Mixed Bag

First of all a couple of "Masonic" memes that I was sent.  I guess it is all right to poke fun at ourselves.  

The Honorable Society of Past Masters

An alterenative to cancelling Saturday postal service.

The house at 1007 Douglas

This is a house which my great-aunt Kate McMichael's father built. (That is him in the picture.  His name was Matthew) We lived out North of town and my great-aunt sold the house to my grandfather so that he could move into town.  He wanted to do that because he knew that he wanted to leave a place for my mother after he was gone.  His wife had passed and mother took the major responsibility for taking care of him.  She was single and had Ginny living with her.  I had a room on the second floor in the back on the North.  You can see that there was a sleeping porch which was also off my room but it was gone by the time we moved in.  I had double doors that would open and it was really a very nice place to spend the summers.

The downstairs was basically four rooms. My grandfather had one room as a bed room and there was a living room, dining room and kitchen with a small lavatory under the stairs. Upstairs aside from my room there was a guest room and two large rooms one for my mother and another for my sister.  It was a really nice set up.  The wrap around porch had a part of it screened in by the time we were there.

After my grandfather passed on my Uncle Dave helped my mother get the place made into apartments and my mother and my sister moved downstairs and they rented out the top floor and the basement to renters. I was teaching in Marion, Iowa at the time.  Then mother had some difficulties and I needed to move back to Ames so I came back and set up a bed on the screened in porch.  I slept out there until the snow came and then I moved inside. I had a single bed in what had been the living room, my sister had the northeast room that had been my grandfathers and mom took over the dining room.  I am not sure how we managed, but we did.  We lived there for several years and managed nicely.  I remember one time we had a large Spaghetti party on the front porch.  I painted a large trash can red and filled it with ice and water for the beer. We rocked.

Eventually I inherited some money from my great aunt Erma who lived in California.  With that money we (mother and I) purchased a much larger more modern split foyer home in the "presidential"area of town.  It was a really nice place.  I had the bottom floor and it was a really good set up. My bedroom wall had mirror tiles, orange shag carpeting and enough room to live in if I had wanted to.  I also had a family room with a fire place and a guest room and a refrigerator in the laundry room.  Oh and a full bath with a shower. I loved that.