anyway the was a severe storm and the power went out. Well a sump pump does not work without electricity so Audrey and Wayne spent the night in the dark in the basement, bailing water out of the sump hole and pouring it down the floor drain. No, I do not believe we ever finished the basement. And Audrey knew that I had planned the disaster for a time I was not available.

Not a sump pump crisis-but shoveling after a snowstorm..

Our neighbors were Matt and Ginny Kesnarish to the south, Mr and Mrs (Grandma and Grandpa) Petroff (Petroff’s bar on the corner of Main St and Appleton Av) to the North, The Kane’s across the back lot, Dave and Judy Lindser who taught science at Hamilton, and Fraedrich’s across the tracks on St Steven’s drive (Lynn, Craig, Sarah, and Ann. Not to sure but I think Paul was born later. )