Way Back in the Day

Housing

It was 1945.  My parents were renting an apartment in a two- family.   We later called arrangements like these “mother and daughter”.  Anyhow, the Putnams, from whom my parents rented, were expecting their two sons, George and Jack back from the war, which was, thankfully, ending.  One of the sons was getting married, and the landlord needed the apartment.

Mom and Dad decided to buy a house – not so simple in an economy

about to welcome 12 million servicemen home.  They finally found a bungalow (we’d call this a rambler these days) further out in Queens, in a section called Elmhurst.  This was not exactly their dream house.  Two bedrooms, one bath, and a boiler room, adjacent to the kitchen, which housed the coal burning heating plant.  1946 was an exceptionally cold winter, and the furnace ran, well, constantly.  So much so, that the flue (the pipe that led to the chimney) got hot enough to ignite the insulation (consisting of newsprint!).  Somebody was obviously paid off to grant the place a Certificate of Occupancy.  Ya think??

O.K., well, Frank Canaff, aka Harry Homeowner, had to deal with this.  My father was a room service waiter in a Manhattan hotel, with zero experience with construction.  He was also, due to the timely birth of his two sons, a non-veteran.  My folks bought the place for $6500, put 3K down (all the money they had), and managed to get a mortgage (if I recall, correctly, paying $71.37 every three months).  Oh, did I mention the house had a partially excavated basement (called a cellar), with wooden beams and trusses resting directly on soil.  The termites were having a feast.

So.  The object of the game was to dig out the cellar (by hand), replace the rotted beams, bolster the foundation (such as it was) with poured concrete, and eventually relocate the heating plant to the finished basement.  My father taught himself to:

1. Dig dirt out by hand
2. Replace flooring and support structures
3. Mix by hand, and then pour, concrete

And do all this singlehandedly, while holding down a full time job!

I recall my mother, discussing the rather slow progress with a family friend.  She poured out the contents of a sugar bowl, and described to the gentleman how it was analogous to refilling the bowl one crystal at a time.  Without, of course, the callused hands and sore back!

Oh, the boiler room was eventually converted to a dining room. With knotty pine walls, which my father also figured out how to do.

And do all this singlehandedly, while holding down a full time job!