Every once in a while, a question on Facebook triggers something. Today, it was a question about what we remember about our grandparents’ house. I could write a chapter of a book about each of my grandparents’ homes.
Grandma and Granddaddy Wessinger lived in a “small” house. Granddaddy built the house for Grandma and custom-made certain parts of it just for her. Grandma was tiny, just barely five feet tall. Her kitchen was scaled just for her. It was a cozy kitchen. There was a wood-burning kitchen “warming” stove. That stove heated the kitchen in winter as well as cooked things like vegetables. The kitchen was also where the children ate. I can remember my oldest cousin being invited to eat in the dining room with the grown-ups. She was engaged to be married, and her fiance had come to eat with the family. Ginny declined the invitation. She and Wade ate in the kitchen with the rest of the cousins.
Naturally, the kitchen opened into the dining room and to the screened-in back porch. There was a bench on the porch where we often sat and played on rainy days. There was a sink on the porch as well. Granddaddy hung a metal dipper over the sink, and we all drank water from the dipper at some time or another. Uncle Lee’s room opened off the porch, too. We were not allowed to go into Uncle Lee’s room without his permission.
Another special room room was the “front room.” It was the formal living room or the parlor. Grandma had a Duncan-Fife sofa, a love seat, and an upright piano in that room, as well as her glass knick-knacks. She had a set of ceramic roosters. When we visited on most Sunday afternoons, we stayed in the den. We only visited as a family in the front room on Christmas. Grandma put her Christmas tree up in that front room. She had the most magical tree. Some of her ornaments bubbled. Granddaddy would roll dollar bills in Christmas paper and hang them on the tree. We thought we were rich when we took our rolls off the tree. (By the way, the “we” refers to my cousins, brother, sister, and me.)
This house burned in the fall of 1979 as a result of a chimney fire in the den. Although they rebuilt on the same sight, the new house was never quite the same as the one my Granddaddy built for his bride fifty years before (they were married in January 1930). When I remember going to see my grandparents, that white frame house is the one that I remember.
Telling Stories 