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.