The Little House with a Big Heart

I don't know why I remember my grandmother's house with such fondness. The board and batten siding had warped and weathered to a silver gray, and an occasional tin patch covered the hole where an eager woodpecker attacked the varmints nesting in the walls. A tall person had to duck to get through the door to the kitchen while stepping over the hot water pipe that ran across the floor to the sink. During a spring rain I contorted around all the buckets, pots and pans placed to catch the disharmony of a hundred leaks as they dripped from the ceiling. A floor fan blew hot air through the house all summer, and in winter the open gas flame heater produced a blue-orange-red flame that baked the front of the house while ice crystals formed near the back door.

My grandfather had started building the house part-time while he worked as a night watchman at the nearby cotton compress and warehouse. He was killed one night by an intruder while making his rounds, leaving my grandmother to raise her children in the six hundred square foot house that had a single bedroom, living room, sleeping porch and kitchen. My aunt, the youngest at the time, was only four years old. It still boggles my mind when I try to imagine my grandmother raising her children there, all of her daughters and one son growing up in the tiny house with one small bathroom.

Twenty years later, the little house vibrated with family cohesion as the center of activity. Eight of Grandma Roma's nine children lived within a fifteen mile radius. The farmers came to town each Saturday to stock up on supplies, and those living in town would stop by to help keep up the place and catch up on gossip. The men would mend fence, mow the grass or patch the roof, while the women arranged the pot-luck meal inside. For all of my cousins, the house became the center of the ultimate playground. "Batter up!" or "You're it!" could be heard as games were organized in the nearby field. Often a less structured but more imaginative game of war or Wild West broke out as a dozen kids climbed the trees, chased each other across the flat tar paper roof and down the tree on the other side. Maybe that's the reason it always leaked.

When there was a lull in the conflict outside, we congregated around the heavy round dining table packed with enough food to make several meals for the thirty-odd men, women and children. I sometimes tried to make out what the grownup chatter was all about, but when I looked around and saw that all the sisters were talking at each other, at the same time, I knew there was no way. No one ever paused to listen.

The real treat happened when I got to sleep over at Grandma's house. I always thought of the single bed with the double mattress on the screen porch as my personal bed. In summer I could lie with my nose against the screen and smell the sweet breeze coming off the grassy field while I listened to the cacophony of croaking tree frogs outside.

In winter a thin layer of Visqueen covered the screen keeping most of the moisture at bay while I hummed to the patter of rain on the tar paper roof a few feet above. Peeping from under four layers of hand-sewn quilts, I would watch the nebulous lightning show play from cloud to cloud. Later, in the middle of the night, once the storm had passed, a diesel switch engine rumbled back and forth assembling boxcars in the nearby rail yard to form the freight train of tomorrow.

I would awaken to the smell of eggs frying in bacon grease. That was invitation enough to bounce out of bed for the biscuits and homemade jam that would be waiting on the table while the Son's of the Pioneers serenaded from the wooden floor model round-top radio in the living room.

It was Roma, of course, who gave the little house its warmth, charm and character. I would look for any excuse to stop by for a visit as I grew up. I would find her in the rose garden with its splendid violets, reds and yellows dominating the street side of the house or gathering vegetables from the side garden that produced all she needed with plenty left over to share with neighbors. She would tuck the gardening gloves into her apron, and we would go inside for a chat and some ice tea. Of course, there were always cookies.

I'm sure I would have worn out my welcome with the average person but not Roma. The person who raised her family on her own and even took in a few extras, continued to give throughout her life. After her grandchildren were grown, she was adopted year after year by the kids in her Sunday school class.

Once when I was in college, I decided I was too tired to drive the forty miles back to school. I knocked on her door at eleven at night with all the lights out, but she was kind enough to get up and pretend it was the most normal thing that could happen. After she made hot tea we sat in the living room and had a long talk about life, the future and the little house that was old and still needed work. I said that after I finished school I would build her a new one. She smiled and said, "Oh, I think this one will do me just fine."

She died while I was away in Vietnam. The house and lot were sold to her long-time neighbor. The house was cleared away, and now the lot stands vacant. I stop by sometimes when I'm in the area and park by the road to remember the beautiful times that happened there and what a saint my grandmother was. The place where the little house stood is hallowed ground.