Old Soddy

When I was three, Dad and Mom decided to move from Canyon City, CO. Mother wanted to move to Arkansas where she had lived as a child. So they loaded our furniture, my sister, brother and me onto and into our truck and we went to Arkansas.

However, Dad could not tolerate the humidity there. So back to Shaw in northeastern CO. Dad had rented a farm with a sod house. Vividly, I recall when Mother first saw this bare dirt dwelling “Oh, Jack,” she cried, “do you expect me to live in that!?”

The house, made of sod stripped from the dried ground, had never had the inside finished with lath and stucco. Also, it was one big undivided space! Dad did divide it into two bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. He put laths up but the finishing stucco never did get done.

The laths, however, had the advantage that nails could be driven in and we kids could hang our stockings at Christmas.

We lived in it was for five years and I remember it better than any other of my childhood.

Sister Betty, brothers Ted and Lewis, me and our dog Duke