Growing up in Kelsey at the end of the road.

 

The earliest that I can remember is when I was probably around three or four years old. We lived in an old house that I can barely remember. There was an old much smaller house or cabin a small distance back behind us closer to the dairy barn. Daddy decided to build us a new house so we moved into the small house while he tore the other one down and built the new house. I don't know how long that took. This was when I was pre-school age and I can vaguely remember it. We were really proud of our new home. It had 3 bedrooms, a big livingroom, a kitchen, dining room, and just one bathroom. Boy, did we need more bathrooms as the family grew! It had a big back porch across the backside and also had a big basement that ran underneath the whole house. This is where the washing machine was. We had no dryer at that time. It also had a shower in one corner with a drain for the water to run out. There were two full sized beds down there and this is also where my brothers slept. Mom had shelves there for all her canned fruits and vegetables. This basement was not like those that you see in movies that have cobwebs everywhere and it's dark and scary, although I didn't like it because it had spiders in it. Maybe that's why I'm afraid of spiders today. That and the fact that my brother Junior would catch daddy longlegs and chase us with them. This was a functioning basement that we could have all lived in if necessary. There was a long set of stairs from the kitchen down to the basement. It had a door to the outside where we could take the clothes out to hang them. And that is another story.