First Family Car

Richard, Stephen, and I are having trouble remembering and dating our family cars. This was the first. I remember that we had to bring big jugs of water even on hour trips because the car would overheat the need water. This must the car Mom learned to drive in. She failed her first test. When parking, she ran over a curb that was obscured by feeds. Richard, Stephen, and I had to go along for driving practice. I wound up doing the same thing in Maine. My kids loathed practicing parallel parking.

Gardening

Dad was a gardener; he grew vegetables. Flowers were Mom's department, but she took over growing vegetables after Dad died. Neither Mom or Dad were great cooks, so I don't remember specific family recipes. What I remember are delicious fresh vegetables--tomatoes, string beans, corn, zucchini, broccoli, lettuce. No tomatoes or corn have ever tasted as good.

In retrospect I understand that gardening was the perfect way for Dad to unwind from his actuarial job and his long commute. I remember his encouraging us to start our own little gardens. I remember helping him plant strawberries. I remember picking off Japanese beetles from the plants and putting them in a jar of something that killed them.

Peter and Michael have definitely inherited the gardening gene. I tend to garden in the spring, then neglect the garden during the hot summer.

53 years in Uniondale

These pictures speak more eloquently than words could. Mom and Dad moved to the house in March 1947; Mom sold it in December 2000 to a family of landscapers, whose properly adjoined hers on both sides.

Expanding House

In 1952 the unfinished attic on the second floor was converted into two bedrooms to make room for Peter. Richard, Stephen, and I had been sharing the larger downstairs bedroom; Richard and I were in bunk beds and Stephen was still in a crib. The original stairs were next to the kitchen; these became a closet and storage area. New stairs were created opposite the front door. If the stairs had been left as they were originally, I would have had to go through Richard's and Stephen's bedroom to get to mine. Two front dormers were created to make the bedrooms bigger. Dad and Uncle Pat worked on the project; I recall being apprehensive about the holes in the roof before the dormers were completed.

In 1956 after Michael was born, we finally accepted the reality we were not going to find a bigger house with such a great backyard. We added a huge dining room and a garage to the house; we also added a back dormer and a bathroom upstairs. The dining/family room made the house liveable, enabled us to host huge family parties. Grown children could sleep on the convertible couch in the dining room when they visited. The small house was big enough for all the love, life, chaos, and learning it contained.

347 Henry Street

Living with the Nolans in Queens Village was a wartime compromise for our parents. In their letters, they frequently plan for a home of their own. Shortly after Dad came home from France in February 1946, Mom and Dad started house hunting on Long Island; housing was hard to find. Mom and Dad purchased 347 Henry Street, East Hempstead, in 1946 for $10,200. The Koch family moved into their new home March 3, 1947, a month after Richard was born. At that time Dad's income was $4800; their mortgage was $9200. The house was built in 1942. In 1950 the address was changed to 827 Henry Street. In 1953 East Hempstead became Uniondale.

The house had two bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom, and a small kitchen. There was an unfinished basement and attic; we had no garage. Everytime Mom was pregnant, the family would go househunting; we almost bought houses in Merrick and Roosevelt. Dad did not want to lengthen his communte, and we never found a house nearby that had a backyard so perfect for gardening, swimming pools, and baseball games.