755

1,056 square feet. Two bedrooms. One bath. Built in 1950. Original family owners.

It’s a simple description for a realtor to describe her … but there’s so much more. She has loved my family well. Now, it’s time for her to love another family. She’s for sale.

After much prayer and pondering, the littler house on the alley is on the market. She’s the house where I grew up. She’s the place that wrapped the Hart family in warmth and love since the 1950s.

You buy a house, but you sell a home.

And so, this week, after six weeks of purging and doing a bit of fixer-upping and wiping a few memories from my cheeks, I signed the papers to let her go. It was time.

Only silence will be heard when people walk in the front door, but I hear conversations, laughter, and music.

Sitting on the original hardwood floor, I heard my mother’s prayers as she knelt by her bed every night, “God, keep Janet Kay safe and bless her life.” Her prayers were answered.

Photo provided by Janet Hart Leonard

I heard my dad playing “Wildwood Flower” on his 1964 Les Paul guitar. I hear the ticking of the Seth Thomas Clock on the mantle. Dad would, religiously, wind his collection of antique clocks every Sunday.  A Regulator clock still hangs in my office, and a P.F. Bollenbach hangs in my kitchen. Time has a way of capturing moments in your mind and heart; moments you never realized would become such precious memories.

The screech of the lower drawer on the large vintage kitchen stove is still screeching. Mom always cooked with cast iron skillets. Fried potatoes. Homemade cornbread. Everything tastes better cooked in cast iron. Ask my family, as I now use them.

And then there were the smells that made their way through the 1,056 square feet. Frying sausage for a simple Sunday dinner with homemade biscuits and gravy was a sacred ritual every week after church. Dad liked his sausage a little too well done for my liking. Mom’s gravy taught me that love also has a taste.

In the kitchen, with its vintage pink countertop, I was taught how to make chocolate cream pies topped with the most amazing meringue. Before we had a mixer, Mom beat the egg whites with a fork until they became fluffy. We “made do” with a lot of things. It was the post-Depression way.

The scent of Mom’s Avon perfume, I swear, still lingers in the bathroom. She always wore perfume well into her 90s. Mom would tell a funny story about spraying her hair with what she thought was hairspray. It was an air freshener. She hoped the church people who sat near her in the pew didn’t recognize the smell.

The smell of bleach will forever permeate my nose as Mom would bleach the sink daily. Cleanliness WAS next to Godliness in the Hart household. Every Spring, the walls would be washed, and the Venetian blinds soaked in the bathtub.

The utility room’s metal cabinets still hold clothespins used every Monday (Wash Day) on the circular clothesline. Clothes were meant to be hung outside unless it was “pouring the rain,” as Mom would say.

As I sorted through antiques and whatnot, I realized I was sorting through over 70 years of memories. These pieces may have no value to others, but to the five generations who had found love in that house … they are priceless treasures.

The littler house on the alley still has more chapters to be written. It just won’t be me writing them. And that is okay. There comes a time when you must hand over the pen and the keys to another owner, who will have a story to tell.

Write well, next owner. You will have a wonderful home to write your story. I’ve written my last chapter here.

Thank you, 755 and your 1,056 square feet, for loving me. You’ve done just that for 68 years.

I’ve laid down my pen and turned out the light.

Janet Hart Leonard can be contacted at janethartleonard@gmail.com or followed on Facebook or Instagram (@janethartleonard). Visit janethartleonard.com.