Stella's Place

My earliest memories are of life in the early Detroit suburbs, a time when families were moving out of the city into the country.  So it was with our family.  My Aunt and Uncle and their sons had bought some land and built a home in the country, about twenty miles or so from downtown Detroit.  My uncle, who was a carpenter, built the home himself, and it was small.  My aunt said that their first winter, there were no walls; they partitioned rooms for privacy by hanging blankets from the rafters.

When my parents decided to move to the country too, I was a baby.  It was

Me, Mom, “Grandpa” & “Grandma”

1947, just after WWII.  I was a “surprise” result of a second marriage for both of them, and they wanted me to grow up in a carefree environment.  My uncle and my dad converted a garage behind my uncle’s small house into an even smaller house for our family.  There was a compact living room, kitchen, teeny bathroom with a stall shower, a decent sized bedroom, and a teeny bedroom (no windows) off the kitchen that was mine after I was old enough to move out of my crib.  We lived in that house until I was five years old, then my uncles and my dad built another small house for us next to my uncle’s house.

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