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Adelia M. Hoyt memoir and photographs
Page 46
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TWENTY YEARS IN DES MOINES, IOWA Did you ever move into an unfinished house? Well, it is most inconvenient, but to a young enthusiast it was exciting and a lot of fun. Some of the rooms were finished, others were not, and father would do this work at his leisure. The house was larger than any we have lived in before, and mother was not at all well. She did most of the cooking but the house cleaning was left largely to me. I missed my sister Emma very much, but her letters were something to look forward to and they were delivered by a postman, a new experience in our lives. Then there were the trolley cars which passed our side door and seemed to bring the great world right to us. Our house was on a corner with large oak trees left from the original forest overshadowing it. My parents occupied a large bedroom on the ground floor, just off the big, sunny sitting room. My room was just over my parents, and on those autumn nights I would sit long at my window listening to the sounds of the new world around me. Just across the street was the campus of Drake University. Some nights groups of students would gather under the trees almost beneath my window, and eavesdropping I would imagine all sorts of things about them. Sister Mary lived on the other side of town but we visited back and forth frequently. Her daughter, Nettie, the girl of whom I have spoken often in this narrative, had now finished high school and was teaching. Christmas brought Emma home and how good it was to have her there and to show her our new house, now about completed! Sister Mary's family and ours spent Christmas and New year together and how we did enjoy it ! We had at once placed our letters with the Baptist Church which was down in the city, reached by the street cars. University Place where we lived was quite a thriving suburb created around Drake University, founded and maintained by the Disciples 46
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TWENTY YEARS IN DES MOINES, IOWA Did you ever move into an unfinished house? Well, it is most inconvenient, but to a young enthusiast it was exciting and a lot of fun. Some of the rooms were finished, others were not, and father would do this work at his leisure. The house was larger than any we have lived in before, and mother was not at all well. She did most of the cooking but the house cleaning was left largely to me. I missed my sister Emma very much, but her letters were something to look forward to and they were delivered by a postman, a new experience in our lives. Then there were the trolley cars which passed our side door and seemed to bring the great world right to us. Our house was on a corner with large oak trees left from the original forest overshadowing it. My parents occupied a large bedroom on the ground floor, just off the big, sunny sitting room. My room was just over my parents, and on those autumn nights I would sit long at my window listening to the sounds of the new world around me. Just across the street was the campus of Drake University. Some nights groups of students would gather under the trees almost beneath my window, and eavesdropping I would imagine all sorts of things about them. Sister Mary lived on the other side of town but we visited back and forth frequently. Her daughter, Nettie, the girl of whom I have spoken often in this narrative, had now finished high school and was teaching. Christmas brought Emma home and how good it was to have her there and to show her our new house, now about completed! Sister Mary's family and ours spent Christmas and New year together and how we did enjoy it ! We had at once placed our letters with the Baptist Church which was down in the city, reached by the street cars. University Place where we lived was quite a thriving suburb created around Drake University, founded and maintained by the Disciples 46
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