THE OLD HOMESTEAD (1949)
By Randy Kraft, CA Death Row
Today Beach Boulevard is an extremely busy, commercial, four lane highway
lined with business from
North Orange County down to the Pacific Ocean. But when Dad hand built
our home in the late 1940's,
it was just Huntington Beach Boulevard, a slow, uncluttered, two lane road
with cheap, open land for sale
everywhere.
At the end of World War II the Kraft family lived in a tract home : 4212
Gaviota Street, Long Beach,
California, within walking distance of Douglas Aircraft where Mom and Dad
both worked during the war.
I had just been born, and the house was cramped. Dad looked to nearby
Orange County for a promise
of open space and growing property values. Gasoline was still rationed,
so we could not move very far from
Dad's job. Midway City, at about eight miles away, was as far as Dad
wanted to move, and he became one
of the first commuters when he bought a one-quarter acre lot fronting on
Huntington Beach Boulevard.
It was rural. The neighbors to the North, Stewart and Lena Gilbert,
raised chickens. A retired couple, Steve
and Florence Gulick, lived to the south, and beyond them was a small, dilapidated
lazy susan factory and then
a blacksmith's works. Across the highway was a small trailer park
surrounded by open fields.
Dad bought a surpus army barracks from Fort McArthur, in San Padro, tore
it apart and hand built our new home
from the salvaged materials. He worked on it every day and on weekends,
and we lived in a rented house
on Harper street until it was ready. I was only two or three years
old and don't remember the specifics of how all
that happened, but I do recall "helping" him with the construction now and
then.
One time is etched in memory. Dad was hammering away at something,
and as usual, I tried to do just what he
did. I pounded a piece of wood into the ground and thought I had done
a really good job until Dad gasped, "Randy!" and gave me a swat on the bottom.
"Thats my brand new level!" he said, exasperated. I didn't know
what a carpenter's level was, but after he dug it out and saw that it was
not broken, the moment of anger passed and he showed me the difference between
the wooden level and an ordinary two by four. He showed me how it worked,
how to center the bubble in the little glass tube filled with liquid, and
then let me check the level of everything around while he worked.
I also remember a house-building party hosted by my older sister, Doris (Dad
called her "Cookie" or "Cook",) She invited her high school friends over
to help Dad build the house. It was a fun day - - a lot of people,
popcorn and soft drinks, but according to Dad's recounting of it, many times
over the years, there was more partying than building, more eating popcorn
than sawing and nailing, and he got very little work done that day.
Maybe that was so, and then again, maybe he was
just fooling with Doris when he told the story.
The house Dad built was small by current standards - 54 feet by 20 feet or
1080 square feet. It had four bedrooms, a bath (a tub only, no shower),
kitchen, dining room, living room and a detached one car garage. Six
of us lived there : Mom, Dad, my three older sisters (Kay, Doris, Jeanette)
and me.
Kay and Doris each married and left home in a few years, and Jeanette as
well as few years later. Dad took the opportunity to remodel in the
mid fifties, expanding the dining and living rooms, and leaving only two
bedrooms.
I lived there until leaving for college in 1963. Mom and Dad never
left. It stayed their home until they passed away in the 1990s. In
the last half of the 20th century, a time of often bewildering changes, our
family home remained constant. Mom called it "The Homestead". So
did Dad.
Copyright 2003 by Randy Steven Kraft
All Rights Reserved
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