TO THE WEST COAST chapter 133

We first went to visit our friends attending Trinity Seminary in Dearborn, IL to see how the other half lived. They had one sweet deal. No rent, food being provided, but on the other hand they often had to deal with the spoiled rotten teens of the wealthy as the parents went off to Europe for a few months (or wherever they went). It was one of those good and bad situations.

From there we headed off to Nebraska. My parents had retired during my last year of Bible College to a small town on the border of the Kansas/Nebraska border, Hardy, NB. While I had never been to their home in the big town (population 200) I had been to the town before. My brother David and his family had lived there for many years.  Mom and Dad had bought the other half block right next to David. Hardy was a very small dying little place with most of the stores in the one block long city center empty. The bank was still there as was a convenience type store, a cafe and a bar. Their place was just one or two blocks off that main road,

Mom always loved little children and she was thrilled to have us home. This was also their first chance to see Rodney as well as out new baby. We didn’t have to do much while visiting as mom wanted to do everything for the children. That was hard on Della who did not want to relinquish (and did not) the care of and bonding with the daughter we had only had for two weeks. She was nearly 4 months old by this time.

I got to talk with Dave and Betty quite a bit to find out what it was like living right next door to mom and dad. My dad was always pretty easy going. He was not the interfering type. On the other hand, mom was just the opposite, She was a challenge to live with and I couldn’t see how living right next door would be much different that living with her. It wasn’t.

This was the first home dad had ever owned and he loved the house, the property, the large garden He put in, and the fact that a train ran by the house every afternoon. He would pull out his pocket watch from his bib overalls and check its time and declare whether it was late, early or on time. Dad had worked for the railroad his whole life. He would walk downtown and have coffee with some of the old guys at sitting on benches on the corner of the DO-DROP-INN.

From there we left for Vancouver. We didn’t do much sightseeing. We wanted to get settled with the little ones. We received word at my parents place that they had a house for us in Port Coquitlam. However, we would have to come to the church first to get a key. That meant arriving sometime before 4:30. Some timing was going to have to be worked out. We were to arrive on a Monday, get settled on Tuesday and be in the church on Wednesday,

Housing was very expensive in Vancouver. Even with the raise we had, I would not be able to live in the city proper. The church was building a house for W. H. Brooks that would be finished in three or four months. I never understood why they built the house. He owned his own home, as did Al McVety. They did not build it for me, but since I was the one who needed a house we would move in when it was finished. In the meantime, a couple was going away for several months and they had graciously opened their house for us to house sit, Neither Della or I were very excited about that prospect, but it was better than the street. The biggest concern was the need to leave the house just as we found it. Could we do that with a two year old exploring everywhere and everything? I knew Della was going to be on pins and needles.

I had been to Tenth Avenue on choir tour so knew where the church was. I have a pretty good sense of direction and knew I could find it. However, arriving in the area late afternoon gave us a very good look at another problem we would face - traffic. We dragged through the city to get to the church and then fought traffic from downtown to Port Coquitlam to find the house amongst some very winding roads. That was a bigger challenge than expected. When we got there we were both so exhausted and the children were fussy and we still had to figure out where to put them until we could get their crib and bed out of storage. Needless to say, it was a rough start.