We moved, and moved, and moved...

From the time we moved to the little house on Fourth Avenue in Delano in the fall of 1955 until we moved to Bakersfield in January, 1961, we moved seven times.

While we lived on Oxford Street, Daddy met a contractor who was building new houses all over Delano. That contractor provided lathing work for a long time. They worked out a deal where we could buy one of the homes they were building just a couple of blocks away from the one we were renting.

That was the house on Oleander, a brand new house, three bedrooms, one bath, with an attached two-car garage. Of course, we had only one car, and we never put it in the garage. But while we lived there, Daddy sold the old 40-something Chevy and bought a nice '51 (or so) Chrysler. We were really stylin' then: a new house, and a pretty nice car.

A friend in my sixth grade class had a new home on Terrace Drive, where the "rich" people lived. (Her dad was a farmer.) She invited me there one day to see her large beautiful home. I was amazed at how grand it was, a mansion in my estimation, complete with gorgeous drapes on the windows. She came to see my new house, too, and very graciously complimented our filmy pink curtains, even though I informed her that Mama had found them at the Salvation Army.

The bathroom in that house had pink and black ceramic tiles around the bathtub and on the vanity counter top. We thought that was so beautiful. In the kitchen the two-tone tiles were tan with dark brown trim. There was a double sink in the kitchen, the first one I had ever seen. Before that house, we had used two metal dishpans in a single sink, one for soap and one to  "rinch" (as we used to say) the dishes.  The plaster on the walls was textured; it was so rough that if the bed was against the wall on your side, you had to be careful not to take your leg out from under the covers. You might accidentally rub it against the wall, a sure way to scrape off your skin and bring blood.

We lived in that house when our little sister, Diane Elizabeth Ballentine, was born, in February 1957. (That is another story...)

You would think since we bought that house that we were "set" and wouldn't have to move any more. The trouble was that the loan arrangement involved a second mortgage, wherein after a certain period of time a "balloon" payment was required.  Daddy was not able to come up with it when the time arrived, so we lost that house, and had to move again.

Daddy found a big old house on Cecil Avenue, a few blocks from our elementary school. It had four bedrooms and a large screened-in back porch. It didn't have a garage, or much parking space for that matter, but we only had one car, and the big back porch served as laundry room and family room, and gateway to the one bathroom. This was my very favorite house during all of my childhood, the first and only house where I had my own bedroom; but since we had several long-term house guests there, much of the time I was "kicked out" of my bedroom. I slept on the couch on the back porch. There were times when we had nine people living in that house, which made for an interesting bathroom situation. You couldn't linger in there.

While we lived on Cecil Avenue, I had an attack of appendicitis. My appendix ruptured and I was taken to Bakersfield General Hospital for surgery. I was thirteen, too old for the crowded pediatric ward, so I was put in a bed in the adult section. In those days all nurses wore white uniforms, including stockings, shoes, and those little nursing caps that look a little like a sailor's hat. I stayed in there a week, and when I was recovering, I made friends with all the adult patients in my wing of the building. It was an old brick building.

I was out of school, seventh grade, for almost a month, but caught up quickly with the rest of my class when I returned. At home, though, I wasn't allowed to pick up my little sister, Diane, who was just over a year old, for a long time. Mama was afraid it might "damage my stitches." In those days incisions were big, ugly, and I was told I'd never be able to wear a bikini. That kind of swim suit was just then becoming popular.

The owner of the house on Cecil Avenue lived right next door; she ran a beauty shop in front of her house. Her daughter was a classmate of mine. When we had been there about a year, the owner decided she wanted to rent the house to her personal friend.

So we moved to a tiny house "across the tracks." Highway 99 and the railroad tracks split the town of Delano into two communities. Downtown and the "nicer" areas was on the east side, and the "West Side" was where all the poor folks lived. Walking to and from Cecil Avenue Elementary School took about forty-five minutes each way and we had to cross the highway and the train tracks on a high bridge.

I wouldn't have minded the long walk so much except that I carried all my books back and forth. I was in eighth grade and had a lot of homework. Do you know back-packs are a relatively current invention? I carried those heavy books in my arms each way, each day. My brothers didn't have that problem. Jim was in high school by then and did his homework in a study hall. Ray just probably wasn't listening when the teacher assigned homework, so he wasn't about to bring home books. He left them in his locker. (Every student had a locker, with a combination in those days.) That left Ray's hands free to throw stuff off the bridge down on cars, for which he got in trouble a time or two.

I didn't like the West Side house; it was so little and crowded. I no longer had my own room. Richard and I slept in the smallest room, barely larger than a big closet, on two cot-sized beds.

It was while we lived there, though, that Daddy bought a pickup truck with which he determined he would start his own mattress company. But that's another story...