05/18/2013

 Oh y’all. lot’s going on in this tiny little (gigantic) head of mine. 

I know i promised the history of the house,… the paper is lost somewhere ein the stacks in my office and i have yet to find it, and yada yada whatnot so on. The part I remember best, and relevant to this entry and my current spiraling thoughts, is a little bit about Millie (that’s what we’ve shortened her name to).

Millie was born in Bohemia in 1911 and brought to Chicago by her mother and father. By 1920, they had built some wealth with their butcher shop, and began building the house that I’m sitting in now. By 1921, they had moved in here. The 20s happened, and then the 30s, and then the war in the 40s. Millie, somewhere along the way, moved out on her own and became a career girl at the Something Or Other Radio Coil Factory, where she met Rudy, who would eventually become her husband. As Millie and Rudy’s adult lives were beginning, her parents were growing old. When they died, somewhere in the early 40s, Millie inherited the house. Somewhere along the way, the house main floor of the house was split in two, and a small, poverty level efficiency apartment was built into the basement. 

By then, little June was born. When Millie moved her family in, they shared a tiny bedroom (what is now being used as the guest room that brother stayed in when he was here), had their kitchen, and used the little garden porch as a living room. The rest of the house was rented out. By 1944, Millie and Rudy found out they were expecting little Jimmy and decided that the small living quarters were too small, and took control of the whole house again. This is when, by the way, the hole in the floor that we had to fix before we did anything else was boarded up with plywood. We know this, because Rudy wrote "fixed by Rudy and Jimmy in 1944" or something similar on one of the joists. Boyfriend wrote his name, and November 2012 under theirs before REALLY fixing it.  Anyhoo, less about the bones, more about the people….

Here they lived as a normal, Bohemian immigrant family, until June went off to college. The vegetable garden and flowers were planted, t the clothes lines were used, the fruit trees bore fruit that was canned on the stove in the  basement, and there were an abundance of Pear pies every season (according to June). Jimmy never left… never even had a paying job outside of this house.  He was his father’s helper, and did whatever necessary to maintain the grounds, the walls, the bricks, the garden… at his father’s strict instruction, of course…. Millie passed away in 2001, and Rudy passed away in June of 2012. The house was left to Jimmy and June, and I bought it directly from them.

So technically, this was Millie’s house… and now it’s mine. I’d like to think she was strong-willed and independent and spunky. I’d like to think we have a few things in common.

So there’s that, and here’s the magical, gift from the universe thing that happened to me today:

I belong to a facebook group that lots of people in our little city belong to, and it’s for things like "i’m selling this" or "want some of these?" or "anyone know a babysitter" or "is it good or bad that chick fil a is coming soon?" and yadayada. It’s been nice to read and be a part o.. I put our old farm sinks up for sale as a post, and a nice man volunteered to put together the history of the house, as stated above. it’s been a good thing, and has made me feel a little more welcomed.  ANYHOO… The owner of an antique shop posted that she had potted some Mini Hostas for who ever wanted to come pick them up… Yes please, I did want some and went today to pick them up.

Blah blah blah – this lead to that in conversation and so on and so forth. To make a long long story just a few sentences shorter…. I just put on hold at this antique shop the bedroom set that was given to Millie by her father when she turned 18 in 1929. Inlaid, carved wood – a headboard, baseboard, and bed slats, a vanity with mirror, and low boy with mirror. And her hope chest. All in meticulous condition. Turns out, Jimmy sold it to the lady just a few months before we bought the house. It was a little expensive, but (in another line of thought and topic, I found out my last day of work was technically actually yesterday, so I have another surprise paycheck coming, and three weeks vacation, and I’m pretty sure I’ve already found another job… another OTHER line of thought of topic to be discussed at a later time). 

So anyway, this furniture, bought by the man who built the house, for his daughter, who eventually inherited the house and raised a family, is coming home. It’s left here twice… once when Millie left to start her life, and once when Rudy’s life was over (Jimmy sold it when his dad died). By some sort of magic, I’ve found it and am bringing it home. We are going to keep it in the spare room. It’s too pretty and in too good condition to beat up with every day use, but it will be my ladies room’ and will sit at the vanity to brush my hair and put my prety cloche hats on top of the dressers and store my grandparents things in the hope chest, and also it will be a guest room when we have visitors. 

Pretty amazing that this is my life. 

When we finished at the antique shop, we decided to harvest the green onions in the garden (following advice from the antique lady). If we didn’t, the little seed pods and flowers at the top of them would drop and take over the garden even more than they already have. We got, no lie, 30 pounds of large green onions and 10 pounds of skinny chive like onions). About 5 old timey bushels worth. 40 pounds of onion and no kitchen, we decided to find a soup kitchen to place them in. A challenging feat at 5 PM on a Saturday, believe it or not.

By another universal nod, we managed to find a soup kitchen that feeds 900 people a day on average, and has it’s own greenhouse and trains the bums to tend the garden and harvest the crops and tend to the compost.  What this means is that the people that took them will know how to clean them, store them, and cook with them. The seed pods will most likely be used to sow in their garden, and the waste will be composted. Every bit of those onions will be used somehow, and they will help to  make a tasty meal for lots and lots of people. The big green onions are ‘old growth’, and i kid you not, about an inch and a half in diameter. like a giant chive… So they may already have some green onions in their garden, but probably none as big as these.

The kicker of this is that they were like #13 of the places I called, the first ones that answered the phone and seemingly, the only ones that accepted fresh food instead of canned food… and we didn’t find out ANY of the info about them and their garden and greenhouse and things  until we made it home and researched the place a little more. It’s a little (a lot) churchy, but that’s ok. If anyone needs church, it’s when they are homeless and hungry. Any extra stuff we will take there and feel confident that it will be put to the best use possible. 

Knowing that we have a place to share our harvests with gave me an extra burst of energy and I came home and planted more spinach, some lettuce, some basil, and some catnip fort the

girls. And then I swept Harold’s porch, stairs and sidewalk. Oh, and wed did some research and found we have carrots and celery ready to eat very soon!

Again, pretty amazing that this my life.

I woke up feeling crappy and poopy and allergy ridden and things. Tonight, I will go to bed happy. Don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I’ll try to make the most of it and keep an open mind and remember how blessed i am.