Our Horatio Alger House

One child would run to the bathroom upstairs, go into the closet and peer down into the clothes chute. Another would stand at the opening of the chute in the kitchen, while :5till another would open the bin for the soiled linen in the basement. We would yell messages up and down. Better yet, if the upstairs kid could find a garment to drop into the chute and the kitchen kid would watch it slither by. We loved to show the amenities of the house to visitors. After all, how many houses have porte-cochere~_?__E._very_.clos_etin.the__house_was..equipped_with.aJight-that-came-on-when-you----------- ---– opened the door. The visitor could step into the closet and we would prove it! There were Tiffany style stained glass windows in the dining room featuring grape vines with big bunches of grapes over the built-in buffet. There were flowers in the stained glass windows in the upstairs front hallway. There were exposed mahogany beams on the dining room ceiling, a fireplace with artificial logs and a gas flame that made it look like real burning wood. Over the wainscoting all the way around the dining room was scenic wall paper that looked very European. Below the wainscoting were panels in which there was heavy leather-like wallpaper that gave the room a formal look. Sliding doors separated the dining room from the front room. There were gas grates in three other rooms. We could sit in front of them to roast marshmallows. My sisters used them to dry their hair. An electric pump in the basement put well water into the cold water pipes and cistern water into the hot water ones. It also pumped air to an outdoor air faucet where we inflated our bicycle and automobile tires. It even had a vacuum system with outlets around the house to which you could attach a hose and do your vacuum sweeping with the pipes taking the dirt into the sewer -- a system we never put into use. The large bathroom upstairs had smaU octagonal tiles on the floor and gleaming , white tile walls. There was a lavatory on the first floor and even one in the basement. No more chamber pots! The coal-fired hot water furnace heated both the house and the garage. The grounds of the Smith House were as impressive as the interior. Barberry hedges flanked the curving, crushed stone driveway that led to the side door. Maples and elms graced both the front and side lawns with a circular canna bed where the front lawn joined the side one and a magnolia tree behind that. There was a grape arbor at the rear of the lawn, then a small fenced-in orchard and a large vegetable garden. How we loved that house! Many people shared our enjoyment of it during the 50 years our family owned it. Over a hundred college students lived there. One student, handicapped by a hearing loss, stayed on for several years becoming almost a part of the family as he cooked for my mother and helped my father milk his cows. Uncle Jim lost his job in the depression, moved in with us, and worked in my father's store. Miss Stormont, a saintly second grade teacher, moved into our house every winter for a period so that she could walk to school. In our high school and college days, our family became very close to the West family-- Mr. West was the bank cashier who had helped us. Thosewere the years that the new young minister, the Rev. Clyde A. Hutchison, came to town. Together, these. families had 13 children with nine ofus