The Event ~ Home Sweet Home

Driving through our old neighborhoods recently brought vivid memories of the years we lived in different houses since Tim and I got married.


First home following marriage in 1970 - east of Bayard

  Our first home, in November 1970, as newly weds was two miles east of Bayard.  This house came with the farm land Tim rented as his first farming operation to support his new wife.  Before we were married, Tim and his parents spent time painting the interior and laying down a wool rug in the living room that Tim's folks pulled out of their house.  Wool rugs never wear out!  The kitchen was painted yellow, the bedroom lavender.   I remember we had to lay hay bales against the kitchen foundation in the winter time so the kitchen sink pipes wouldn't freeze!  It had an upstairs which we didn't use because it was like a freezer in the winter time.   Today, an upstairs like that would be fun to utilize!  I took my laundry to my in-law's house because we couldn't afford a washer and dryer right away. It wasn't until Janel was due that I insisted it was time for our own washer and dryer!  This was the house we brought Janel home to in June 1972! 



Second home west of Bayard - 1972


In 1973 we bought a farm west of town that was adjacent to Tim's parents and his grandparents farms.  We moved into the little white house (shack).  We did put in new cupboards in the kitchen.  My washer and dryer were located in the cellar ~ go outside, lift the cellar door, down the spider-webby steps and into the dungeon to wash the clothes.  Before Alexis was born, Tim and his Dad built a small addition to the west side of the house as a utility room so we moved the washer/dryer up from the dirty cellar.  This was the house Alexis was brought home to in December 1974!  Their tiny bedroom fit a crib for Alexis and a twin bed for Janel.  One day I got tired of the state of the bathroom, so I tore out the sink and toilet.  Tim came home to find the sink and toilet out the back door.  So he had no choice but to remodel the bathroom!




 In 1977 we built a new house on the hill north of the old white shack.  It was a house I designed.  Tim's high school shop instructor framed the house, and Tim and I did the electrical, plumbing, hanging the sheet rock and finishing the woodwork.  We hired someone to finish the drywall.  We started in the fall of 1976 and finished in the spring of 1977.  Two months after we moved in, it narrowly missed being destroyed by a tornado.  Janel and Alexis each had their own bedroom.  When Cash was born, Janel moved to the bedroom "suite" in the basement with her own bathroom and large closet area, Alexis got the beautiful pink and purple room, and the third bedroom became a nursery.  This was the house Cash was brought home to in March 1981.   I had a beautiful big utility room combined with a sewing center. My washer and dryer were on the main floor!



  In 1986 farming went south, we sold the farm and all of the equipment and moved to Scottsbluff.  We bought a little blue house at 1906 Avenue K.  Again, Janel got sent to the basement, Alexis had the bedroom with the orange/yellow/avacado/brown pukey throw-up shag carpet, and Cash the little third bedroom. (Not tearing up that carpet should be added to my list of  "I wish I would have...")  It was different for all of us to live in town.  It was especially hard on Tim with his new city job.  We spent many a lunch hour driving around the country looking for a country house to buy.  We lived in this house for three years.  No babies were brought home to this house.  Just a gold fish and a black kitten!

In December 1989 we moved into our current home two miles northwest of Scottsbluff ~ in the country ~ with 40 acres!  God's hand was definitely involved in buying this little farm.  We drove by it many times, convinced this would be a nice place.  It was vacant and grown to weeds.  But the exterior was well kept with new siding so it looked nice.  We contacted the neighbors about who owned it.  They assured us the owner, Jack Murphy, was not really interested in selling because he was asking way too much for the place.  We also learned nobody had been living in it for 15 years.  But they still kept the light on at night!

We wrote a letter (yes, hand written, snail mail) to  Mr. Murphy in Oklahoma.  No response.  We called.  No response.  We found another place to buy.  The Friday we had an appointment to talk to the realtor about buying the other place, I told Tim "Let's call Mr. Murphy one more time just to see if we can reach him and talk to him."   We called.  He answered.  He remembered getting our letter.  He was just walking out the door to come to Scottsbluff to check on his properties and he would contact us when he got here.  We cancelled our appointment and waited a week to hear back from Mr. Murphy. 




40 acres NW of Scottsbluff  - 1989



(This areial pic shows  the yard at the time of purchase. Today it's totally different with a house addition ~ we enclosed the u-shape in the back ~ a 40x60 steel shop/garage and a steel barn; and all the other buildings in this pic are gone.)

Finally, the following Saturday we drove out to the Murphy place to see if we could talk to him.  He had been cleaning the place up all week.  He wanted to get it in order before he contacted us.  He let us in the house to see it.  It was only two bedrooms and the basement was a dungeon.  We were dissappointed.  We went home, thought about it, decided we could gut the basement, remove the monstrous antique heating unit, and create two bedrooms and a bathroom in the basement.  We returned to Mr Murphy and told him we were interested and invited him in for Sunday dinner the next day to discuss the deal. 



 

We asked him what he would sell it for.  His asking price was only $5,000 more than we were thinking of offering.  We were in the ballpark.  We were on the same page.  Mr Murphy didn't make us sign any papers.  He told us to make sure we could get all our loan paperwork in order.  If we could, he would come back to Scottsbluff to sign the farm over to us.  Thirty days later in September 1989 we closed on the property.  Mr Murphy gave us all the mineral rights, all the crop that would be harvested within three weeks, all the paid up insurance for the next six months, and a case of barbeque sauce that his friends make in Oklahoma.  It was an easy transition. 

Tim and I and the kids spent the next 3 1/2 months gutting the basement, stripping layers of 50 year old wall paper, sanding floors,  painting, tearing out trees, leveling the yard.  We worked many nights past midnight, nights that we weren't at the girl's volleyball and basketball games.  How did we do that? We moved in between Christmas and New Years 1989.  It's been home ever since.  It's the house where Janel, Alexis and Cash celebrated their high school graduations.  It's the home they come back to today.  It's what the grandchildren call Cowboy Grandpa's farm.  It's home sweet home.

Making a house a home is an event.  It's an eventful memory, an eventful journey.  It's an event filled with love.  Any house can be made a home when it is filled with love and family!   A home should be built on a firm foundation.  The house, of course, is constructed on a firm foundation ~ hopefully ~ so that when the winds blow and the rains come, the house will not fall flat.  But, more importantly, a home must be built on a firm foundation ~ the foundation being Christ as the head of the house.  As the song goes that we all learned as a child:      ". . . .The wise man builds his house upon a rock. . ."   (the rock being the Lord Jesus Christ)  ".  .  . the blessings will come down as the prayers go up. . . . so build your house (home) on the Lord."

This last picture is the house I lived in when I was in high school.  I may have been an 8th grader or freshman when we moved into this house. My parents built this house around 1963 or 64.   I wish I could find a picture of the little pink house I grew up in.  It no longer exists.