Forrest and Janice Austin, Austin Homes

 

This ad appeared in a January 1965 Afton Star Enterprise newspaper, a weekly paper.  Mom and Dad sold the junk yard, Austin Auto Parts, about 1964.  We moved from the Junkyard house to the 'Green House' (now brown).  Dad, Mom, Alan and numerous high school boys hired by the hour helped build 20+ houses in and around Afton.  The ad above was advertising the first house the folks built on 'Speculation'.  Can you imagine buying a new, 6 room house for $10,000? 

 

From Kathryn Austin Siddens in a 1/16/15 email:   This was the first house he built after working on ours, the one north of us.  It does have just a crawl space under the house and at that time only a car port and was purchased by Gary and Linda Stalker-Bailey.  It was a very small house, maybe like the junkyard house without the utility room or maybe even smaller. Their first child was Lisa born in August of 1966.  Marion (I think) built that garage on later.  The built-ins were probably the kitchen cupboards and linen closet, etc.  Linda always made sure she got the payment to them when due, sometimes even driving it out to Shagbark and always expressed that it was a very good experience, dealing with Mom and Dad.  

At least five more were built and sold, not commissioned, and they are the one across from us on the east and bought by Ava Kline, Ava Jean Weis's mother, the one to the south was bought by Richard and Sue, behind that one to the west was bought by Million's, the one right behind us was bought by the Suttons, and the one west of there was bought by Ron and Kathy Flam.  He started one right behind Flam's but the City big shots were giving him grief (they probably thought he was doing too good, or maybe it was Frank McGuire, who was not nice) and he walked away and moved to Shagbark.

I don't remember what the prices were on the Spring Valley houses.    

On Jan 16, 2015, at 10:33 PM, Nancy Hofmeister wrote:

so what happened to the house that he walked away from?  thanks for all the into in your response.

Kathryn Siddens 

 Jan 16 at 10:54 PM

 

I just talked to Gary (Lee Siddens).  He said Dad had the footings run, that he was just putting a crawl space in it, but did just walk away.  He didn't even think he filled the hole back in.  Maybe Alan will know more about that.

My dad, Forrest, was easy going but even he would reach a certain point and then, that was that.  Dad had an '80' out north of Afton, bought on speculation that there was going to be a Three Mile Lake.  Dad situated the house hoping that someday, the Lake Association would buy the house for the Park Ranger to live it.  He'd had the property for a number of years but now he decided to build there and move there.  I had graduated and was working and living in Des Moines and the only child yet at home was Mary.  (Although I was allowed to choose the color of carpet in the 3rd little bedroom.  Green.  Grass Green : ) 

 

Once they moved, Dad went to farming a bit and I think he also built a few houses outside of Afton.  I know he took my Uncle Dana and Aunt Eunice's old farm house and took the 2nd floor off and made it a Ranch-Style home.  He ruined it in my eyes but that is exactly what Uncle Dana and Aunt Eunice wanted as they were getting older and didn't want the steps.  They tore down my Uncle Ivan and Aunt Pauline's old farm house and build a new ranch house, out on the river bottom by Peru.   

 

In the mid-1970s Dad would have started drawing his Social Security (maybe $695 mo? if that).  I remember hearing about the application process as Dad didn't have a birth certificate, hadn't graduated from high school but had to come up with some school records to prove his age. 

 

Mary lived at Shagbark her last year of high school.  The lane from Dad's gate to the county road wasn't rocked and Mary remembers Dad having to take her on the tractor, to her car parked on the road so she could drive to school. 

 

 

Letter from home - January 25, 2015











Dear ones:  it has been a gloomy Sunday after a beautiful Saturday.  Saturday was sunny and the temperature got up to 52 degrees or something like that.  Today is cooler and cloudy and we had had a skiff of snow when we got up.  We didn't expected that.  We need more rain or snow.  We need some moisture in our topsoil but we will take what we get.

 

I worked several days in the kitchen this past week.  They just can't keep people at work. I was also called about every day to sub for a para but I had already agreed to work in the kitchen.   I expect to work Monday and Tuesday also but we will see.  At this late hour of the day, I won't know now until morning about 5:30 or 6 am.  I would rather know ahead of time if I'm going to have to get out of bed at 5:30. 

 

Enough grumbling.  I better find something positive to write about or I should just not write!  A random photo here but after seeing this, I will forever know how to spell baby Easterlie's name.  And Lee's.  ha!



 

 

Erica and I helped Johanna remove the wallpaper from Baby E's room today.  There were two layers of paper but if we used plenty of water to soak up the paper, then it scraped right off.  I think we only worked 2 to 3 hours on it today and got it almost ready to paint.  Johanna had worked on it yesterday for several hours.  

 

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I was getting my sewing and crafts all corralled into one room.  Here is the photo to prove it.  The sad part is that it has set this way now for two weeks.  I haven't done another thing.  Well, I might have hung a spool rack on the wall above the sewing machine and filled it with spools of thread but after that, not another thing.    

 

Photo bombed by a pink teddy!

 

This week, I will at least close the doors on this homemade cabinet and put away extra boxes and bins.  I have a pair of curtains all measured and pinned to be hemmed.  I will do that.  I'm getting excited about making a baby quilt for Baby E but I am waiting to find out color schemes.  But I have plenty of other unfinished projects to do.

 

Himself and I drove to the cabin mid-morning, Friday.  It was a nice day to drive and warmer than it has been so we went down to check on things and stay the night.

 

The Lake was very quiet.  Vi and Bob were gone to Colorado, Bill seems to be gone (he lost his wife this last fall), Benji had colon surgery so he and his wife were in Des Moines.  Don't know the whole story there but imagine we will learn it soon. 

 

Our water faucets in the little cabin were frozen shut which was unusual but a little hit with the hair dryer and we had cold running water.  We didn't light the water heater as we didn't want to drain it again.  We heated the water on top of the stove -- like the 'good ol' days'.

 

Himself was content just to be at the cabin, so I went to town.  I had made an appointment to get my hair trimmed.  Then I shopped for the groceries we needed, hit two local meat markets looking for smoked cheddar block cheese and found it at the second shop, Markos.  Back to Mercer's grocery and consignment shop.  I scored at the consignment shop as Martha had three dozen home-grown eggs saved for me.  Yes! 

I love these big, brown beauties!

I almost froze at the cabin for the first half day there.  It takes so long to cook the cold out of the cabin's floor, walls and joints.  After we got the chill off, it was nice and cozy.  We snuggled in and watched TV while multi-tasked and read a book about a couple living in the wilds of Canada and crocheted.  Not at the same time! 

 

Himself and I are starting to talk about a winter trip.  Don't hold your breath.  Sounds as though we might start off in Texas, not too far from The Alamo.   

 

More randomness . . .

 

 

My crossing guard morning, in the rear view mirror. 

Crisp and cold. 

Madison County gingerbread, neglected and fading.
 

 

This photo was taken early in January.  Saturday in Missouri, we paid $1.79 per gallon at the Mercer station.  The lowest gas has gotten here at Creston, is $1.87 and it sat on $1.99 so long, we never thought it would go lower.  We are thankful for these low prices and hope they stay low until we can go south and come back. 

As there, obviously, is not a lot of news I will let you go!  Take care,

                                                                                      until next week,
                                                                                                Love, Ma

Letter from home - January 18, 2015

Dear ones, what a nice day (50 degrees) and a great dinner as your dad cooked the roast beef and smashed the potatoes and made the gravy. It hit the spot! (I baked the black raspberry pie so I contributed!) Sorry to miss you, Craig and Traci, but hope Joey is feeling better and that he and Craig get well quick. I am praying that everyone avoids the Influenza and other crud going around. I am better or so I thought. I have coughed for two weeks and thought I was better and then last night, I coughed all the night.

Happy Birthday to Hannah! She is now 11 years. (Sorry Maddie, I missed you!) I took very few photos today . . . What was wrong with me?

I only worked a little this past week. I worked Monday in the Elem/Middle School kitchen and I saw Audri and Maddie but no Jack. I worked as crossing guard at Rainbow Park Tues through Fri and Tuesday was brutal, let me tell you! Minus 10 degrees. Fortunately, there was what they call a ‘warm’ bus. A regular school bus, driverless, left to idle with the heater on. I wasn’t forewarned, didn’t know enough to get on and watch the kids so I stood outside and froze my tush! Fortunately, it warmed up from then on and wasn’t that cold again. And no more ‘warm’ buses either.

Next month:

February 2 - Casen’s birthday. He will be 9!

February 3 - Craig’s birthday. He will be 39!

February 5 - Morghan Grace’s birthday - she will be . . . OMG.  No. She will not be 16 years old! 

February 8 - Granny’s birthday. She was born 95 years ago.

I’m thinking about 2/21/15 for February family dinner. Let me know what you all think about that. Oh, wait. When is Super Bowl?

I’m starting to think about going ‘South’ . . . but Dad hasn’t yet started that process. Or if he has started, let’s hope he comes to that conclusion soon!

I didn’t get a whole lot accomplished last week. I did cook a couple of meals tho. One day, I baked some awesome fish in the oven and served fried rice with it. I made plenty of rice so I’d have leftovers and then ate rice, rotel tomatoes and salmon or rice, rotel tomatoes and chicken for my lunches. I go on binges. I should remember to take photographs when my cooking turns out well. 

Yesterday, I drove to Winterset and Aunt Beth and I toured beautiful Madison County. We had a good time. We look for old stone buildings and houses and, of course, Aunt Beth knows where a bunch of them are but here’s a little Coincidence Story from Saturday. Cruising along, no sunshine to speak of and I was about 5 miles outside of Winterset on Hwy 92 when I noticed light coming through a large old corncrib. A photo opp, if I ever saw one. Even though I was a little behind schedule, I whipped my little red Chevy around and went back. Whipped her around again and pulled up even with the corn crib where I noticed that beside the corn crib was an old stone farm building. I took some pics, took note of my odometer reading so I would know how far out these things were from town and I headed on to Aunt Beth’s. Upon arrival, she was telling me what she had in mind for our tour and said we were going to go west on Hwy 92 to the Earlham Road.  I mentioned I had seen a stone farm building this morning and she said “oh good; I have not been able to find that one”. She reads and researches and has had access to all the National Historic buildings records.  She has tracked down a lot of these stone buildings.

So, I had my mileage, we found the stone milking shed and another little stone building there and we started our excursion out right! To the left is the big old corncrib and under the new green roof is the old turn of the century milking shed. And below is what caught my eye -- light coming through the slats of the corn crib.

Aunt Beth and I drove and tromped and clicked for well over two hours and then Beth wanted to see the Macksburg wind turbines as she hadn’t gotten there yet. We found them in all their glory and found the Macksburg Café opened so she stopped and had cheeseburgers and onion fingers or onion sticks.

So two great days in a row!

Next week, I am not on the calendar to work at all. Tomorrow I will not work as I have plans. Also, I will take Alice out one day this week so I’ll decline work that day too. I sure do like this . . . having the freedom to say “no thanks, no work today : )”

I need to get to Missouri to get Vi set up on Facebook Messenger. She’ll be going to Colorado soon and we’ll need to stay in touch.

Meanwhile, you all stay in touch, too!
                                                                        ‘til next week, take care!
                                                                         Love you, Ma, Nance, Nana
                                                                             http://nanasview.blogspot.com/

Letter from home - January 11, 2015

Dear ones, not too much to write about this week. The January temperatures were bitter with some below zero readings and we stayed close to home. I’d had a cough with some hoarseness so didn’t think I should work at the school this week. We stayed home and I slept in almost every morning.

I am subject to sleeping in although I haven’t for years as the alarm was always set at 5:30 to get me up and around for work. This week, I slept in half the week because I stayed up until 2 or 3 am to feed the fire while it was so cold outside. We do have electric back up heat but after the last two winters when the heat pump wouldn’t work right and your dad would stay up to baby sit it, he is reluctant to let the heat switch over to the electric. Now he hasn’t asked me to stay up and nurse the fire but after a week of Himself not getting enough sleep and not being able to nap, I said “it is easy for me to stay up late and I can sleep during the day so I will take the first shift”. After some arguing and arm wrestling, he let me. That way, he could go to bed at 10 pm and sleep until 2 or 3 am and at least get 4 or 5 hours of sleep instead of Zero. Oh, the trials and tribulations of an old married couple! Lol

Friday, Lanny and I went to Johanna’s and Lee’s on Mills Street to help them clean. I really like their house. It has a good, comfy feel and is bright and cheery. Here is a pic of the living room which is really big but you are seeing only about half of it here. Lanny cleaned carpets with our little, spiffy carpet cleaner. If anyone ever wants to borrow it, just ask. It seems to do a pretty good job.

　
Yesterday, Saturday, I took Aunt Alice out for a ride. She is never one to ask me to do something or go somewhere but she did let me take her to Walmart to pick up her prescription this time. It was too cold for her to get out in the car last week. She’s a little timid about going and that’s okay. I don’t mind helping her out. We drove up Cherry Street to Hwy 92, then to Greenfield. There’s a little consignment shop on the west side of town that I like to browse every three months or so. Or six! From there, we came down Hwy 25 through Orient, to Creston and to Walmart. So we had a nice little jaunt and it was sunny and good to get out. We talk every minute of our drives (always, every drive) and Alice comes prepared with a list -- and I should have my own list because I forget what I want to say and ask! 

The photos, of Gabrielle, Maddie, Audri and Bella were taken January 1, 2015. The girls got along very well with my old, sturdy sewing machine. I am going to get a new bobbin for Maddie’s machine and if that doesn’t fix her Singer Touch and Sew, then it is going to the repair shop. Then, I will will get the tension set on Johanna’s Sears machine so that it can go home to Audri (maybe secretly for awhile ? Lol) and this summer, I will watch auctions and garage sales for a sturdy machine for Gabrielle. I have a plan! And I am determined!  I have four sewing machines in this house right now and that is three too many! 

I think Maddie is pretending to yawn.  She made a nice pillow.

Bella knows her Kindle! 

Gabrielle at the 'wheel'.



Audri's turn! 

My schedule for work this coming week: 
        
           Monday - 10 am to 2 pm at the EMS kitchen 
           Tues - Friday - crossing guard at Rainbow Park, 2 times a day

The rest of the days will be spent cooking, cleaning and trying to finish projects. One project is about 25 years unfinished! I will do it! In fact, I have two projects that old that will be done before 2016! There. How’s that for a New Year’s Resolution?

Last week, I puttered and sorted and gathered up. I dug out sewing and craft projects from three or four different rooms and now have them all in one room. They are not all put away but I feel better about the situation already.   

Hannah’s Birthday is January 21
Family Dinner is January 18, weather permitting.

Sounds as though we might have a January thaw in the next week! Keep your fingers crossed!

                                                   You all take care! ‘til next week, Love Ma

Letter from home - January 4, 2015

Dear ones, The New Year is off to a good start! I have had me some grandchildren time and took a trip, even if only a short one, all in four days time!   

The grandchildren have been on Christmas break. Wednesday, Traci brought Gabrielle and Isabella to Creston and took Jack back home with her. The children stayed until Saturday. Bella stayed with Audri and Nana and PaPa’s and Gabrielle went to Aunt Erica’s.

The children all did very well. Bella and Audri slept all night the first night on the couch. The second night, Gabrielle and Maddie joined us and all four girls slept in the ‘corner room’. They started out all four in the bed but soon, two were on the floor. We didn’t hear a peep out of them this night either so our little ones are growing up!

They requested pancakes both mornings and I think Bella ate three each time (they weren’t large but still!). Otherwise, they ate good (altho each has a varied diet) and didn’t snack much. And they were busy the whole time!

Friday, we sewed. Gabrielle declares she prefers hand sewing but did work some on the machine. Audri declared that she will wait a few years to use the foot pedal on the sewing machine so she was satisfied to turn the needle by hand. Maddie uses the machine and practiced sewing a few buttons and bells. Mainly, new beds and spreads were made for the new Barbie hospital but there were a few other things too, a little bear, for one. The girls came up with all the ideas and my role was just to help them figure out how to make it happen. Don’t you think they did a great job?  And they left all the Barbies dressed and presentable and the house and hospital neat and orderly!  Yay!   

This is a bear -- and amazing in that the children had no pattern or example to work from!

 

This really isn't a sample of their sewing skills but of their creative planning and organizational skills.  A Barbie hospital!  How creative is that! 

Bella went to Audri’s Friday evening to spend the night. I think none of us except Bella knew that she would stay. I was prepared for a call about 9:30 saying Bella was ready to come back but the call never came and she stayed the night! Gabby and Maddie went back to the country.

Lanny had been wanting a major snow storm and a storm was expected to come in Saturday, predicted to clobber southeast Iowa and to miss Creston. Since the storm wouldn’t come to Lanny, I took Lanny to the storm! We had a reservation at Le Claire on the Mississippi River. We had visions of watching a raging blizzard out our hotel window. I had visions of getting snowed in for two or three days, walking on the river bank in the snow while more snow fell heavily around us. I had visions of us having to eat only free breakfast items (three times a day) in the hotel breakfast area because we wouldn't be able to get out to the grocery store or restaurant.

Errrtttt! Brakes on!  Whoa Nancy! Didn’t happen.

It snowed about an 1-½ in the night, while we were sleeping! So much for the best laid plans (hopes and dreams!). The laugh was on us.

We did get to see Eagles tho. Eagles over winter around open water. The Mississippi is not frozen now. We had heard that the Eagle watching will be good through January around Davenport which is why we came to Le Claire. We were rewarded with numerous eagle sightings. I counted seven eagles in the tree, looking through the binoculars. It is not a great photo but as we were across the river from these birds, I feel lucky that my camera had the zoom power to get a photo, at all!

The second photo is taken from Iowa looking into Illinois. It was taken this morning, after the snow. It really was a winter wonderland and made me to cold to look! 

Sunday morning about 8 am I see on the news that there is still a chance of snow for LeClaire, Iowa.  I am determined to try and hold off our departure and try to get Himself to stay for a second night on the river. Because! Because there is a chance for more snow on Monday too! Snow in the Sunday early morning hours, more snow coming today and big snow expected Monday!  

We weighed our options and counted our toes, played paper, rock and scissors --  and then Himself thought we should make a break for home. We ate our free hot breakfast, loaded up and headed west. And this is where the irony sets in.

For the first leg of our trip home, we drove on slick, snow packed roads thru heavy snow flurries and city traffic. From Le Clair to Iowa City and beyond.  We are on I-80 as we figure the interstate will be cleared better than smaller state roads. Himself is driving. It is a long hour, hour and a half, plowing through the snow, clearing our windshield and watching 18-wheelers buzz by. 

He isn’t so happy about it but he cannot complain.
I had said “stay”.
We “went”.

We are home safe and sound.