A color one showing the side of the house where Dad added on the two rooms. They don't look so great without the siding on them that is on the house. The house looks funny too like maybe he put tar paper on the front of it too but I don't remember him doing that.
That big tree/bush at the edge of the road was Mama's lilac. There were always flowers growing where ever she was. She said they were God's gift to her and she was sharing that gift by giving bouquets to everyone she knew.
Our Dad should have learned that he couldn't build a house by himself after he built these two rooms. He thought because he'd worked for a prefab place that he could do it all but sadly the floor in the Argyle place was never even. It was always drafty. the electric was never finished. He did get a pole put up but he plugged the house into the pole. It was a disaster waiting to happen. He put in some plumbing but even that was not up to code I'm sure. In those days and in that town you really didn't have much code enforcement if you even had a code at all.
The Taylor's across the road from us were living in a three sided dwelling when we finally moved in to the Argyle house.
The house was so cold in winter that it was a regular event for the water pump to freeze up and bust, even though it was the part that was in the kitchen. The pump outside had a heater cord that Mom wrapped around the whole of the pvc pipe that brought the water into the house. One time the rats came up from the swamp to get warm in there and chewed through the wires.
When it rained too much in the spring the swamp overflowed. I'm sorry to have to admit this but our dad was not the smartest man. He did the best with what he could but building a house and doing the electric and plumbing on his own was not in his bag of tricks.
At first he dug a pit and said that was the place the toilet would empty into. I don't remember if he had one of those cement holding tank things. I just know that the spring floods did a number on it.
In some ways it was a good thing to move there. We no longer had to pay rent and we no longer had to worry about moving again. In other ways this was a bad thing to move there because we no longer had the prospect of moving to somewhere better. This was it. We had to do with what we had. Some of us stayed while others moved on to begin their lives. I stuck it out as long as I could till I found I wanted something better out of life.
Enid and Nancy moved on quickly. Enid was already out anyway. I think she went in the Army while we were still living in Kingsbury. I know she bought Dad the Pinto there and I think that and giving him some money to put into the lot was her way of emotionally buying her freedom. You don't see these things in the same light when you are living through them as you do in later years and are looking backwards.
The thing that bothered me the most of all was leaving Sue behind with them.
If I repeat some of that when I get to the Argyle story, I apologize.
I had to ask Sue about this one but when she explained it to me I could see it. It's the corner of the Bentley and Farley Roads