The first three houses I lived in I have no idea what they were. Pop moved from a church in Walla Walla, Washington when I was still brand new. We moved in short order to two churches in Brush and Windsor Colorado. I was too young to have any recollection of any of these.

In October of 1919 we moved into the parsonage of the First German Congregational Church in Seattle. For some reason although I was a little under two and a half years old I remember the first time we entered the house. Mr. Beck who was our next door neighbor as well as the treasurer of the church was doing something to the wall of the kitchen as we entered.

One entered into a hallway that had a wall phone on the left wall. The kitchen was directly ahead. The living room was through a door to the right. It had bay windows that looked out at the street. To the left was the dining room. One entered through double folding doors. I don’t remember ever seeing those doors closed. Behind the dining room was Pop’s study. Just large enough room for his oak roll-top desk and three or four tall bookcases. Just before the study was at the left the door into the kitchen.

On entering the hall the stairs to the second story were to the left. They went up six steps turned right for about six steps. Then right again for four steps. This entered the upper hall. The room to the right was where my two older brothers and I slept. The first room on the left was the bathroom with the bare essentials. Across from the bathroom was a nice bedroom that was the spare bedroom. A minister always had to have a spare bedroom for the very sudden use of a visiting minister or an occasional relative. I’m sure that room wasn’t used more than a very few times a year. The next room was my parent’s room. Each of the bedrooms had a closet and my parent’s room and our bedroom had doors that opened on small under the roof catchall rooms.

I lived there until I married my first wife, Ethel. On marrying we moved into the lower unit of a duplex that my folks owned. It was a five room unit starting with a very small hall. The living room was the first room entered. Next was the dining room that was entered through double folding doors. I removed the one door which gave an ideal place to store a card table. The first bedroom opened off the dining room. There was a plate rail which allowed the showing of wedding presents. There was also a built-in china closet. To the left was the bathroom, again the bare essentials.

 The next was a good sized kitchen. It had a gas stove, a refrigerator and room for a washing machine. We bought a new Bendix washing machine. It was quite a lot like the machines in laundromats today. It was loaded from the front and had a window to watch the washing. My wife and her sisters enjoyed sitting in front of the machine watching the wash through that window. Just beyond the washing machine was the door to our sons’ room. It was a small room that would accommodate a single bed and a crib. I don’t know what we’d have done if we’d have stayed beyond the crib stage.