Dad, the Builder

Dad enjoyed working with his hands. By day he was a school administrator and worked with kids minds, but at night and on weekends and holidays he physically worked.  We benefited.

Dad built our house in 1962.  It was perfect for a family with four young children, but by1970 there were six kids and two of us were already teenagers.  For awhile dad gave up his office and Keith slept there, but that left Phillip either sharing a room with his sisters or all of us girls in one bedroom.  We needed to do something else, and dad had the solution.  He added two bedrooms at the back of the house.

When dad built our house he put linoleum on the floors in the bedrooms.  It was easy to clean, but not very pretty or soft on the feet.  When the addition was finished dad and mom decided to carpet all the bedrooms.  It was so exciting!  Mom chose the most beautiful blue green shag for our rooms, and I felt like a queen living in such a beautiful house.

Carpets can be tricky, though.  Grandma Johnson was finally able to come home from the hospital  the first of the summer, but she wasn't well enough to live alone so she came to stay with us.   Grandma was able to get around a little bit using a walker, but she hated to be a bother.  The second night she was home she decided to get up and go to the bathroom by herself so she wouldn't have to wake up mom.  Somehow her walker got caught in the new shag carpet and she fell, breaking her hip and sending herself back to the hospital for another stay.  Poor grandma!

Once the addition was done dad got another idea.  He wanted to be able to take our family on special vacations, but it was too expensive for all of us to stay in hotels, and camping in a tent with so many people wasn't a good alternative, either.  What we needed was a camper, but they cost a lot of money.  So dad built us one.  He bought a large pick-up truck, designed how he wanted the camper to look, then began to build.  The shell was made from ply-wood (this was a heavy camper), he bought a sink, tiny stove, and refrigerator, and mom made cushions out of foam pads covered with  vinyl for the couch/beds.  When it was done, our camper looked just a store-bought one, and was very comfortable.  Dad was amazing!