Looking Back

[DWalt]

My childhood home doesn't exist anymore.
Ethel Hollow, WV once had hundreds of homes. Not fancy homes, but those that the coal company built and rented to the miners. Very little exist there today as I knew it.
Once up on a time, Ethel had schools, doctor's office, theater, ball field, and that "company" store we used just like Safeway. Today, nature has reclaimed most everything, except the memories.

Back in the early part of the 20th Century, in my old home town there was essentially a company town within the city which consisted mainly of houses once owned by a large steel mill and rented out to mill workers. The mill closed over 50 years ago and was later demolished, but some of the houses are still there and inhabited. Talk about cookie cutter houses, the houses there are virtually identical. All are just boxes of less than 1000 SF on postage stamp size lots. I think it was much the same situation in other mill and coal (and other) mining areas. Not a good home environment to come from. I was never inside one but I can imagine how grim the lives were of those living there.

 

[steelslaver]

When I am in my home town I regularly drive by the 3 story house my parents bought when I was 10, I drive by both of my grand parents houses which are still standing an look to be in good shape. I have no idea what kind of shape my great grand mother's soddy is in these days. I was at the home where one of my grandfathers grew up a few years ago.

 

[kraynky]

The house we moved into when I was about 5 years old is still standing on Pine Street. The house I remember before that was bulldozed over to build a supermarket shortly after we moved. I walked to kindergarten two doors over from that house, It's gone too.

"Pine Street" house was sold to my sisters oldest son after Mom remarried a few years after Dad passed away suddenly at age 59 some 35 years ago.

The house has been upgraded a good bit, but basically looks the same as it was when I lived there from 1963 to about 1978. The whole neighborhood looks basically the same.

Nephew raised 3 wonderful girls there after my parents raised us 3 kids. I'm fortunate that I can still visit anytime I wish. Smalltime towns are wonderful that way sometimes.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

Last week the wife and I drove past the first home I can remember. The concrete street is now black-top. The almost 3' diameter maple in the front yard was a 1" stick when dad planted it a few weeks before Kennedy was shot. The woods behind the houses across the street is now a medical office park, where I get to visit my new cardiologist next week.

The farmhouse my kids grew up in has been completely refurbished by the family that bought it 10 years ago. They have over $400K in the place that I spent $30k on in 1984. It is of its 4th family in a row to raise a small heard of kids in the delights of big shade and abundant apple trees! Every last barn is gone! But Ohio's largest Butternut tree is getting even bigger. (and has a State plaque commemorating its survival)

Granddad's farm was sold to Amish in the late 90's It had been a modern dairy operation of 210 acres. Now the old house has about 80 acres and many 5-acre households. With beautiful plow horses and it looked like 20 little blonde kids living the old-style life!

Almost all my High School Classmates that get together have watched the old farms they grew up on become housing developments!

Ivan

 

[SMSgt]

My childhood home doesn't exist anymore.
Ethel Hollow, WV once had hundreds of homes. Not fancy homes, but those that the coal company built and rented to the miners. Very little exist there today as I knew it.
Once up on a time, Ethel had schools, doctor's office, theater, ball field, and that "company" store we used just like Safeway. Today, nature has reclaimed most everything, except the memories.

Dig sixteen tons, what do you get,
Another day older and deeper in debt.

Tennessee Earnie Ford knew of what he sang about.

 

[swsig]

The first home I lived in was in a government-built apartment complex built for military employees in San Diego during World War 2. The complex was torn down after the war, and the site is now a parking lot for San Diego's Old Town State Park. I've visited there many times since, and I am always amused when I can park on the site of our old apartment.

In 1948, when I was 4, Dad built a modest 2-bedroom house on a nearly 1/2 acre lot in a very modest semi-rural neighborhood (land was cheap there) in San Diego. We expanded to three bedrooms after my little sister was born and lived there for 16 years. The house is still there, and hasn't changed much. A den has been built on the back of the house (it was built by my former high school's construction trades students), but it isn't visible from the street. Three of the large pine trees that shaded the lot are still there. We also had a bunch of eucalyptus trees, but they've all been removed. Half the lot that we used as our "playground" was sold off, and another house was built on it. Despite California's skyrocketing real estate values, the neighborhood is still very modest and somewhat ramshackle. At least they've paved the street. It was dirt the entire time I lived there. Our old house with less than 2,000 square feet and no garage is worth nearly as much as my current house with 3,000 square feet plus a 3-car garage. Those kinds of prices, which preclude me from living in my preferred San Diego neighborhood (La Jolla), plus California's screwball gun laws mean that there's no chance of me moving back.