FROM MILLSTADT TO NASHVILLE

BUILDING THE NASHILLE HOUSE

When we drove through Nashville from Millstadt on our way to Mt. Vernon, we would remark about what a nice town it was. It was well groomed and the people seemed to take pride in their children and school sports. We weren't thinking about possibly living there at the time. But John applied for the woodworking job at the Middle School and was accepted. However, the class was canceled a few days before school started thanks to a new principal. His starting salary was $12,000. Fifteen years later his salary had increased to $19,000, the same as a starting factory worker who had no college education.

We had to wait until the summer break ended before he could start his new position. But when it came time for school to start, the woodworking class had been eliminated along with home economics. John was devastated. He had already quit his job at Smithton Grade School. A new principal was in charge. He was egotistical and arrogant. But the board decided to give John the 5th grade home room, a science class and whatever other classes they could make available. One was English and that is his worst subject. Anyway, that's the position he held for about 25 years or until he retired. 

He wanted to live outside of town so that he wouldn't be bothered by kids and parents. So he asked an old lady who lived on Hwy. 15 (460 then) if she would sell us some land. Her land extended east about a quarter of a mile on the west end of town. John wanted the farthest lot going north. At first she balked at selling the land but changed her mind. Then she decided how she was going to divide her property. We got an acre on the far end. 

There were no water lines or sewer lines, though we could purchase them for about $6,000. Anyone who knows John knows he's not about to let go of that much money. So we had a cistern and septic tank.

When Charlie Brink and his construction crew had the basement dug out, we discovered the next day that they had hit an underground spring and the dugout basement was filled with alot of water. We would later have to use a sump pump to keep the water out of the basement.

We got a loan for $22,000 and had the shell of the house built. The idea was to finish it ourselves. We did do a lot of the work. John helped his Uncle Joe Ancona do the plumbing in the house. David Mullinax helped wire the house, but John and I put the heating wires in the ceiling. Our house was all electric. We also ran the laterals which are drainage pipes. We had to hire someone to plaster the walls a couple of years later. 

Eventually we added a few thousand more to our loan and got some cabinets, vinyl floors in the kitchen and bathroom, and carpet in the other rooms. Until we got the cabinets, which was about 3 years after the start of building, we lived very crudely in the house. I had a free-standing sink and stove, a free-standing tall cabinet and a table to work off of. There was also a table in the dining room. We all got used to living like that but naturally we were looking forward to completion.

I used to say that if anyone broke into our house, they would probably leave a donation. They didn't. They just took our tv and left the back door open in bitter cold weather. They broke in that door by splitting the back door frame. John was at church and I was in the hospital.

I did the landscaping on the front and sides. It was a battle because the weather kept eroding the soil and leaving deep, long ruts throughout the yard. Then it turned blazing hot. We had a waterway to drain water off of the field behind us and I had to put down grass seed then place feed sacks over the whole length of the waterway in that heat. I first had to open the sacks out by removing the seams and then I had to overlap corners and drive stakes through those corners so the wind wouldn't blow them away. It worked because I got a nice stand of grass there. It took a while for the rest of the yard. 

John surprised me by having some broken-up concrete slabs dumped in our back yard. He was going to use it as a base for asphalt and then a basketball court. I was totally thrilled about that, as you can imagine. It was a disaster. First of all, it looked terrible. Then there was the laying of the concrete slabs to equal the size of a basketball court. I thought everything would be OK once the guys laying the asphalt did their part. They wanted us to pay half up front, which we did, then we were to pay the other half when finished, except it was never finished. They got halfway through then quit. I think it may have been too uneven for them to work with without investing a lot of extra asphalt to finish the job.

But the kids made use of it nevertheless. Little John shot baskets, both kids rode Big Wheels on it, and I used to pull Devon around on a plastic train all over the court as fast as I could go. I can't imagine doing that now. Occasionally visitors would shoot baskets. The second picture below is Kevin Colclasure, our Youth Minister at church, now a preacher, holding Devon up so he could make a slam dunk or else just to hold onto the rim.

We started  out with a single car garage but John later turned it into a family room. He installed a wood-burning stove and laid the brick around it. He paneled the walls with gray barn-like paneling. All well and good. But then he hung a deer carcass over the couch. He got it at an auction.