October 1966 is the date on the photo. The corner of the living room in the house where I lived from 1966 to 1985. Notice the huge encyclopedia set in the bottom right corner. That was a beautiful set. It was probably the 1964 or 1965 Britannica version. I am guessing. The set was destroyed by water damage and soot damage. Not a fire - chimney damage caused soot to back up into the house. I can still remember me trying to tell my brothers and sisters - we have to do something. Mom's house has black soot on the walls - it is sitting on everything. Finally a brother found a chimney brick had fallen into the furnace (or something). It was probably horribly dangerous.
Then the house literally began falling apart and we still could not get her to leave. We tried to make the house livable but it was beyond our means. Water ran down the walls of the living room and between black soot and water damage - that encyclopedia set did not survive. It didn't have any pictures that I recall. If there were any, they were small and black and white.
I had tried many times to get my Mom to move in with me but she was having nothing to do with it. I tried to find a place where she could have her own independence but time ran out on us. She would have never moved. I came to realize that. She was so happy when we moved into this house in September of 1966. She had a home that her daughter purchased. Nobody could make her leave, now. She lived the rest of her days here until she passed in 2000 from a vehicle accident.
I can still remember the scathing e-mail I sent to sisters and one brother who had e-mail. One sister-in-law asked me if I was drunk when I wrote it. I was not. I guess I set the family on edge. I had come back from visiting my Mom and the house was in such horrid condition I slammed everybody. Not personally but as a group. I said we should be ashamed of ourselves for letting our mother live in such horrible conditions. The electrical wires were exposed in my old bedroom where the plaster had literally fallen from the wall. Water from outside ran down the exposed walls. My Mom's bedroom had a leak in the ceiling. I had a huge red bucket tub that I would empty each week-end that I went to visit. There were eight children and only two visited her on a regular basis.
Eh, I did not mean for this post to go here today. I am done.
2 comments:
It is good to vent. You can always vent safely here. Sounds like it was really no one's fault. Just a situation that got out of hand.
I can understand your feelings about the conditions of the house. When parents get older, someone needs to step up and make sure they are safe, it shouldn't be left up to just a few.
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