LIFE WITH MY CHILDREN PART 7

Shortly after Martha moved out I bought a junker car for $50. This made life a little easier for us. I no longer had to walk to work nor depend on someone else for a ride in bad weather. Also, both Phyllis and Avanelle moved out of the River St. apartments. So, I, too moved. I might mention this exodus was because the building became infested with cockroaches.

Tammy, Buddy and I moved to a house on Michigan Avenue, surrounded by used cars. The house had at one time been the office for the car lot. It was perfect for us...clean...no bugs...good furniture, and cheap...same price as the River St. apartment. It had a big living room...big...well...huge, actually...middle room with the bed on a one step-up landing. Strange! Through that room was the kitchen...with a normal sized stove and refrigerator...as compared to River St which had small compact built ins. The bathroom, just off the kitchen had the usual accoutrements...plus, my first ever....a shower over the tub with a plastic curtain surrounding the tub. We only lived there a few months until I bought the house on N. River St ...that I lost because the people I bought it from defaulted on their mortgage.

Tammy and Buddy loved the new apartment. Because we were the only tenants in the building, I didn't have to keep shushing them when they played. But, they missed their cousins. And I missed my convenient built-in baby-sitters. Now, I took them every day to a lady who took in several kids to watch, for $20 a week. There they had a big yard with all kinds of play equipment as well as other children their ages. We still visited often with Avanelle and Phyllis...and various aunts and uncles as well as Granny. On weekends, we were seldom home during the day, but I still kept to a pretty strict routine for Tammy and Buddy. We might eat supper at home or at Avanelles...or Aunt Susies...but I made sure we were home in time for their 8 p.m bedtime. I had read, in various child-raising books, that children thrived on routine. And that was something I tried to maintain all their lives.

It was during this time that I took on extra work. I met a man through the real estate office who wanted a book-keeper...just to keep records of all his income and outgo. The job was easy, only consuming an hour or two each week. John would give me all his receipts and cancelled checks and I just had to record them and organize them for his accountant at tax time. For this, he paid me $10 a week...which seemed like a fortune at the time. John had his finger in many pies. He bought real estate, he bought up land contracts (the owner whohad sold his house on a land contract would in turn sell the land contract to John for a cash discount.) Because I was in a position to find such contracts, he also paid me a bonus for each one he purchased. I worked for him for two years, until his death.

After John died, my boss gave me a $10 week raise that made up for the income I'd lost. Now I was up to $60 a week....take home about $48. Plus, after much hassling Mark I began getting $117. allotment again....which had stopped when he came home from Labrador. Guess he didn't tell them we weren't living together...and the money I was supposed to get for spouse and children went into his paycheck. Life was good.