I have only the vaguest of memories of playing in my grandparents house. It was old and the living room was big, and though I didn’t realize it at the time, it was made from a tar paper shack that had been used in Heart Mountain relocation camp which housed Japanese Americans during WW2. It wasn’t very well insulated against the Wyoming blizzard or blistering hot summers and must have been even worse when filled with unhomed and untrusted families. A sad history, but a happy home for me to visit as a girl.
I remember climbing on a big cement donkey in their living room, probably meant as a lawn ornament, my mom had loved it as a child and her mom had allowed it to stay. There was also a toy box with sliding chalkboard doors that had belonged to mom, and still had toys of hers for me and my brothers to enjoy. There was an old Coca Cola truck with cases of tiny green bottles, brass horses, and a jack in the box that was both fun and scary. A pull toy bear by fisher price made its way here with my grandkids getting their turn.
The rest of the living room had a couch that made into a bed for our overnight visit and a roll top desk where grandpa kept the records for his salvage and taxidermy business. There were scores of tin cans filled with plants, mostly Easter and Christmas cacti. Grandma swore the iron in the cans was good for the plants. There was also a huge coal furnace and a couple fifty gallon red wing crocks filled with drinking water. The house had electric lights but no running water or bathroom, no phone or tv.
The kitchen had a wood and coal burning cook stove with a water reservoir at one end. There was a bench with a metal basin instead of a sink, and a refrigerator in the walk in mud room. There was a square, wheeled sink with a wringer and a wash board for laundry. A clothes line outdoors and a drying rack inside for bad weather laundry.
There was a cellar filled with onions, potatoes, turnips and ball jars filled with corn, beans and pickles. Two bedrooms completed the house, thundermugs below each bed. The same in 1981 when I graduated high school as in 1950 when their family moved in.
