I grew up in a double house. It was a structure where two families lived under the same roof; however in different living areas. The house I grew up in was not originally designed to be a double house, but before I was born, someone decided it cold be turned into one. Hence, the Utt house in Lightstreet was born. It was a big stately house with a large wrap-around porch that sat on the corner of Main and Easy Streets. My parent's side faced Main and the Easy street side was a "rental" (of sorts). I was born in December of 1947, and I think my Uncle Fred and his various wives lived on the Easy Street side when I was a baby. My earliest memory of someone living in that side was when I was seven. My sister, Barbara, had gotten married and she and her husband started their married life in that house. We had a door in our living room that connected to their kitchen. I remember when their first daughter, Linda, was born, she used to pack a little bag and "run away" via that door over to Grannie's for awhile.
Later Barbara and her husband took a job in a nearby town that came with housing, so they moved away. Hence, my sister Joan and her three little ones came to live in that house. Their oldest daughter and I were pretty close in age so since I was being raised as basically an "only child", it was fun to suddenly have two nieces right beside me. (although they only lived two doors down the street anyway). Joan and her family stayed there until she remarried and moved to the great state of California -- never to come East again.
My parents at that time decided to rent out that side of the house. Renters came and went. Some were good and some were not. The last renter that lived in the house was in 1972, and they litterly ruined the place. My mother and father were so discouraged because they had just lost their second home to Flood Agnes and did not want more fixing up to do. They had since both retired and decided to purchase a motor home and winter in Florida. What a good idea to have a family member living on the other side of the house to "take care of things" when they snowbirded to the south. Hence, when my son was about six months old, my mother and I worked and worked and fixed up the house for my husband and I to move into. During our stay we did a lot of remodeling and fixing, putting in a brand new kitchen and making one large bedroom into two smaller ones for our two children. We stayed until my Father died in 1982. My mother started making noises like she was going to sell the house, and we got an opportunity to purchase our own home, so we left Lightstreet for the Danville area. The summer of 1982 my mother and I took a month-long road trip out west to visit my sister and her family, who had since moved to Las Vegas. On the way home, we stopped in Little Rock, Arkansas and looked up my long-lost brother.
Well, as fate would have it, about two weeks after we got home, my brother and his entire family showed up on my mother's doorstep. Wasn't it convenient that the old house on Easy Street was once again vacant; hence he, his three children, two grandchildren and one soon-to-be son-in-law moved into that house. Near the end of 1983 my brother became very ill and was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He died in February 1984. Shortly thereafter, my widowed sister-in-law and her children became very dependent on my mother and she decided the best thing she could do is sell the house and once and for all get out from under the burden of owning a large property. The house sold very fast and she moved to Danville into a senior high-rise to be close to me and my family.
My niece told me recently that she has visited the house a couple years back and that it was strange walking through a house where her mother grew up. That house had changed drastically since the time her mother was a young girl, giggling in twin beds with her sister Barbara, on the Main Street side. But oh, the memories...if those walls could talk.
All my parent's children lived there except Jane, the oldest, who was married before they moved to Lightstreet; and therefore never made the move north. She lived her entire life in Delaware County, also dying of terminal cancer in December of 1984.
Once again, Roxanne, this memory is for you. More to come later...
PS--As my son-in-law, Tom, has said previously, it would be nice to have "real" pictures to accompany my blogs. However, digital cameras were not available back then and I do not have the equipment or expertise to put old pictures on line. You'll have to excuse the ones I use; but I do try to find "believable" ones. Enjoy!!
