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Saturday, September 12, 2020

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - What Was Your Childhood Home Like?

 Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:

 It's Saturday Night again - 

time for some more Genealogy Fun!!



Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):


1) What was your childhood home like?  How big was it?  How many rooms did it have?  What facilities did you have? What furniture was there?  

2) Share your response on your own blog, in a comment to this post, or in a comment or post on Facebook.


Here's mine:


After World War II, my parents moved into 2119 30th Street in San Diego in 1947.  This was a second floor apartment in one of the houses my great-grandparents built in 1895 and my grandparents owned after they died.  I lived there continuously from 1947 until I moved out for the first time in 1966.

The home was rectangular, about 36 feet by 46 feet, with a covered staircase from the street into the front door on the northwest corner of the house, and a staircase down from the back landing from the northeast corner of the house to the north side; the back stairs were changed to go down the east side of the house in the early 1950s.

The rooms in the upper floor apartment included:

*  At the top of the front stairs was my father's office - perhaps 10 feet square.  There were three more stairs above the front door, my father's desk area to the south of the stairs, and open entries to the dining room to the east and the living room to the west, and a closable door to the master bedroom to the south.  The floor was hardwood. The office had the only heating unit, a wall gas heater on the east wall, that we all stood next to on a cold morning.

*  Along the north wall of the apartment, east of the office, was the dining room, which had two windows facing north.  The dining room was about 14 feet (east-west) by 14 feet (north-south).  The floor was hardwood. There were three open entries - to the kitchen on the east, to the hallway on the east, and to the office on the west.  We had a six person dining room table along the west wall, and a six feet long storage area on the east wall.  A tall bookcase was in the southeast corner of the room opposite the storage area.

*  The kitchen occupied the northeast corner of the apartment, and was about 12 feet (east-west) and 10 feet (north-south).  The floor was linoleum. There was an open entry to the dining room, and a lockable door with a screen on the east end of the kitchen to the back porch, and a window on the north wall.  On the north wall was a cabinet, the gas stove, and a small table.  On the south wall of the kitchen was a washing machine, a sink, and the refrigerator.  We did not have a dryer - my mom either hung clothes to dry on a clothesline from the back porch or took the wash to the laundromat on the next block.

*  The hallway from the dining room lead to the only bathroom in the house on the east side of the hallway, a door to the master bedroom on the west side, and a door to the second bedroom on the south side.  The floor was carpeted. There was a broom closet at the north end of the hallway and a linen closet (towels, sheets, tableclothes, etc.) on the east side of the hallway between the bathroom door and the second bedroom door.

*  The bathroom was on the east side of the building, between the kitchen on the north, second bedroom on the south, and hallway.  The floor was linoleum. The only exit was to the hallway, and there was a window to the east.  The bathroom was probably 8 feet (east-west) by 8 feet (north-south), with space for a bathtub (no in-bath shower until about 1960), a sink, and a toilet, plus a towel table.

*  The second bedroom was in the southeast corner of the building, and measured about 12 feet (east-west) and 12 feet (north-south).  The floor was carpeted. There were two doors, to the hallway on the north and to the master bedroom on the west, and two windows on the south wall.  There was a closet on the north side of the room.  This bedroom had bunk beds on the east wall, and a table on the south wall under the window, with storage on the north wall, and a display board on the west wall.  This was my bedroom, shared with my brother Stan, until 1955, when brother Scott came along and we moved to the sun room.

*  The master bedroom was on the south side of the building, between the hallway and the living room, with three windows on the south wall.  It was about 16 feet (north-south) by 18 feet (east-west) with a triangular cutout with a step down into the sun room in the southwest corner of the room.  The floor was carpeted. There were doors to the hallway and the second bedroom on the east wall, to the sun room in the corner, to the closet on the west wall, and to the office on the north wall. The dressers were along the north wall, the double bed was against the east wall, and there was a table along the south wall.  There was a large closet to the west (about 6 feet by 8 feet) that was the original inside spiral staircase to the downstairs apartment, but was floored over when the house was remodeled in 1927.  This closet also served as the home of the TV set that came into our lives in about 1954 with the screen facing the living room.

*  The sun room was added on to the building in 1927, and is the southwest corner of the building.  It is about 18 feet (east-west) by 12 feet (north-south), with a door on the northeast corner to the master bedroom and a door to the living room in the northwest corner.  There is a window on the east side, three on the south side, and three on the west side.  The floor was always hardwood. This was my mother's art studio until brother Stan and I moved into the sun room in 1955 when brother Scott was born in 1955.  The bunk beds became single beds along the south wall, and my father built a standing closet in the northeast corner and a long work table along the north wall of the room.  There was a small table between the beds on the south wall.

*  The living room was on the west side of the house, and measured about 12 feet (east-west) and 16 feet (north-south).  There were three windows on the west wall, a door to the sun room down one step, and open entries to the office on the east side and to the cubbyhole on the north side of the room.  The floor was carpeted.  A couch was along the south wall and another couch along the west wall, with a table in the middle of the room and another along the north wall.

*  The cubbyhole was open from the living room up one step, and had a window to the west, and was over the covered stairs.  I usually had decorations in it.  I often used it as a reading room or hiding place when it was summer time or I was sick at home from school.

I struggled making the dimensions work out on this home.  It was relatively small, but as a child it seemed big. We used every inch of space with five of us in essentially a 1,400 square feet home.

There are photos of the west and south sides of the house at https://www.apartments.com/2119-30th-st-san-diego-ca/l5856re/

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Copyright (c) 2020, Randall J. Seaver

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6 comments:

  1. Luckily, I had done a post about my childhood homes during the Book of Me in 2013.

    https://mytrailsintothepast.blogspot.com/2020/09/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-what-was.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Here's mine:
    https://loiswillis.blog/2020/09/13/sunday-afternoon-genealogy-fun-what-was-your-childhood-home-like/

    ReplyDelete
  3. One of my favorite topics - growing up in Passaic. Here's my link: https://emptybranchesonthefamilytree.com/2020/09/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-108/

    ReplyDelete
  4. I ran over to Sunday afternoon, but here's mine:

    https://gatapleytree.blogspot.com/2020/09/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-what-was.html

    ReplyDelete
  5. I can't really tell how big my grow up home was...... it has since had an addition and that throws off all my touch points. It was just one bath room and a toilet in the basement two flights down if you REALLY could not wait......

    ReplyDelete