Mom, A Life: Part Seven

Mom, A Life: Part Six

A Fresh Start

After the bankruptcy, we downsized for a while. The "new" house was a mid-1800s Federalist fixer, a two-story square box, three rooms down and three up. Heat came from a converted coal furnace situated in the center of the cellar with a yard-square grate directly over the furnace vent. The property was on an acre of flat land and the money from the sale of the old house (and the cheap price of the new) allowed a fresh start.

Mom, who had quit her job to raise her kids, went back to work for Dr. Adams. Dad got a job as Art Director for a large printing company in New Haven. They bought a fold down camper trailer and the family took trips throughout northern New England.

Within a few years they built an addition off one corner, making the building ell-shaped, and, although only adding one room down and one up, doubling the size of the house. By this time, I was off at college.

In the summer of my freshman year the entire family took off for a whirlwind cross country tour, camper trailer in tow, to a not-yet-realized planned community south of Tucson, Arizona, stopping at Carlsbad Caverns, the Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest and various lesser sites along the way including camping next to a Gypsy caravan in Ohio one night and the worst steak ever in El Paso. Mom and Dad had bought building lots in both Arizona and Florida and wanted to check out the places before deciding which one to retire to. Shortly after my brothers also left for college or military service (or both).

In their spare time now that the kids were gone, Mom and Dad started a small printing business in the detached garage specializing in business cards and letterheads. Mom learned all aspects of the business, specializing in typesetting, proofreading, billing and running the hydraulic paper cutter while Dad handled sales, paste-up and plate making. They hired a journeyman printer by name of "Pinkey" to run the press.

After college and a few years in D.C., I returned home and worked with them in the printing shop before starting my own business and buying the house from them. They shut down the print shop, sold the land in Arizona and "retired" to Florida. Mom was 55 and Dad was 57.