My Life in the Little Brown House, part 26: Mel Rosene and Transients

Although I am nominally writing about the little brown house I have included to this point some areas around the house that were closely involved in the activities of my early years there. At this point I shall also include some additional material about several residences close bu that were similarly involved in the early family activities for me.

Originally just to the south of the little brown house was a vacant lot that in the summer grew up to bluegrass unattended. As long as it remained a vacant lot there was a path across it from the rear of the little brown house diagonally to the street which we all used when walking in the direction of town, school or Grandmother’s (or to Grandfather Strand’s for that matter). It was along this path that some of my mother’s jewelry was found after Vincent, at an early age, got into her dresser drawer where she kept these items and took them to play with.

It remained a vacant lot for quite some time but eventually Mel Rosene and his wife purchased it and built a house and garage on the property. Mel didn’t have a car so he didn’t need a garage for that purpose but I guess he needed a place to keep his gardening tools etc. Mel and his wife were childless and this unacquainted with the propensities of children, so my mother was a little concerned about possible friction between the Rosenes and us as children. Nothing developed along this line however, Mel (Melvin to be correct) made a show of earning a living by selling insurance, but I suspect that he had inherited some funds from his parents and was living partly off of that. I can see him still, a fairly tall man, quite erect, but with a substantial girth at his midsection, walking toward town with a little leather satchel-like contained, perhaps containing his insurance papers. It was rather an odd-shaped carrier — sort of like it was sized to contain legal-size envelopes and other papers folded to that dimension. It looked to be leather, dark reddish brown in color; probably not plastic — those were the days before plastics (except for Bakelite) were in much use, even existence of thought of them.

Before Mel and his wife built the house on the lot next to the little brown house, they resided in an old house across the street in a 45-degree direction toward the northwest corner of the park; indeed that house faced the park across the street from it. I have two vivid recollections from the time Mel and his wife lived in that house. While Mel lived there he kept several goats for the milk they produced and these goats were housed in a little barn at the rear of the property. The picture in my mind of large, portly Mel milking the goats has always fascinated me. Early one morning the barn caught on fire and was consumed as I recall. I don’t know if the cause of the blaze was ever determined but it could have been transients trespassing and using the barn for a night’s lodging. Gowrie had a floating population of hoboes or tramps that would ride the trained into the town and, presumably, stay for awhile before drifting on.

Some several blocks to the east of the little brown house the M & St. L tracks ran through the town (just north of the town they circled to the west and passed north of Lindquist’s pasture as I’ve written earlier) and adjacent to the tracks just north of Armour’s egg and chicken facility there was a hobo camp. I have the vague recollection of viewing the place, perhaps in the company of Harris Magnusson, and noting the evidence of habitation. There were no occupants there at the time. The tramps would make the rounds of local residences cadging free meals and perhaps offering to do some menial work in exchange. I’m sure that from time to time they solicited at both the little brown house and at my grandmother’s, with some success. I don’t think they were ever given any work to do — probably the feeling was that the sooner they left, the better, though there was regard for their hunger and homelessness. Or I suppose not homelessness, since the hobo jungle was in a way their residence.

I would suspect that this transient population no longer exists in Gowrie. Certainly the greatly reduced rail traffic through the town makes it much less accessible to tramps. I have the feeling that there was more tolerance then to such vagrants than there would be now. In addition to the hoboes there would appear traveling bands of gypsies who would spend varying lengths of time camped at the north end of the city park. Whether they received permission to do so I’ve no idea. As children, we were warned to steer clear of them — there were these rumors that children had disappeared, presumably being kidnapped into their society and culture.