As a child I lived for a long period of time in an extended family environment, my grandfather, Anton was the head of the house, and it was my brother and I, my mother, and two of her sisters living in a small three bedroom house. The house was heated by a space heater in the living room. The ice man had to bring dried ice to keep our icebox cold; we had a well along side of the house for water, and there were old barns next door on each side of our house, being converted into garages. The city of St. Paul was quite conservative back then [Minnesota]. And many families lived like us—together in an extended family environment; those setups seem to be coming back some nowadays, with the shortage of houses in Minnesota, and high rents. They were hard-working folks, my family: uncles, aunts, grandfather, and my mother; my mother worked for Swifts, at the stockyards, and my grandfather a painter, worked for a few outfits, and eventually, acquired a restaurant, along with his day job as a painter and had someone work it when he couldn’t.
My brother Mike—two years older than I—and I slept in the bedroom next to the dinning room; my mother in the bedroom across from the living room; and my grandfather in the bedroom across from the bathroom. The two sisters slept on the couch and a rollaway bed, in the livingroom, and sometimes with my mother. This was during the early fifties [1951-57]. We did have plenty to eat on the table back then, just not much money to do anything else. It was in 1956 when we got our large black and white television, and what a crown of glory it was for the house.
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