Anisette Studio

From Muddy Brook Studio 1/11/2024

I am reminded of my childhood home when I look at this image, it is why I saved it. Our home was a big two-family home. Historical due to its age, and the history of the people who had lived there. There was a window just like this, sun came in through it just like this. Beyond there was a good-sized field. My bedroom was above the two windows in this room. The room was long and narrow place on the back side of the home. If you stood to the right as far as you could, you would have seen the outhouse. This would remind you of the house from the Pop-eye cartoons, as it had a low bridge that went from the back door in what once was an old pantry to the outhouse. This house had no indoor bathrooms nor electricity upstairs. It was something around 100 years old when we moved in. My parents as a young couple with two kids. A huge rambling old house. The water came from a hand dug well out back, quite a walk to go there. When you looked down you saw a perfect round well, the walls made from perfectly round small rocks about the size of large grapefruits. To draw water there was a chain and two 10-quart water pails. Born in 1955, I did not realize other homes were not like mine. Later I concluded my brother and I had lived much as our folks had as children. My father coming from a family of farmer/woodsmen. My mother’s father had a sawmill and was a woodsman. I will tell of my grandparents later on. It is this house I am describing.

The main door was exactly in the middle of the house. Infact this section set forward, and on either side, there were two longer, more rectangle sections. When you entered the main door, you faced the stairs going up to the bedrooms. On the left side of the stairs a short hall that took you into the narrow room long room with this window. When my parents moved into the house this was a kitchen with a slate sink, its drainpipe out through the wall. Standing at the sink you had a pantry of to your left, and a door that also let to what was to be a kitchen with a pantry. This had not happened. Although you knew what it was to be like because a finished room did exist on the right, (the right rectangle of the house.) Still at this sink if you went right you went through a door that led you into a small room, this led you into a large kitchen with a pantry, a door that went down cellar and a cupboard that nestle by the small room you past from into the kitchen. There were four chimneys in this big old house. Part of the chimney was in the pantry. It had a small brick oven with metal door. I was fascinated by this oven as a kid. People had baked in this oven! The pantry had a window. All windows in that house were very tall, the glass had bubbles in it. They went up and down by Pullys. The weights were very heavy. Opposite the pantry there was a small entry way. This small room had a closet and if you went through the other door, this was a stair well that took you to a huge open room with a window at the top of the stairs. A door led you out onto a porch. This attic room was called an overhead chamber, and it had a small room that took you out to another small room which was the landing at the top of the stairs. When your little it feels like quite a maze. From the landing at the top of the stairs you could go into to front rooms with dormer windows facing front with side windows facing left on one side and right on the right side of the upstairs.

The rectangular section on this side was the same as on the left over the big kitchen. There was a small room that led to another overhead chamber with stairs that led down to an entry way and what was to be a twin kitchen with pantry. There were 13 rooms in this house, and it seems once there had been a barn.

I will continue this story later with a part 2.

Best wishes! Pejj