The earliest homes my parents, Bill and Lea, lived in are not completely known. After their marriage, the newspaper announcement stated they lived at 3418 Wren Avenue, which might have been Bill's mother's home.
For a wedding present, Lea’s parents, Tom and Pansy Johnston, helped purchase a home in Shore Acres housing development in West Pittsburg (now Bay Point). Below is Lea and Bill at the site of their home before its purchase.
The address was 35 Wharf Drive. The purchase price is not known but Bill took out a mortgage with Bank of America for $6550. How Tom and Mam-ma helped them was probably with the down payment. If the down payment was 20%, the purchase price would have been about $8100. It is not known how long they lived there. Here they are holding me outside the home. It had a flat roof. Today the house looks completely different with new pitched roofs.
There is no record of the sale of this house with the county recorder, so it is possible the bank repossessed the house due to a default in payment.
By 1956 they were living in Pittsburg. Lea once told me that they lived a time in Fairfield across the street from the high school.
Pittsburg
By 1956 they lived at 467 East 9th Street in Pittsburg. This was a split-level house with three levels. Upstairs were two bedrooms and one bathroom. The main floor was the living room, dining room, and kitchen. On the lower level was what we called a basement but it was used as a rumpus room. There was also a small cellar. The garage was detached. In the backyard was a smaller rental unit. Lea got tired of people renting it, so she rented it and it was where she painted.
Bicycles, tricycles, wagons, and pedal cars were ridden up and down the sidewalk in front or the driveway along the side. Most of the neighbors had no children but sometimes grandchildren came to visit and would play with the Hork children.
A bonus was Nana, Bill’s mother, lived across the street and was likely a help with the children once Jonathan was born.
The big picture window in the front was where Lea put the silver Christmas tree with a spotlight on it. Once all four oldest children were born, Lea and Bill slept in the dining room. The family had outgrown the house.
Walnut Creek
The Hork family outgrew the house in Pittsburg. Bill had gotten a job at LoRay in Walnut Creek and they wished to have a home closer to his work. Plus, the school district was better in Walnut Creek and they would save money by not sending their children to parochial school.
They purchased the house on 130 Paulson Lane from Frank and Zelma Hays in 1963. Again, Mam-ma and Tom helped with the purchase by putting money into Bill and Lea’s savings account to help them qualify for the loan.
This house was larger with three bedrooms, one- and one-half baths, a dining/living area, and a kitchen. A screen porch was off the living room. The one-car garage with a washer and dryer never saw a car. The dining, living, and hall walls were covered in knotty pine paneling. There was a fireplace, too, and the first time Bill lit a fire, the house was filled with smoke. A neighbor came over and showed him how to open the flue.
The house was barn red with white trim and we have no photo of the house in that configuration. The front door was on the right side but everyone came to the kitchen door because it was visible from the driveway.
In the early 70s, Bill and Lea remodeled the house. The contractor built a carport, converted the garage into a room, moved the kitchen door to the side, and filled in the screen porch with windows. Bill and Lea moved into the new room in the garage, leaving their old room for Lisa and Danna.
The house was on a quiet lane that dead-ended at Las Trampas Creek. The lots were large and properties were landscaped with mature trees. Though they could hear the freeway noise behind them, the front of the house was quiet and country-like.
Potter’s House
In the late 1980s, Highway 680 was widened and forced Bill and Lea to move. They offered assistance in locating a new place. The real estate agents showed Lea numerous houses in Walnut Creek but she hated the housing tracts with cookie-cutter houses and she wanted the neighborhood to be the same character as the narrow tree-lined Paulson Lane.
Luck would have it, that the house across the street, owned by Dwight and Val Potter, was available for purchase. The Potters were friends, who often invited Bill and Lea’s children over to swim in their pool or to babysit their grandchildren. It seemed they could not live alone anymore and their children found them an assisted living facility. Through negotiations, they purchased the Potter home.
They spent many years there, having backyard barbeques and in-door holiday dinners. Renee’s wedding was held in the backyard. The grandkids enjoyed swimming in the pool.
When the property became too much to manage, Bill sold it to a developer, who purchased three adjoining properties and built several homes at the end of the street. That was the end of the Hork family’s life on Paulson Lane.
Condo in Walnut Creek
Before selling the Potter home, he and his sister tried an assisted living place, but he did not care for it and returned home. After selling the Potter home, he purchased a condominium located in Northern Walnut Creek off Treat Boulevard. It was one story with two bedrooms, one he used as an office, a living/dining room, and a Pullman kitchen. He also had a garage. He had weekly dinners with daughters, Renee and Sabrina, and their spouses. This would be his last home, as he died in 2007.
#52Ancestors-Week 13: Home Sweet Home
This is my eighth year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow (https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/) at Generations Cafe.
I write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family (https://mam-massouthernfamily.blogspot.com/) or My Trails into the Past (https://mytrailsintothepast.blogspot.com/). I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.
I'm really impressed by the amount of detail you remember for each of the houses you lived in, and I love the photo of you as a babe in arms. I realized one of the reasons I don't remember that much detail about my family's early houses is because we didn't live anywhere very long.
ReplyDeleteIt's true that we lived in very few houses, plus we have photos of them.
DeleteLove all the detail and that you are also following the social history by including as much info as possible about each residence (addresses, photo, memories, and details). I am doing the same. It makes for a better family history :)
ReplyDelete