The Chicken Coop Home

 

AI and I creation

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

This is Not a Chicken Coop 

And I am not a Chicken!

Below my dear friends, is the chicken coop I lived in from age 2 until age 9.

I am on the left, my cousin on the right, the tall roof you see is her home, the small one is the 

REMODELED Chicken Coop.

Time Period 1946-1953. I am sure those of you who read in prior posts that I lived in a chicken coop, were just a tad shocked.

The house below belonged to my dad's only surviving sister and her husband with two daughters. The photo is from Google earth as it looks now, the only difference back then, was it was painted white and black, had no yard to speak of because it was a dirt road in the country part of Savannah GA. My cousin inherited the house and still lives there.

WWII raged, we were desperately poor, I think most of the world lived under the poverty level if there was one then. My mother never had a job, she was a FEMALE, born in The South, had me at age 18, 15 days before she turned 19, 4 year later, 1948 my brother appeared. that is what good Southern Women Did back then.

the war raged. Food rationed,  no jobs, the apartment  tiny, only one room on the 3rd floor walkup. A tiny back yard, down 3 flights of stairs and a huge kitchen sink to wash clothing in, with clotheslines to dry them.

Something like this decayed building in Savannah shown in a vintage photo from those years.

 Daddy was a meat cutter in a small grocery store. His pay was very little, but it included a case of Carnation Milk for my first 2 years. We never went hungry.

A few might shudder to think of moving a small family into a chicken coop.

to Us it Was Heaven!

Daddy's sister had married Money! Not Millions! Just a lot more  much further above the poverty level than we were. My Uncle had several acres of land, with pig pens, chicken coop and fields of flowers. He got rid of the pig pens,  and he made that chicken Coop into a home for us to live in, He built four walls to divide it.

Imagine A Square building, divided equally into 4 rooms, cement floors, just a wooden box. 

Imagine the circles as doors. each room had 2 windows. the doors opened from room to room. 

The floors were linoleum. Mother wallpapered every wall, floor to ceiling.

The kitchen had this exact sink in front of a large window. the bedroom my brother and I slept in, was the exact size of  2 metal cots, with blue striped ticking, stuffed with cotton, with tucks all over it.

 I can still feel those lumps. 

A bed in each corner, a tall skinny chest of drawers, the three pieces crammed next to each other was the exact size of the room. The sink in the bathroom was like a Childs sink, facing the door with barely room for the free standing metal shower stall. The commode tucked up against the side of the shower wall, facing 

 the Dreaded Closet with the MOVING red curtain for as a door.

I sat staring at that curtain as it slowly shifted, in and out, in and out. the MONSTER lived in there, the same monster that made me sleep with my hands and arms tucked against my body, protecting me from the closet monster that waited each night under my bed at night. 

I loved living 20 feet away from my second Mother and my 1st cousin. We has oatmeal, they had bacon, eggs and the best toast ever. She made her toast in the oven, slathered with real butter and toasted. If they ate before I got up, there was always a plate left in the oven just for me. If she made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, she made two. I gobbled mine, and the last half of Andreas. She was a picky eater. Uncle Jimmy had a smoke house tucked up against our coop. I was terrified of it, even then, claustrophobic, but had no idea what that was. Because I refused to play house in the smoke shed when not in use, he built another tiny shed that resembles our coop, with a window and curtains and it was our girls only play house for years. Andrea was not afraid of monsters, or being shut in the smoke shed, but I did have a great big laugh when a tiny green lizard Trapped her inside. I was on the outside, the lizard just inside and she would not come out. 

Do you think I may have scared the lizard further in the play house? I might have been a little jealous because she was the princess of the Big House and had any and everything she wanted or needed.

At that time I did not realize how blessed we were to have a Chicken Coop Home with eating privileges next door. I might add my dad's mother lived with my Aunt, giving me three mothers in one place.

the year I turned 9, Uncle Jimmy divided his land into room for 3 houses, and built us a 3 bedroom house. Daddy went to the bank and with his signature only borrowed $5000.00 to be paid back 50 dollars a month. A year later, we rented the house to friends and we moved to Kentucky for 5 years.

My aunt kept my first dog, Sticky Baby and collected the rent and paid the mortgage for Daddy.

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Joining Yam's Final Friday Feature....