WEST FRANKFORT HOMES

WEST FRANKFORT HOMES

The Little Green House

My earliest memories were living in "the little green house" on the south end of Odle Street in West Frankfort, Illinois. The house was built by my Grandpa Uhls on my mom's side and her brother, Kendall. It only had three rooms and was covered in green shingles. While Mom and Dad went through a lot of stress trying to make ends meet, we kids were unaware of any problems. 

Linda came first and I came a year and 10 days later. The twins, Carolyn and Marilyn, came three years after that. Then came the first real crisis in the family that changed our lives. My dad's oldest sister committed suicide, so Mom and Dad took in her two children. Dad didn't trust his side of the family to raise them right. Billy, whom we called "Butch," was my age and Sharon was a year older than I, which put her and Linda in the same school grade. Butch and I were also in the same school grade. 

Linda must have started Kinder-

garten before Sharon and Butch came to live with us because when Dad took Linda to school for the first time, I cried until I threw up. We had never been apart and I thought it was unfair that she got to go and I didn't. Before the addition of Sharon and Butch, Linda and I made mud pies there at the little green house, used a large wash tub for a swimming pool, and played with roly poly bugs. One day Linda rode on the back of a bicycle with an older girl doing the pedaling. But Linda didn't hold her feet out and one of her heels got caught in the spokes. It took the skin right off of her heel. It is wrinkled to this day. 

Cleveland Street

Mom and Dad now had six little ones under foot so a move became necessary. We moved across the street from my Grandpa's store on Cleveland Street. A couple of years later we moved behind Grandpa's store on Stella Street. I don't know what became of the little green house but it will always hold a special place in my heart. 

The house on Cleveland Street was directly across the street from our Grandpa's store, Uhls Grocery. To the right (west) of us was Walter and Shirley Denton and their son, Scotty. Their names will come up again in a future story about our car wreck. To the left of us was someone unknown and to the left of them was our aunt and uncle, Ginny and Donald Downard, and their 3 kids, Rachel, David and Alan. 

I don't remember a whole lot about Cleveland Street. The first thought that comes to mind is how I got in trouble with Dad for something the twins did. We were getting ready to move to Stella Street and Dad had rolled some linoleum up and laid it on the ground up against the porch area of the house. The twins decided it would be a good idea to jump on it and climb through it. They told me to try it but I jumped over it instead of on it. That's what Dad saw from a distance but he thought I jumped on it and caused a crack in the linoleum. Sharon jumped over it too but she didn't get blamed.

I remember having a swing set in the back yard. Carolyn climbed up on the bar holding two of the legs of the swing set together and put her hand on the top of the part that held the bench-like swing. Someone got in it and when it started going back and forth it took Carolyn's thumbnail completely off. I felt so sorry for her. 

We got our first tv while living on Cleveland Street. It was black and white, of course, and it was snowy. But we marveled at it.

A story I heard but don't remember from whom was that we were all in bed and a passer-by looked in our front window while driving by. He saw that our coal stove was orange, which meant that it was burning too hot. He pounded on the door to wake Dad up to tell him about the stove. I'm sure Dad would have seen it on his way to the door. He had left the damper open.

Stella Street
When we moved to Stella Street Mom birthed Jamie. Mom told the story about how she laid Jamie on a bed as a newborn and Marilyn went into the room and picked her up and put her on another bed. Mom nearly passed out when she discovered it. I don't know if she saw Marilyn in action or what. I guess Marilyn did a good job because Jamie is still with us and all in one piece. Mom had several gall bladder attacks while in that house and so had some down times. 

There was a tree next to the driveway at the Stella Street house. Linda decided to climb it and sit on the horizontal limb. However, she found out she gets dizzy with heights and it makes her sick. She fell off of the limb and hit her head on a tree root sticking out of the ground. It knocked her unconscious but because we didn't know anything about being unconscious, we thought she was dead. Mom took her to the hospital via someone else's car. Dad came home from work and when he pulled into the driveway I yelled, "Dad, Dad, Linda fell out of the tree and she's dead." We kids were dispersed among neighbors and relatives who lived nearby until they came back home, Linda in tow. She had a concussion and had been throwing up. The best I remember she blamed it on the corn on the cob she had eaten. She now says it was something different but she didn't eat corn on the cob for several years. 

My cousin, Sheila Hammonds, came to visit one day. We all went swimming at the park pool. I couldn't swim but decided to go in the deep water and try to tread water. I stayed close to the side, or so I thought, but then I started going under, once, twice and then the third time my cousin grabbed ahold o me. I laid on the concrete that surrounded the pool and bawled my eyes out knowing how close I came to dying. By the grace of God Sheila had visited that day. There was a lifeguard, but she wasn't looking in her blind spot.

One day my uncle, Donald Downard, and his son, David, came to visit. We were all in the back yard and all of a sudden David threw his toy gun my way and it hit me in the eye. My eye immediately turned black. The gun was metal and heavy, not like today's toy guns. Donald was so upset that he gave me a 50-cent piece. I was in hog heaven. I immediately walked to the Heights Bakery to get some penny candy. Sharon probably walked with me because she usually did. I didn't care about the black eye; it was worth it. David was only about 6 or 7 years old.

Dad made us several outdoor toys while we lived on Stella Street. He first made us a pair of stilts. We got good at walking on them. We would stand on the concrete front porch (with no rail), put the stilts on the ground and put our feet on the foot extensions one at a time and take off walking. Dad made kites out of newspapers and wooden crosspieces. The tails were old rags torn into strips. They worked just fine. He also made us a wooden marble game similar to the Sorry board game.

In addition, dad made us a go kart. It was made of wood so it would probably be considered more of a soap box car but there was no box. He put a motor on it but never could keep the motor running. He wasn't mechanically minded but he tried and we appreciated it and were impressed with what he did do. I don't know what job Dad was working during that time period. It wasn't until we moved to the country that he got a job with Illinois Power Company in Mt. Vernon. He worked there 35 years then retired.