Column: How our family once saved a residence doomed for condemnation

Staff

Published Thursday, May 27, 2004

By Love Cruikshank, Tribune columnist

I would think it a presumption to say of any person's action, "I understand,"

or even, "I sympathize." Still if the city council were to decide that my house - because it is not beautiful - were to be removed, I would be tempted to spray paint a message or two on it, both wrathful and obscene.

It's possible that the well-housed are incapable of understanding the feelings of the homeless, but I have not always been well-housed. My mother, my toy poodle, Cherie, and I arrived in Albert Lea in November of 1937. It was a cold, rainy, miserable, early morning.

On the train enroute, one of the train officials noting our destination told us that Albert Lea had such a shortage of houses that many people were living in the little tourist cabins that at that time lined the highway.

We put our furniture in storage and took temporary refuge in a three-room upstairs furnished apartment. A large vacant apartment on the ground floor had been rented and the new tenants were to move in at once.

They didn't and we were happy to rent the downstairs apartment. It wasn't long before we learned why the prospective tenants had backed out.

When we had learned that my father was being transferred to Albert Lea, we looked up all the information we could find about our new location.

We were rather pleased by what we learned about Minnesota. Peopled, the encyclopedia read, "With strong, blond inhabitants usually of Scandinavian descent."

My mother was not a woman to load the family with unpleasantness. My father and I spent the hours when he wasn't working walking about exploring the town. We had no idea what was going on at home until one day when I happened to be in the vicinity, you-know-what broke out upstairs. Our landlady, a large woman, was tramping through the upstairs hall, cussing loudly and apparently kicking small objects out of her way.

"What's that?" I asked, startled.

"That," said my mother, "is our strong, blonde, Scandinavian landlady."

"Is she often like this?" I whispered.

"I think she missed a day or two last week," said my mother. "Or maybe it was the week before."

We lasted in that place from November to July. A record. Most tenants moved out much sooner, one couple moved out the day after they had moved in.

In July we moved to the lower apartment in a duplex. It had only one bedroom so I slept on the enclosed porch.

From the day they were married up until dad was transferred to Cedar Rapids, though, my parents had always owned their own home. In the fall of 1941 they bought the house I now live in. It was not exactly a prospective home-owner's dream. No bathroom, no furnace. Weeds so high that I've been told it was once called the weed patch. A second-hand auto dealer had lined up a number of rusty and ancient cars along the front lawn. We couldn't get gas to operate our gas stove and had to buy an electric one.

My father was wont to say that the house was "just right" for us. For, as he said, "If it were any better we couldn't afford it and if it were any worse we couldn't live in it."

We all worked to bring it up to living standard. I was away at the University for much of the time, but did what little I could during vacations. It all took time and money. Dad did much of the work himself. On the swing shift, he worked until midnight at the plant and did little sleeping in the day time.

He dug out an entire basement for us, which was subsequently divided into several rooms, the floors cemented and the walls painted.

War was declared less than a month after my parents moved in, but despite the fact that no furnace pipes or furnaces were available they managed to obtain second-hand ones until they could be replaced after the war. A bathroom was installed.

For me the house holds a wealth of cherished memories. It is my prayer that I be allowed to finish my earthly stint here.

By the way, we were told when we bought the house, that if we had not bought it would have been removed. It had been condemned.

(Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column appears Thursday.)

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