I had talked about making this trip at the funeral. It really seemed like something
I needed to do so, over Spring Break, I drove around to all of the places where we had lived. I will probably never get my credit cards paid off now but I’m really glad that I did this. Visiting each of the places brought back swarms of memories (except for Michigan where I was too little to remember anything but still there were emotions tied to this place.
Visiting each place was like remembering a different aspect of Mother. Definitely, the places in Central Illinois were the happiest. They were also, surprisingly, the hardest to deal with emotionally. I hadn’t been back to any of these places since we moved away from them and there was a lot of myself left behind there as well. So, as much as a trip to remember Mother, this was also something of a trip to reclaimed myself.
All told round trip, I journeyed about 2600 miles. The rental agency had given me a brand new car that only had 130 miles on it when I left out – this definitely made for a smooth trip. However, attempting to cover all of this distance in about 6 days meant that I had very little time to actually spend at each stop. I didn’t stop and visit anyone on the way, partially because of my limited time, partially because I was a ghost from the past and didn’t really feel like being a part of the present. The one exception I made was that I stopped and saw Martha in St. Louis but this was only because I didn’t get a chance to see her after the funeral (she had a bad case of the flu) and I had promised her that I would. So I took her out and showed her where I had scattered Mother’s ashes.
For what it is worth though, many of the places I was very curious about and would like to go back sometime, under different circumstances, and talk to the people who presently live in the houses as well as look up old friends from the times when we lived there.
All in all, it was a very cathartic trip. I thought that it would bring closure but I don’t think that it has done that, not completely anyway. It did bring back many fond memories, however. I’m very glad that I did this. My only regret is that I wish that I had done this while Mom was still alive – I think she would have enjoyed seeing the pictures and talking about all of the old times.
Ann Arbor Michigan
This is where everything began, at least from my perspective. I have no picture of a house for this location because, much to my surprise, I did not have an address. I did not feel too disappointed over this as it turned out that, although I was born in Ann Arbor, I never really lived there. Nonetheless, it was still very nice to visit my birth town. Although Ann Arbor has long ago become a bedroom community for Detroit, it still has all of the charm and ambiance of a large college town.
7200 Harding, Apt 201 Taylor Townshp MI
When Mother gave birth to me she was a dingle parent, something that carried a great stigma with it in those days. Worse still, Mother could no longer work as, in those times, any woman with a child was expected to be at home raising them. She had to resign her position as director of
nursing at the hospital in Ann Arbor (mom was quite a pioneer here – she was one of the first women to hold such a position).
In order to avoid the disgrace of being a single parent, Mother invented a story about having been married, things not working out, and quickly being divorced. In order to corroborate her story, Mother had her and my last name changed to Smith (which is John’s last name), she went out and bought luggage with her new initials monogramed onto them, and she rented an apartment in Taylor Township (incorporated into Taylor MI in 1968) for six months. So, this is the first place Mom and I lived together.
Unknown address in St. Louis and RR 6 Box 451 Decatur, IL
After Taylor, Mother and I moved to St. Louis for a short period of time. We lived with Grandfather and Grandmother and Uncle Dan then. I did not have an address for this location but Martha said that she remembers where it was at. Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to try to track this location down.
RR6 Decatur (in what is now Mt. Zion). We lived here from September 64 until March of 65. This address no longer exists per se. That is, Decatur and it’s suburbs have overgrown the area. The house may still exist, but it would take a bit of detective work to determine what the correct address has become.
1016 S. Washington, Sullivan IL
April 1965 – December 1966
This is where we lived when Sarah was born. Although I don’t remember much from this time period, this is where my memories start (when I was 3). Mom always liked to tell the story of how I Grandmother gave me a black eye while she was in the hospital giving birth. She didn’t really, I fell and hit my head on the coffee table. However, much to Grandmother’s consternation, Dad went around telling everyone that she had hit me.
I remember little from this time period but I did recognize the house (maybe because I’ve seen it in many pictures). However, when we lived there, it was the last house on the block (there was a field next door). Dad had an old army tent that mom set up in the back yard and I played in. Also, there was a little girl my age named Amy who lived across the street. We were friends but for some reason Mom and Dad usually wouldn’t let me play with her (they probably didn’t like her parents or something like that).
#1 Newland Lane, Jacksonville, IL (Big Jacksonville)
December 1st, 1966 – August 17th, 1967
My memories of this house are vague. To be honest, I didn’t recognize it from the outside – I couldn’t really remember what the house looked like at all. I do remember that the Christmas we spent here was when I got the rocking horse we had or so long (wonder what ever happened to that?). Also, I remember this really weird dream/nightmare that I had there – it was about some pupets from a daytime TV show that were in Sarah’s room. It was an odd dream and I really don’t now why it stuck in my head. I don’t think that we had a washer and dryer yet, or at least I remember going to the laundramat with mom occasionally. Also, the Wrights lived in Jacksonville during this time period as well and we would go over and play with Brad and Patty all the time (Lori hadn’t been born yet). Also, this is when uncle Bill and aunt Bev went to Hawaii and brought me back the coconut that I have had ever since.
#23 Merrygrove Drive, Jacksonville IL (Little Jacksonville)
August 17th 1967 – February 17th 1969
This was ‘Little Jacksonville’. I really think this was something of a misnomer though because I think the reason we moved here was so that we would have a little more room. Maybe the first house was Big Jacksonville because it was two stories? At any rate, we did move here because, at the time, it was a brand new house. In fact, there were only two streets in the neighborhood and everything else was a plowed field (I was really tickled when I stoped to ask directions that the locals still refer to this section of town as the ‘new area’). Also, there were no trees to speak of at the time (except for one’s that people had planted themselves). Now, the trees are 20 foot tall.
I was quite surprised that I remembered the Vesper’s house as I walked around the block. They were great friends with Mom and Dad – Sarah and I played with their children Micky and Craig all of the time. Sarah and I used to have these toy phones here – we each had a phone in our rooms and, when you picked one up, the other would ring, and then you could talk to each other just like a real phone. These disappeared shortly after we moved – probably because we drove Mom and Dad nuts with them.
This is also where I had my first experience at driving. Mom had put Sarah and I in the car in the front seat and gone back into the house to get something. I reached up and put the car into neutral and we began to rolling back out of the driveway, across the street and finally came to a rest in the Steele’s front yard.
1606 Barrington, Decatur, IL
February 18th, 1969 – August 1971
This was also a new subdivision (and a new house) when we moved in. I remember, my favorite TV show at the time was the Banana Splits Club. I also got to stay up late on occasion to watch Star Trek (Mom and Dad watched it all the time. This is the time period where Dad had the moustache. We had many friends around the block but I can only remember Donna and Pam (whose parents were both managers at a McDonalds), Tyler Underwood and our Neighbor Timmy. One of the neighobrs down the street (Dan something or another) was a pilot. Since Dad had his pilot’s liscence, Dan let him take us up flying in his plane once. The house looked different when we lived in it. If I recall correctly, It was white with black shutters. But I recognized it instantly from the lamp our front (notice most of the houses we lived in had a similar lamp in front of them). This lamp was kind of neat because Dad had installed an solar cell switch on it – it turned on automatically whenever it got dark. We kids had lots of fun covering up the electric eye and making the lamp come on during the day.
This was the only place we lived when Dad and Mom were married that we ever had a pet. We had a little wire-haired terrier named Candy. Dad didn’t care for her much though. One day, when we woke up, we were told that she had died but I really wonder if that was what had happened to her.
Note the tree in the yard to the left? This was a newly planted sapling about 4′ high the year that we left.
Adlai Stevenson Grade School
This is where Sarah started school and I finished kindergarten, first and second grade. I didn’t intend to take pictures of schools but I couldn’t help it when I saw this. When I came into Decatur, this was the first landmark I found and it really blew my mind that I remembered it. The classroom on the corner closest in the picture was where I had 1st grade with Miss High. The one behind it on the far side of the building was my kindergarden room. On the same side, one up, was Mrs. Elson’s 2nd grade class.
275 Taylor Avenue, Decatur, IL
August 1971 – June 3rd, 1972
I think Mom really loved this house (it was a real ‘This Old House’). The rooms were large and the architecture was interesting. You can see, the garage still stands although it has been refinished – it was brick (I believe it matched the house) with white doors. There was a little walled in enclosure behind the garage where the trash cans set – we kids used to make something of a club house back there. Better still you could climb ontop of that wall and then the neighbors garage, which had a flat roof, was just a hop away (I believe that was the Lawhorn’s house). I got in trouble once or twice for doing this. Apparently, the worst of it was that the roof of the neighbor’s garage was rotting and they were afraid we would fall through.
This is where I remember mom teaching us to make snow angels. She also helped us build snowmen and snowwomen and then we colored them with food colors. The current residents have a swing set in the front yard in exactly the same place ours set.
I guess what surprised me most about visiting Taylor was that it still has brick roads all around it. This was the first place I had ever seen a brick road. I was pleasantly shocked that they had not been paved over.
Caty-corner across the street from us lived the Larsons. Their daughter Margorie was my classmate and I had the worst crush on her. We played together all the time but our parents didn’t click very well. I remember her parents coming over one night to welcome us to the neighborhood but that was all we saw of them. I think Dad and Mom might have been a little hesitant to associate with Catholics at the time.
This was also where we got our first color TV. The choir that Sarah and I sang in appeared on TV to sing Christmas carols. We got the TV just so that we could all watch Sarah and I in color. After this, we didn’t have to go to Granddad Bicknell’s to watch the Wizard of Oz anymore (good thing, because we moved to Salem shortly thereafter). Also, this was when Sarah was on Romper Room for a week (I got to come on on Wednesday which was guest day).
I remember two ‘cutsie’ songs made it into the top 40 while we were here ‘The Dipsy Doodle Dragon’ and ‘The lonely Unicorn’ (or something like that). Mom thought these songs were great and bought the 45s. We listened to them constantly in the basement and would sing them all the time.
Dennis Elementary School
I didn’t intend to take pictures of schools as well as houses on this trip but this was a bit hard to avoid. Dennis Elementary was only a half a block from our house. It really hadn’t changed much since we were there – which is kind of scarry because it was old and needed to be rebuilt when we were there. (Says a lot for the value our society places on education). I was in 3rd grade here and Sarah was in 1st. My 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Savage, would read a book to us as part of our reading lessons. One of the books she read was Laura Engels Wilder’s “Little House in the Big Woods”. Sarah and I and the Larson girls used to play ‘Little House on the Prairie’ before the TV series ever came out. (As a matter of fact, Michael Landon was still doing Bonanza at the time – one of Dad’s favorite shows).
Aside from Margorie, my other best friend was Vincent Turner.
333 Edgewood Road, Salem, IL
June 4th, 1972 – August, 1980
Salem was very much a mixed blessing. I don’t think mom really wanted to move here and I think she would have been happier if we had stayed in Decatur, or at least a bigger city. Certainly, the house on Taylor had been bought to make her happy and now she was having to give it up – the idea was that Dad wouldn’t be on the road so much and would get to spend more time at home (he still worked for WR Grace at the time). Honestly, I don’t think either Mom or I really had the temperament to live in a small town. At any rate, moving out of Decatur marked the beginning of the end of Mom & Dad’s relationship. Salem wasn’t a bad place – it eventually became a part of me, it just wasn’t a place to flourish.
There are lots and lots of memories of Salem, too many to even try to write down. This is really the one place we lived the longest and so it became home. The cow pasture across the road has become a corn field now. The old tree stump is gone (it was hollow and I used to play in it as a clubhouse).
The playhouse/shed is still in the backyard and looks much the same. I didn’t stop in to say hello but I noticed that the Forney’s still lived next door (Although, there were no signs of a Saint Bernard.
You girls probably have enough memories of Salem that I don’t need to repeat any. This is really where I grew up. The neat thing about my trip to Salem was, although I didn’t stop in and see anyone, the town still felt like home. I am going to have to go back sometime soon (maybe this summer) and say hello to a few people.
Amy had lots of fun here though. There was once, beofore she started school that she was home alone with Mom. Mom went into the garage to do a load of laundry (that’s where the washer and dryer were) and Amy locked the door behind her. Amy thought it was hysterically funny and wouldn’t let her back in for a long time. Then, another time, after we had just gotten back from a trip to Calloway Gardens, the hose had been left on out back, but it had a pistol grip nozzle on it (so water wasn’t flowing out of it). Amy went and grabbed the hose and, laughing, started spraying the back door holding everyone at bay. Dad finally came around behind the house to try to sneak up on her but she heard him coming and turned around and hosed him down good. It was great.
Hawthorne Elementary School
I was here for 4th – 5th grade and Sarah was here for 2nd -5th grade. Amy started kindergarten here and we moved when she was in 2nd or 3rd grade(?). This was a really neat school – very experimental.
Salem Junior High School
Sarah and I both were here for all of Junior High. This is at least one old building that was retired. Sometime in the mid 1980s, they built a new Junior High behind Hawthorne and this building became the community center.
Salem Community High School
Honestly, this building doesn’t look all that different from when we were there. I was here for all of High School and Sarah was a Freshman here (I think we had moved before she began her sophomore year).
703 Carriage Court, Salina KS
August, 1980 – October, 1980
We were just here for a short time while Mom looked for a house. These duplexes had formerly been officers quarters when the Air Force base had been here.
2208 Kensington Road, Salina KS
October, 1980 – August, 1987
As you can tell from the picture, the house has been repainted. This was a nice place to live. Except for the sewer system. We had a horrible problem with tree roots and about once a year, usually mid winter of all times, the roots would clog the sewer system up and the basement would flood.
#39 Devon Court – Apt. 12 Edwardsville, IL
August, 1987 – September, 1993
Edwardsville was a change for mom but things started to get better here. She was still having a lot of problems. I had thought her problems were mainly due to being alone but she wasn’t even doing well when Dawn and I were living with her. That said, however, this still wasn’t a bad place for her and we have a lot of good memories of this time period. I think Amy lived here in Edwardsville for a time with Mom as well.
When we went out to eat here for a treat, we would go to a restaurant called PK’s. Also, it was nice to be so close to St. Louis. We made occasional outings to the cultural places (mostly the Zoo with Jasmine). And there were occasional relatives that would come over to visit.
402 South 6th Street, Murray KY
September 26th, 1993 – October 1997
This was a good place for mom. It really helped with her drinking problem – Murray was a dry county so there was nowhere within 35 miles where you could buy alcohol and Mother had long since given up driving.
Though the soil wasn’t the greatest, mom started gardening again here. And her easile was set up and she did a little painting as well. The house was older but quaint. This is where we first found out about Drew. I remember that I was working midnights at the time and Dawn woke me up after only a few hours sleep. She kept telling me that I had to get up to go and meet my brother. I thought I was dreaming and kept trying to explain to her that I didn’t have a brother.
572 E Park St Apt 157, Olathe KS
October 5th, 1997 – November 2005
I really hadn’t realized how long Mom had lived here until I started to write the dates down. She came out to visit us once in 2000 when we had just moved to Bloomington but this was her last big trip.
Royal Terrace Nursing Home
November 2005 – February 2007
Nursing homes aren’t the greatest place but I’ve seen much worse than the Royal Terrace. At least the place was clean and the staff was attentive (at least that was the case when we were there anyway). The one time I did manage to get the children and grandchild out to visit, we were plagued with tornados. I think there must have been at least four tornado warnings and we spent about half of the visit sitting in the hall with mom while we waited for the all clear to sound.
Forest Park, St. Louis Mo
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in morning’s hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight;
I am the soft star that shines at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.
The Starry Heavens
I was sitting next to my friend Pat, waiting for church to start &
as usual pondering what is God & why are we here; Pat handed me the
church bulletin and said “That’s all it is: Love”. That was all that
was printed on the bulletin, just ‘LOVE’. The minister started the
sermon and all around me was gone and I was in a white tunnel traveling
toward a light at the end. I had a guide holding my hand and we sailed
through the tunnel to the end to a beautiful garden at the end where I
was met by a lovely girl dressed in old Greek clothing who lead me to
a small stream and sat me down. My guide waited near by (he looked a
lot like my father) and explained to me that we were on Earth to learn
unconditional Love and would return to earth periodically until we had
attained it at which time we became part of a vast (?) grouping in a
universe of pure love – like a force field, I guess. She took my hand
and showed me lovely sights and more beings like her (which I was not
allowed to remember – only that it was a lovely place) and then I was
back in the tunnel with my guide and was suddenly back in the church,
where the minister was finishing his sermon (it has been about 40-45
minutes and as I became aware of where I was and he finished talking,
a sunbeam flashed through the window toward the pulpit, and I felt
wonderful and full of love for everyone. When I got home I went into
the backyard and held up my arms and a large flock of bluebirds came
and swirled around me.
