House Filled with Love

Have you ever looked through old pictures and find they bring back memories? That’s what happened to me the other day when I was looking through old photos and they brought back memories of our house filled with love.

I was about 5 years old when my family moved to a house in Charlton New York. Charlton is a small town in Saratoga County in upstate New York. My mom, dad, grandmother, grandfather and my sister and I lived in the three bedroom home. Six people and only one bathroom, can you imagine that today? My mom and dad both worked for the school system so grandma was the one in charge of my sister and me.

Five years later my baby sister was born and she made me the middle sister! This is my mom sitting on our tiny front porch with the three of us. Dad was sitting on our swings holding baby sister while my older sister and I looked. I had to plug in the recent picture of my sister’s and I when we all meet in Albany, New York last year for a mini reunion!

We would run out of well water every summer so we had to ration using it. Bath time was fun when we were little, the dirtiest kid got to use the bath water last! But the outdoor picture pump always had a stainless steel water cup hooked on the side for road crews to stop by for a refreshing cold drink of water. When I got older, I learned water dowsing from the old man in the village. I would walk around with my divining rods of forked branches and with Frank’s help he showed me were to find an artisan well on the property.

We had a coal furnace and the coal would be dumped in the cellar window to the coal bin. Shortly after we moved in we got overcome with gas fumes and my grandmother went into action, calling the country doctor. That was the end of our coal furnace. Another time I had pneumonia and my grandmother picked up the phone to call the doctor again but since we had a seven, yes seven party line, there was someone already talking. She politely told they she needed to get ahold of the doctor quickly and please hang up which they did. Can you imagine that in today’s world, a seven party phone line?

My dad had a huge garden taking up our entire back yard and I loved to help him weed and harvest the vegetables. We hung baked bean plants in the upstairs of the garage for them to dry and then I would shell them and sort out the good from the bad. My grandmother was in charge of canning, freezing, drying, smoking the vegetables, wild strawberries, grape juice and wild rhubarb.

Dad and I loved going fishing, I remember him waking me up 3am to drive to Saratoga Lake only to walk across the entire like to get the best spot for ice fishing! During the summer we would fish from the shores of the lake. I always hung around with my dad, I was the boy they never had. LOL

I remember when my second grade class had a picnic in our yard and my grandmother made lunch for all of us. See the little building in the background? I don’t remember exactly what it was but it was used by the US Army for surveillance.

Fast forward to 1967, I graduated high school in June and Rich and I got married in July. We had our reception in our back yard, you can see the garden behind us! So many memories from a house filled with love. After we got married, Rich and I moved to Schenectady for a few years and after my grandparents passed away, we moved back to the old homestead so we could be a family of seven once again in our house. My parents retired and moved to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and we stayed in our sweet home raising our two daughters. After they graduated, we moved to South Carolina to help care for my mom as she suffered from Alzheimer’s. But every time we visited Charlton we would visit “our home”, it would always be our home even after it was sold. The house had been sold a few more times since we left, the couple that originally bought it moved out after they heard my little friends in the eves of the upstairs bedroom. I had been hearing them forever, a group of children singing Ring around the Rosie, laughing and have a great time. Only once did Rich hear them and we never found out who they were but they made me happy. Not so much for the new homeowners.

We got some devastating news back in 2016 from our neighbor, the huge old maple tree on the front side our our yard split and landed on the roof off the house. This is were my sister’s and my bedroom was but thankfully the owners weren’t injured. But when I saw the pictures I was so sad to see our house.

My neighbor sent more pictures after the house had been temporarily repaired to make it livable but as I looked at them, I remembered the triple window in the dining room where my grandmother and I would sew when dinner wasn’t on the table. I remember Rich filling the porch with would that he would cut and split all summer long for our wood stove. I remember the dormer that was added after mom and dad moved in to make more room for little sister to join the family. This house was filled with so much love from my grandparents, my parents, my sisters and Rich and our children.

When we moved, the house looked like it did in this top photo. Our oldest daughter would ride her pony all around town while my mom would stand outside smiling at her. Grandma love Christine so much.

After we sold it, they new owners changed the side back to white. After the tree fell they finally demolished “our house” and rebuilt a new one. While their new home is beautiful, I still miss driving by and seeing “our house’ but the memories will last forever from our tiny house. One thing I never realized until a few months ago…the new owners are friends with one of my FB friends who still leave in the Charlton area. The owner was talking with T and told her I made her mom’s wedding gown back in the early 80’s! Just another memory!

When we visited last year, we saw the beautiful new home and visited our back yard. How I remember when the tall pine trees that are there new were nothing but seedlings that my dad planted. The little barn for the horses and rabbits had since been removed but the memories are still there.

Our old house is gone, a new one now in its place but the memories of everything from when I first moved there at 5 years until we moved to South Carolina in 1994 are still so vivid in my mind. The love of my family will live on forever in my heart while I remember how our tiny house was always filled with love. A house doesn’t have to be large or beautiful, it just has to be filled with love.