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Wednesday, February 15, 2012

1952 - Remodeling the House


1952 - Remodeling the House
The house that we bought had an indoor bathroom and four rooms; living room, kitchen, and two bedrooms. We had three children so it was really too small.
We decided that we would dig a basement under the house, add an attic, and more bedrooms. The first thing that Harold did was to dig the basement. He started out working like he had in the mines; on his knees with a pick and shovel. After awhile he hired an old man that everyone called “The Human Mole”, because he liked to dig and he was fast at it.
That old man, Mr. Smallwood, that was his name, wouldn’t sleep inside the house; he slept in what was to be the basement on a pallet that he made up himself. Mr. Smallwood said that way if he woke up with a notion to dig he could just start in digging and he wouldn’t wake anyone up. It didn’t take him long to get that basement ready for Harold to pour the walls.
Harold had started inside the house. He made an attic room and while he was working on that he fell through the ceiling. He had straddled one of the 2 X 4’s when he fell. There didn’t seem to be anyway he could get loose himself and we couldn’t get him loose from the bottom because we weren’t strong enough. It was a good thing that my brother in law, Herbert Hannah, came in, saw what had happened and got him out.
By the time we got through with the remodeling job we had four bedrooms, a sewing room, an attic room and a full size basement in it with a summer kitchen for canning. It took awhile but it really was nice by the time Harold got through with it.

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