Stay or Move?

The year was 1950. I was seven years old. Hard times fell on the farm. After five years of tough times dad was between a rock and a hard place. With the cost of supplies rising that were needed to continue the farming operation dad tried to purchase the farm from the landlord. The landlord quoted dad a price he could not afford and thus began the shift in thinking about what dad was going to do. He opted to move to town, Oak Grove, and he didn't know what he was going to do. Grandmother Walraven, dads mother, gave him a small lot to build a house on for the family. Dad had never built a house but he thought he would give it a try.

The house was small. Back then they called it a "cracker box." I don't remember the dimensions but it was really small. The bathroom was so small you could wash your face in the sink while sitting on the pot! There was just enough room in the bedrooms (2) to walk around the bed. The kitchen was unbelievably small. The front room, as we called it, was the largest room in the house. I would guess it was about 10 feet by 12 feet. But the house was our home and we loved it.

While dad was building the house someone stopped by and asked him if he would build them a house. And since he had no prospects of doing anything else, he said that he would. That job led him to another building job and then another and then another. Soon after Grayum Building Company was born and the stage was set for dad to be a small-time builder in and around Oak Grove.

One interesting note about when we were packing up to leave the farm and move to town. My dad told my brother to not forget the plane that was in the barn. Well, I went nuts when I heard that we had a plane in the barn. I had never seen an airplane in the barn and I had played all over every square inch of that barn. I immediately ran to the barn ahead of my brother to see if I could find the plane. When I told my brother I had never seen an airplane in the barn and I didn't even know we had an airplane, he began to laugh hilariously. He took me to the workbench and showed me a tool used to plane smooth edges on a board. A plane. Not an airplane like I had thought.

I was almost eight years old when we moved to town.

A new saga began and the story continues.