FAMILY HISTORY

When a Simple House Becomes an Awesome Family Home

You don’t need six bedrooms and eight bathrooms to be happy

The best thing about coming from a large family is that a sibling is always around to slap me upside down when I forget shit. I forget a lot of shit.

We have a family message feed on Facebook, and I used it last night to prod some memories out of my brothers and sisters.

In the mid ‘40s, an enterprising farmer built a home on a dead end, complete with two chicken coops and a small stand of wild raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries to munch on.

In June 1959, Roy and Catherine Coulter and their growing brood moved into a modest two-story home with very few neighbors and a treeline behind the property. A small stream on one side eventually flowed into a marsh area about 100 yards behind the house and treeline.

I was a year old (maybe) when we moved in, so my memory is based on stories our mom and dad told us. Still, I needed my older siblings to knock some of the rust off my brainpan and set the record straight — at least as best as we could remember.

Our house would never be a candidate for Architectural Digest. It was small and oddly shaped, but our parents created a home for what eventually became a family of eight.

My parents slept downstairs in one of many small bedrooms. The first floor consisted of a kitchen/dining room, a living room, and a bathroom. Behind my parents’ bedroom was a back room with a washer and dryer, our “central heat,” and a water pump. We were lucky to have well water pumped up from a deep spring dug about twenty feet below the ground. That well water spoiled us. Having to drink city water at school sucked.

Oh, and that bathroom? It was the only one for a family of eight. I can’t tell you how many times we heard the steps squeal as we made our way downstairs in the middle of the night.

Outside of the back room was a 250-gallon oil tank that kept the house warm in the winter. It was deep, and we still went to school, walking up the hill to catch the bus. No, we did not walk ten miles in blizzards — both ways. We had real winters back in the day. And school was never canceled because we might get two inches of snow overnight.

Pop busted his ass to update the house. He added wood paneling to every wall on the first floor, including the kitchen. Paneling was popular back then, along with square wood tiles. The only part of the first floor without a wood floor was the kitchen, which was covered in linoleum.

Eventually, he added a four-season porch to the house. We used to crawl out of a hallway window on the second floor to sit out on the roof.

We built a tree fort in the pine trees behind the house during the summer. The ground was soft and covered in pine needles, making a soft but still painful landing if we slipped and fell off while climbing.

Summer was always spent outside, playing street hockey and football with neighbors up the street. There wasn’t a lot of traffic in the neighborhood then, so we could play uninterrupted more often than not.

We ate berries off the vine whenever we wanted — no need to wash them. Just pick a berry and pop it in your mouth.

One year, pop decided it was time to add a bedroom for him and our mom, and he wasted little time getting busy. With the help of a family friend, Larry Bashaw, they completed the extra room in no time.

Larry and his wife, Terry, were wonderful people. I dare say they were second parents to us — at least, I thought so. They were also children of the Depression era, so they knew what hard work was. And Larry busted his ass every day. Larry drove a roach coach, lunch truck, whatever you want to call it.

Terry and Larry, my parents, and our Uncle Armand (my mom’s brother) and Aunt Rita would get together on Friday and Saturday nights to play cards at our house. They played pinochle, hearts, and a game called “blackout.” The game was played progressively, with each player getting a single card to start the game. Six cards were dealt, and the dealer turned over a card from the deck. That card was trump. If you were holding the ace of the trump suit, you’d bid one. If you had the king, you were likely to bid. Whoever didn’t make their bid, they would get a blackout.

There was usually a lot of yelling and laughter at the card table. Mom would make coffee and lay Entenmann’s pastries on the kitchen counter.

Card nights like these — and summer family cookouts made our house a home.

And our cookouts weren’t limited to immediate family. Nope. Phone calls and letters (remember those?) invited extended family members to the summer bash. Aunts, uncles, and cousins would come from Wisconsin, New York, Maine, Texas, and other states, usually by car, to enjoy burgers, steamed clams, boiled lobster, and more.

When we weren’t eating, the kids and some adults would play kickball, whiffle ball, and baseball in the backyard during one daring summer. We broke a window or two.

When Pop was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1994, the family got together as a sendoff to the old man. The crowd was smaller, as many of our cousins had grown and had their own families, but it was one last hurrah for Pops.

My parents are no longer with us, but the memories remain.

The house was a home to many people for the better part of six decades. In 2014, the house and property were sold to a developer who quickly knocked down a home once filled with love and happiness, and a few spats.

With six kids under one roof, it was bound to happen.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for stopping by.

If you enjoyed this story, please consider buying me a slice of pizza at https://ko-fi.com/bruce35046

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