Dad and I are spending the week together. This event of living together last occurred during the summer of 1968, just before I went to college. A lot of time has passed since we last shared a car or refrigerator. Need I say more? (He is now 91 years old, and let's just say I am of "a certain age.")
So now is the time to poke around his library and "catch up" on scenes from the past. Going through his written memoirs, I came across a story he had written about the house where I lived from infancy through age 7.
Here is what Dad wrote about that house in central Texas, the same one where I spent my early childhood:
The First House I Remember by Charles W. McCarroll (likely written in 1990)
The first home I remember was the McCarroll house located about a quarter-mile north and west of Mereta, Texas. This house, built in 1902, faced east about 75 feet from the county road. This wood-siding shingle-roofed structure originally had four rooms and a front gallery supported by turned-post spindle brackets. The front door had an upper glass etched in a wreath design and a matching carved wood planting on the lower panel.
The entrance door opened into a wide hall. Three rooms were to the right, including the kitchen and a room to the left.
Pa McCarroll added three rooms to the north divided from the original house by an open hall. This addition was for the parents and children. A shed room was built on the west of the original house as a room for Loraine and as a screened porch.
The hardware consisted of designer rim locks and hinges on six panel doors. The floors were tongue-and-groove pine. A hole in the corner of the room was for telephone wires when aunt Mollie was the switchboard operator for the telephone system.
The walls were covered with flowered paper pasted to tacked-on canvas. A strong wind would cause the paper to bulge. The walls were ten feet high and ceiling was wooden "beaded ceiling". The windows were operated by the weight and pulley system.
The kitchen floor was covered with bright Linoleum. The large, black wood-burning cook stove was near the west wall. A water faucet was on the north wall, which also included a flour bin. A breadboard was against the east wall. A long table covered with oilcloth was placed near the south wall of this kitchen.
Each of the legs of tables, cabinets and beds were set in metal jar caps and filled with coal oil to discourage ants. A crawling baby was sure to get into the ant traps.
The milk cooler sat on the porch north of the kitchen. This cooler was constructed of galvanized metal pans that were stacked as shelves. The top pan was filled with water and cotton clothes were dipped into the water and covered the outside of the pans. The dampened cloths acted as an evaporative cooler for the food inside.
Near the southwest side of the house was a cistern made of metal. Guttering under the eaves of the house gathered rainwater for use in the house. The well was about 30 feet west of the house. The windmill pumped the hard-tasting water into a tank and also piped it to the barn to water the livestock.
A grove of Chinaberry trees grew between the house and barn. The Barn was painted red and had a hayloft above with grain storage and a harness room on the north. A hall with double doors on each end allowed a wagon to drive through. The shingle roof was mansard and there was a hay door on the east. Sheds had been added to the north and south for stock and the fences were wide boards on cedar posts.
Toward the barn, a path led to the outhouse south of the barn area. North of the house, the land was in pasture. About halfway down the hill was a little house for the hands and at the bottom of the hill was another windmill and garden.
This house was so cool and comfortable in the summer, but I remember the cold days by the heating stove. We also had a portable ‘Perfection’ kerosene stove.
This house was the same one he returned to with a young family after WWII. The house was re-opened, remodeled, and Dad began farming the family 600 acre plot surrounding the farm house for about ten years.
To read his remembrances of that "new" house conjures up memories for me about that same farm house of my childhood. (Note: 100 years have past since that house was built.)
Dad did not mention the well water that had to be boiled each season when the "well turned over". I still am uncertain about what it meant when the "well turned over." I just know there were tiny little red worms in the bath water a few times a year. We kids were told not to worry about it. (??) Wouldn't you?
Another of my memories is when a dust storm hit West and Central Texas farms, and 1/4 inch of dust was left on the window sills and floors after the two hour gusts abated. Dad said he used a shovel to help pick up the dust and silt inside the house. I remember it was black as midnight in the middle of the day during that dust storm.
And I remember the big cabbage red rose wall paper in the bathroom with the porcelain claw foot tub. Mother put that up right before I was born.
Are your memories of your first house still vivid in your mind?
