Grandfather Says: The Continuing Chronicles of Elaine, Part 20

The following was written by my late wife Elaine. She wrote a long book, a diary really, from which this is one passage:

Our First House. Because our one-bedroom apartment would soon be outgrown, we spent a lot of Sunday afternoons looking in nice neighborhoods at houses for sale.  “We knew it when we saw it.” – a pretty house in an attractive North Arlington neighborhood, and we moved there in June 1958.  Its price:  $18,500.

There was one small and one large bedroom on the main floor, a kitchen with a door to the backyard,  living room, dining room, and bathroom.  The downstairs was finished into a recreation room with crate wood paneled walls, and a bathroom and a workshop. We eventually discovered that the crate wood, which had probably come from somewhere in the Far East, was infested with powder post beetles. Dave applied chlordane (since banned) to the walls and the beetles died with their bodies halfway out of the wood.

The house was built into a hill, so the backyard’s flat area was very small, but nice and private.  Rachel and Waddy, whose house looked down on ours, were the only “eyes” we had to worry about, but they weren’t nosy people.

I often hung our wash out in the back. Disposable diapers were not yet available, so I appreciated being able to hang the gauze diapers outside sometimes for sun-bleaching and fresh smells.  (With the coming of much-appreciated disposable diapers, I expect that not too many modern moms know about soaking the old cloth diapers in diaper pails with bleach added to the water, nasty cases of diaper rash and nasty rashes on mommies’ arms and hands, common when handling cloth diapers soaked in bleach.  I remember having to go to a dermatologist because of a sore, itchy rash all over my hands, and went around for awhile wearing little white cotton gloves covering the medication I had to use until it healed.

To be continued…

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About the Author: RD Blakeslee is a nonagenarian in West Virginia who built his net worth by only investing in that which can be enjoyed during acquisition and throughout life, as opposed to papers in a drawer, like stocks and bonds. You can read more about him here.

Photos: Courtesy of the Blakeslee Family