Hazel's Widowhood

A few months after Earl died, I was asked to move, as the landlord wanted to sell the house we lived in. He was adamant, so I was forced to borrow money from the V.A. Credit Union, and I bought a house in Walla Walla. At long last, we owned a place of our own.

That house was really a mess. No water inside, and no bathroom. We had struggled like pioneers to get along. I wasn't about to live in the place as it was, so with the kids' help, I began to clean the place up. Dad came down from B.C. to help me. John and I dug a basement under the place. This was accomplished this way: There was a trap door in the kitchen, which when opened exposed a hole about six feet square. We had been using this place to hang a bucket down to keep our perishable things in. I would get down into this hole with a pick and shovel and dig a crawl hole to the outside. John carried this dirt and rocks in a bucket outside until I finally reached the outside from the hole. then we got a rope and attached it to a box. I filled the box and John pulled it up and emptied it. (Fun, hey!) When Dad came, he put in cement walls, so we finally had a nice basement.

Dad built on a bedroom and a bathroom (oh, what a luxury!). I spent a great amount of time doing finish work and painting, etc. It must have shown, because at the hospital the employees started calling it the Doll House.

There isn't much to tell about this eight and a half years I was a widow. I spent more than my allotted time at my job, then I came home, did my chores, and at about 8:00, I started fixing the house. I rarely got to bed before 1:00, and I was up again at half past six to get John off on his paper route.

I'll say this much -- if I hadn't had good boys, I could never have managed it. Both boys were in school and both did their best to help.