My Life in the Little Brown House, part 1

Most of the years of my life until I had finished the seventh grade in school were spent with the little brown house as my home. I say most of the years inasmuch the first year or so was spent in a house rented by my parents and situated several houses directly west of where my grandparents Strand lived at the time. I have no recollection of course of living in that house, nor do I know just when my parents purchased the little brown house and moved the family into it. At one time I could locate the house where I spent my first year, but I’m not sure I could pick it out now. Somewhere in the picture albums that I seem to have accumulated over the years there is a photo of a group of small children seated on the porch steps of a house. One of the children looks like my sister Clarice at the age of two or so, and the children may have been seated at my first abode. I was born in that house — my mother gave birth to all her children at home except for Marold.

The little brown house was a simpler structure when my parents purchased it than when I first became aware of its features. Originally it did not have what my parents called the sunroom, which was adjacent to the kitchen and which served as the everyday eating area, amongst other uses. This was added before I would recollect the change; the barn also was built before my time of awareness. I do recall dimly the advent of the chicken house and I have well-formed recollections of the playhouse being built, and of the addition of the two dormers to the house which connected the original attic into the two upstairs bedrooms. I think the house when my parents acquired it was painted white, like most of the houses in the town or on the farms of the area. But even the earliest pictures I have of it have it brown with white trim. I can vaguely recall feeling slightly “put upon” living in a house which differed from most of the rest of the community. My father, in addition to his job at the bank, had a bookkeeping job at the Johnson Lumber Co. and he used the proceeds from the second job to pay for the additions to the little brown house, the barn and other buildings.













Early picture of the little brown house (after addition of sunroom)