AUG 2024 - Four Times

In the fall of 1963, my husband, son, and I were living in the bottom half of a large Victorian house in Providence, RI. We had a lovely backyard where our 3-year-old son could play with the boy next door. The living room and dining room had fireplaces. French doors in the living room opened to a wraparound porch. The eat in kitchen was spacious and filled with light from the many windows. We spent time and money painting the apartment, happily ensconced. ​

Our street was a border between less expensive houses up the hill and more expensive houses down the hill. On Halloween, we opened the French doors and invited people in to drink hot cider, make doughnuts, and duck for apples in a tub of water. No one worried about diseases then. The house was filled with people who didn’t know each other laughing and talking and eating. No one had ever made doughnuts before so I helped them shape the dough and gently put it into the hot oil, making sure there was no splatter. Dishes of cinnamon, powdered sugar, grated chocolate and sprinkles awaited their creation.

In January 1964 the house was sold. The new owners wanted our apartment. We had one month to leave.

It wasn’t easy finding a two-bedroom apartment we could afford in February; few places were available in a college town. Eventually we found one on a busy street, with no back yard but we could only lease it until June. We had barely settled in when my husband came home with news. He’d been offered a job teaching at an all-boys private school in Providence which meant we’d have to move, but not out of state. I was teaching at a private girls’ school, which meant I could continue teaching. He’d also been offered a job in Wilmington, DE, which offered more money and better benefits than the teaching job in Providence, but Wilmington, DE sounded like the south to me. I knew the Mason Dixon line went between Delaware and Pennsylvania—after which escaping enslaved people had a chance for freedom. I wasn’t interested in living in the south.

He insisted I accompany him to the interview in Delaware. I insisted he decide which job he wanted most. He chose Delaware.

I refused to rent ever again. We met with a realtor who insisted on showing us houses in suburbia. As despair about living in suburbia loomed, I remembered a place called Arden, where the man with whom I’d taught folk dancing five years before had lived. He described it as a kind of English country village. I asked the realtor about Arden. “You don’t want to live there,” he said, not bothering to hide his disgust. “That’s where the commies and free-lovers live.”

My husband shook his head. “I guess that’s where we’ll be living.” Sort of against his will, the realtor showed us two houses for sale—both small, almost the same price, but one was on a corner and the other was situated on a large lot on a circular street with trees in the middle. Since we had no money, we bought the house with the large lot with a first and second mortgage. There were no cabinets in the kitchen, the toilet seemed to work when it felt like it, and the two tiny bedrooms had been created from the attic, but the big problem was, we couldn’t move in until September. We stored our belongings with my in-laws.

I had a fellowship to study dance at Connecticut College Summer Dance Program. My husband got a job at a summer camp. At the end of June, I drove my husband and son to camp, then drove to Connecticut. 

In September, my husband and a friend drove a rental truck to our new house. En route, the truck skidded and turned over on to its side. A huge jar of pennies broke, splattering glass and pennies amid the chaos and wreckage. The rental agency wouldn’t give us a new truck until we cleaned up every penny and bit of glass. Around midnight, with our son sleeping in the back of the car, we salvaged what we could, drove to the house, and slept on the living room rug. 

We had a house. What would it take to make it a home?

Have you ever had to move when you wanted to stay? What was that like?

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August 2024 Monthly Stories