What do you get when you combine a World War II veteran, a 240-acre farm, and a prisoner of war barracks together? A home. In fact, it was my childhood home for eighteen years. My dad, recently discharged from the army, purchased the barracks, moved it onto his family farm in Lewes, Delaware, and divided it into three sections. He used one piece for our house, one piece for a shop, and the remaining piece was used for the ends of the buildings and room dividers.
This home of ours featured crumbly plaster walls, an asbestos roof, and rough-hewn wooden floors. It was rustic to be sure, but we did have all the luxuries of life including electricity, water, heat, and an indoor toilet.
When we needed water, we grabbed a bucket or two and carefully navigated down rickety wooden stairs to our basement below. We then headed over to the pitcher pump, gave it a few strokes, and instantly delighted in refreshingly cold, spring water gushing up from our own personal well.
We were never concerned about cold winter nights in this cozy coastal dwelling. Our home had Big Bertha, a heating system like no other. Big Bertha was a 55-gallon oil drum, stacked horizontally on cement blocks, and conveniently located in the corner of our main living area. To keep it spewing out its luxurious heat, we periodically chopped down an oak or maple tree, sawed it into two-foot pieces, opened the fabricated metal door of Big Bertha, and stacked the wood inside. Then, we fired it up, sat back with a cup of hot cocoa, and enjoyed the toasty warm heat. Because my dad had pounded the top of the barrel flat, we even cooked some of our meals on the top of Big Bertha like vegetable soup brimming with hand-picked peas, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, lima beans, and anything else that was ripe in the garden. A chicken, freshly harvested from the hen house made the best chicken and slippery dumplings, something we all enjoyed. And, when one of the local fishermen traded us for produce, we had fried fish. All culinary delights made perfect on Big Bertha.
My dad was definitely before his time when it came to creating our kitchen as it had a modern, open floor plan similar to the homes of today rather than the chopped up, back kitchens that were common in the 40’s. He custom built a ten-foot-long table, along with matching benches, that he placed down the center of this kitchen. Not only did he create an abundance of space for dining and conversation, but he also enabled the women of the house to prepare the meals and socialize at the same time. That was forward thinking!
Another feature of this unique house was its “indoor” outhouse. There was no need for us to venture outside in the freezing snow or in the middle of a hurricane as our outhouse was in the basement. It consisted of a five-gallon bucket carefully placed under a booty-sized hole cut into the top of a red wooden box that sat over the bucket. The women of our house implored the menfolk to aim properly as the top of the bucket did get slimy now and then from inaccurately streamed liquid waste. Lucky for me, the job of emptying this wonderful convenience was left to the boys.
Gradually, children were added to our household including my brother Randy in 1947; me in 1950, and my brother Keith in 1955. This meant two more bedrooms, one for my brothers and one for me. Neither of these bedrooms had doors; but when I got older, I fashioned my own door from curtains I made. This was another unique aspect of our home. Unlike the women who lived in town, we didn’t have to drive to the nearest city 40 miles away in order to buy fabric. Instead, we could get all the fabric we needed, free of charge, from our chickens. You see, chicken feed was sold in beautiful, floral-printed sacks. All I had to do was cut the sacks into appropriately sized pieces and then sew away on Grandma Wilson’s treadle sewing machine. Not only did I make curtains for my bedroom door, but I also made many of my own clothes from this same convenient resource.
Our home continued “as is” until I turned twelve. That was the year of the Big Remodel. Gone was the indoor outhouse, gone was the pitcher pump, and gone was Big Bertha. Now, like the rest of the world we had a double sink in the kitchen with running tap water; a full bath with pink and green tile, a tub, sink, and flushing toilet; and an oil heater in the floor that warmed the whole house. And, best of all, no more trekking down rickety stairs to the basement. Everything was located on the main floor.
I still remember the smell of the Maxwell House coffee I brewed for the men as they worked, the excitement I experienced as I flushed the new aqua-green toilet, and the comfort I felt as I stood on the metal heating grate with the warm air billowing out my skirt like an umbrella on the beach.
All these modern conveniences provided us with a more comfortable lifestyle yet never took away from our home’s uniqueness. Not many people can say they grew up in a POW camp - at least, not by choice!
