My Grandparents’ Home
Part II
Grandfather Isaac Luther Davis, Sr.
Back to the vacation…I remember two or three visits to 
(In the picture of the home you can see the chimney with its four attending flue openings at the
top.) My parents took the bedroom near the shotgun shaped bathroom which had a door that opened into their bedroom as well as a door that opened from the dining room. A footed bathtub, sink, and commode were seated on black and white, hexagonal inlaid tiles. The only light in the bathroom was a light bulb that was suspended from the ceiling via the electrical wiring. A pull chain made the light operable. My grandfather slept in the front bedroom. His wife Irene had been hospitalized long ago. (This is a separate story in itself and must be saved for another time.) The dining room was connected to the kitchen at the back of the house by a maid’s pantry which was a short hallway that had built-in cupboards for food and pantry storage. Heavy, fabric curtains hung from ceiling to floor on thick, wooden drapery rods so that the pantry storage was hidden from view and not visible from the dining room or kitchen. The kitchen was long and narrow and sparely furnished. The linoleum floor and high ceiling amplified the rattling of dishes and banging of pots and pans. The kitchen was a beehive of cacophony even with just a single occupant. The heavy drapery on either side of the pantry hall served a double purpose.
We slept “upstairs” which was entered by exiting the door which was on the north side of the kitchen onto a screened-in porch that had faded, green lattice work adorning the screen panels of the porch. The steep stairway was open on both sides with no “kick” panels to keep your feet from slipping through the steps. Since there was no hand rail for steadying the ascent to the attic, there was always a risk of stumbling upwards or tumbling downwards. Once on the landing of this attic-like second floor, one entered a room that spanned the dimensions of the downstairs floor plan. Wooden, square pillars were spaced throughout the attic which was totally finished with hardwood floors and plaster walls. On the south side of the room, a double hung window looked out over the grass covered driveway that lead to a one car, detached garage which looked more like a carriage house than a garage. At the front of the room was another double hung window which was rendered inoperable due to the numerous coats of paint that had sealed this second floor tomb into a chamber of stale air that had the “fragrance” of aged flooring and musty trunks. On one side of the front window in the gable of the roof there was a porthole window that could be unlatched and swung open for some imaginary ventilation in this Nebuchadnesser styled furnace.
Our uncle I.L. (the initials stood for Isaac Luther), was my father’s half brother and he still lived at home at the time we visited. He occupied a portion of the attic that was designated as his living space. In other words, it was off limits to all of us who slept in the attic. I.L. was a handsome man who worked at the National Bank in downtown Mobile. Since his siblings had produced 13 grandchildren, Uncle I.L. was an uncle to a heap of kids. We looked up to him for a lot of reasons—the candy he would give us, his attentive smile, his teasing manner and also because he had been in the Army during the War. We had often admired these pictures of him in his army uniform. The War was still in the living memory of most people and their children. We had pictures of him in our own family albums as well. We usually saw I. L. only at breakfast since he worked long hours at the bank, and he didn’t come home until late at night. We would be awakened at night by his snoring but that never bothered us.
There were a couple of double beds in the attic and the kids piled onto the feather mattresses which were on top of exposed, wobbly bed springs. After a night of tossing and turning due to the compression of the heat and no ventilation, one felt like he had been on a transcontinental stagecoach ride without any stops along the way. We would awake bleary-eyed and totally sweat-drenched to begin our trek down the steep steps into the kitchen where our mother would be preparing a wonderful breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, grits, and toast that was toasted only on one side and slathered with enough butter to clog your coronary arteries in just one bite. (to be continued with the next entry)
2 comments:
when was the lst time you were there??
john wienand
I don't remember the first time I was in the Lemoyne Place home. I would have to guess that it would have been in 1944 since I was born in the fall of 1944 and we lived in Chickasaw, I think. I was born at the old Providence Hospital. So, I assume my parents took me to Lemoyne Place sometime during the fall of 1944.
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