Bits And Pieces

That First Apartment

     You can move into many new houses, each one better than the previous one, but never find one that is so full of memories as that very first apartment.

     Daughter and Son-in-Law moved into a brand new apartment shiny with chrome and tile and furnished in early Ainslie.  All the time she busily made slipcovers and shopped for drapes, I kept remembering the first apartment Pop and I had.

     A month before we were to be married, I journeyed to Battle Creek, Michigan, where Pop worked, to hunt for an apartment.  The budget was cramped as I was marrying a strictly cash and carry man so our furniture was bought and paid for by puncturing the bank account.  We were shopping for a place not over 35 dollars a month (Oh yes you could find plenty of apartments for rent at that figure back 25 years ago.)

     Nothing seemed right until we discovered a brand new duplex with the upstairs vacant.  Here was a living room with a real wood burning fireplace, a dining room, two bedrooms with walk in closets, a modern kitchen and a tiled bath.

     The rent was beyond our pocketbook--a whopping 45 dollars a month.  We sat in the car, after viewing it, manipulating the budget figures around.  We could take a bit from food and clothing, and Pop could carry his lunch. but we knew we had to have that apartment.  It was just right!

     The duplex stood along a tree-shaded street where old homes peeked out from among trees, and we stretched the budget still further as we added a dining room set.

     The place glistened with our new, maple furniture and bright patterned rugs.  The 16 windows in the sunroom opening off the living room took readily to the gay chintz drapes I made, and two people couldn't be happier.

     Pop worked with about a dozen other young engineers on an expansion dream of one of the vice presidents of Kellogg's Corn Flakes.  This group of fellows all were newly married or about to be, and the gang would get together every Saturday night for a record or bridge session.  Mostly we gathered in our apartment which seemed to hold so many people easily.  Plus we were all young, and our fireplace cast a romantic glow as we toasted marshmallows or roasted wieners.

     We had our first big party there--a Halloween dress-up affair that has never been duplicated for fun.

     The young wives made periodic trips to the Kellogg plant where visitors always received sample cereal packages.  Incidentally, ice cream is delicious sprinkled with Rice Krispies, and it topped off many of our get-togethers even though the fellows groaned at being reminded of their rather shaky jobs when there was a shift in administration at the plant.

     Paid every week, Pop would report as he wiped the Saturday night dishes that this or that fellow from our gang had been laid off, and in 1939 this was a catastrophe as jobs were very scarce.

     Couple by couple our group dwindled until Pop announced casually, "This Saturday Melbourne, Todd and Ainslie got it."  So we faced our first big problem, and after only a few months in a dream apartment, we moved.

     In Iowa, with our furniture in storage, we took a one-room efficiency with a studio couch that doubled as davenport and bed.  All my cakes baked on a slant as the stove rested unevenly on a slope in the small kitchen.

     Apartments in Fort Dodge were even then practically non-existent, and our third apartment in less than six months was a reconverted attic.

     Our entrance was a winding fire escape and the only place Pop could stand up straight was in the middle of the apartment as there were low dormers on four sides and he bumped his head before he greeted me every night.

     There were other apartments during the war years, but when I smell fall leaves burning or Halloween rolls around, I think of Battle Creek and that very first beautiful apartment.

Written November 18, 1965