(I am prompted to write this because I marvel at the large homes that are built these days and I think back to our little home. I think I learned that ‘it takes a heap of living to make a house a home.)
At the time of our marriage we became renters. We were not so different from many other people. Most of our friends rented. We did not feel out of place or underprivileged but there was always a yearning to have our own home.
At one time the house we were renting was up for sale so once again we had to move. That would be our sixth move in 5 ½ years. We were through with moving. We had four little children by that time. The lingering hope that one day we could buy our own home persisted.
Not long after the sixth move and still renting Merv one day considered surrendering his life insurance. We had never thought about Merv’s insurance because the payments were paid automatically out of Merv’s pay. He figured the insurance would not be worth much even if he held onto it. We did not know if that was a possibility so Merv investigated that and he was able to surrender his life insurance. In hindsight that was not a very wise move. The amount from the surrendered his life insurance was £364/2/3. We prayed that that would be enough for a deposit on a home.
We wondered if somewhere someone would rent us a house and we pay it off with the rent. It was a long shot but we put an advertisement in the local paper to that effect. We said we wanted to buy a house with a small deposit and pay it off with rent. I do not recall our prayers in relation to this but we were amazed when we received a letter from a couple agreeing to grant us the opportunity to purchase a home on our terms. (We received a letter because like so many people then, we did not have a phone). The owners offered us a little house for £2000 ($4000)
The only money we had was the money from the life insurance and we still lived from pay to pay although we were doing a little better with budgeting.
We agreed to the terms of purchase and paid £270 deposit plus nearly £67 in legal fees. The weekly repayment was £5 ($10). At the end of every year we paid the interest on the remaining sum. We would work out the due interest and not once did the owners ever question our reckoning. We always felt it an honour to be trusted in that manner.
Overall the house from the front door to the back door through the laundry downstairs was about 26 feet (just under 8 metres) long and 21 feet (about 6 ½ metres) wide. It was small. The home had only four small rooms upstairs with a bathroom, a toilet and a laundry down four steps from the kitchen. Some friends commented about our buying such a small house. They asked how we would fit in the house. When we moved to our little home we had four small children - Rhonda was going on 5, Vicki was 3 ½, Gerald 2 ½ and Russell 8 months -.
In spite of friends worrying on our behalf, I was elated on the day when we moved into the little Buna Avenue home. We were there to stay. It was so satisfying that even though it was small we would never have to move unless we wanted to move.
Because we were without a car for some of the time the location was excellent. The home was in an area where we could walk to the bus stop; we could walk to the shop; the children could walk to school and we could walk to the chapel. It was in a lovely area and not far from a big park. The children made friends with the children in the neighbourhood.
We always felt our little home stood on hallowed ground. The years we spent there were incredibly happy ones. Our neighbours were such good friends. Five of our children Wendy, Angela, Marcel, Ian and Nona, were born to us and our foster daughter (Carol) came to us while we lived there. Our little home was ‘a home away from home’ for a dear little twelve-year old wheelchair bound girl (Christine) from the then ‘Crippled Children’s Home’. Christine’s parents lived in Mackay and they had given permission for Christine to come to our home on weekends and school holidays.
Our little house survived a cyclone. On the night of an impending cyclone neighbours across the road left their home unlocked for us so we could go over there if the need arose. They feared for us and thought if any home would blow away it would be ours. The day after the cyclone when I told that neighbour that I thought it best we sell because we feared our little home would never stand up to another cyclone she told me to never move because they felt our street was only safe during the cyclone because we lived there. Our yard was always filled with the neighbourhood children. The walls of our little home literally rang with laughter and the yard resounded with the noise of children playing happily. Our little house once welcomed home our then family of ten (the youngest being six months old) after we had been caught in a cyclone while we were travelling home to Townsville and had been stranded on the road for several days. I can still recall the glorious feeling of getting into a clean bed after sleeping in a car and on bare floors of a school house for those days. How I loved the security of that little place.
It was a very sad time when we decided to move but Carol, Rhonda and Vicki were all in High School and there was just not enough room necessary for their study needs.
We went there as a family of six and left there as a family of twelve. When we left our little home, our children ranged in ages from 2 ½ to nearly 17 years. Before we left our Buna Avenue home the six girls used to sleep in one room in three sets of double decker bunks; the four boys slept in another room on two sets of double decker bunks while Merv and I occupied a little room which when we went there nine years earlier it was used as a little sitting room. For our last three years there the little kitchen had faithfully served us as the combined kitchen, dining room, family room, sitting room, ironing and sewing room.
On different occasions prospective buyers as they came into our little house commented on ‘the feeling in this little house’. It was common to hear similar comments such as, ‘I don’t know what it is but there is something about this house’. We could only agree with them. Even though it was very small we easily felt the Spirit within that little home.
By Helen Leneham
It was a very sad time when we decided to move but Carol, Rhonda and Vicki were all in High School and there was just not enough room necessary for their study needs.
We went there as a family of six and left there as a family of twelve. When we left our little home, our children ranged in ages from 2 ½ to nearly 17 years. Before we left our Buna Avenue home the six girls used to sleep in one room in three sets of double decker bunks; the four boys slept in another room on two sets of double decker bunks while Merv and I occupied a little room which when we went there nine years earlier it was used as a little sitting room. For our last three years there the little kitchen had faithfully served us as the combined kitchen, dining room, family room, sitting room, ironing and sewing room.
On different occasions prospective buyers as they came into our little house commented on ‘the feeling in this little house’. It was common to hear similar comments such as, ‘I don’t know what it is but there is something about this house’. We could only agree with them. Even though it was very small we easily felt the Spirit within that little home.
By Helen Leneham
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