Tammy started kindergarten when she was just 4...not turning 5 until October 1. We were living with Avanelle in Ypsilanti at the time. After we moved to the little apartment in Denton, I still dropped the kids off at Avanelles on my way to work and Tammy got to finish kindergarten where she had started it.
The little apartment had only been meant to be a temporary place...until I could find something bigger and better that I could afford. We only lived there a few months before moving into the downstairs of a duplex on Martz Rd in Belleville. The apartment was huge...living room, two bedrooms and kitchen and bath. Any one room was bigger than our entire apartment on Denton Road.
It had one major drawback....it was heated by a coal furnace with a stoker, in the basement. I had to fill the stoker twice a day, morning and night. And, it was unfurnished. Again, I scoured auction sales and cast-offs from relatives and managed to get everything we needed. It did have a stove and refrigerator furnished. My first day there, I turned the oven on to bake some cornbread....and a horrible smell filled the house. I had cleaned the stove before using it, I thought...but missed pulling up the bottom of the oven. When I checked to see what was smelling....I found a roasted nest of mice! It took me forever and many washings with lysol, oven cleaner, comet...to get that odor out of the stove.
Mom and Dad had come up over the Fourth of July and taken Tammy and Buddy back home with them. I moved into the house the following weekend. It was much easier running around scrounging furniture without having to worry about them. I had made a deal with my sister, Mary Sue, to pay her the $15 a week that I would have to pay a babysitter. That way I helped out with school clothes for her and the other kids at home.
The day I was cleaning up the smelly oven, I had visitors. Mark's sister and her boyfriend. I know they thought I was not very friendly because I stayed outside talking to them. I sure didn't want them in the house with that odor! They were disappointed that the kids were not home and only stayed a few minutes. I felt badly because I really liked Susan and would have liked to have them come inside and have a longer visit....under other circumstances.
I went to Indiana and brought the kids home the second weekend in August...so they'd be home for Buddy's birthday. This became an annual thing. The kids would go to Mom and Dad over the Fourth and stay about six weeks.
The first couple of weeks they were gone, I missed them so much I was miserable. Then I got used to them being gone...and enjoyed the freedom. During the six weeks I'd make at least one trip down to Indiana...I couldn't stay away from them for six long weeks! Then, the last week before I went to get them, I'd dread them coming home. That sounds terrible, but by then I had gotten used to being able to go out at night with my friends without worrying about getting a babysitter. Don't get me wrong...I still wanted them to come home, I just dreaded giving up the freedom I had without them. Once they were home, it didn't take long for me to get back in the groove with them...a day or two at the most, where I could not imagine my life without them.
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