A Mother’s Day to remember them with a smile

Mother’s Day is a hard day for me….has been since I lost my Mom all those years ago, so my guys celebrated it with me on Friday and took me out to Dinner and gave me two gift cards….Hobby Lobby and Michaels! How much better can it be???? It seems it is better if we do my Mother’s Day celebration on a different day.

So I am going to show you the women who were important Mom’s in my life:

My lovely Mom Lois Jane Harstad Burgess. I just love this photo!!!! She looks so young and sweet. We had such a short time together, but she is in my heart every single day! Happy Mother’s Day Mom!!!!!

Her mother, Josephine Gladys Reinhard Harstad. I just love this photo also, the dress she has on is so very pretty, and I only knew my grandma with white, not grey but white hair. She had to be in her 20’s here.

This is my Dad’s mom, Emma Severson Burgess. She was way ahead of her time….left her tiny town to work in the big city…Minneapolis. That is where she met my grandpa. They came back to Eau Claire to take care of her ailing father. Grandma Burgess could be harsh, but she loved us all.

Emma’s lovely daughter and my wonderful Aunt, Rosemary Burgess Wollum.

This is a special special lady to me! I just got to be with her on my vacation and I cherish any and all time we get to have together!

And a special Mom that was there for me all those years my Mom couldn’t be….

This is my husband Wayne’s Mom, Priscilla Dean Scribner McClay.

Our first year or so was really rocky, but thru the years she was my support, my mentor and more than that my dear friend, She died 11 years ago this May….I miss her still.

Please, if you have your Mom with you still, be sure to let her know how much she means to you! I hope all of you have a wonderful Mother’s Day!

Back at 521 Lake Street

" Home is where the Heart is, lie it East or lie it West, and my heart is with the dear ones in the old Home nest"

Well, my camera got here just fine, and I have a lot of photos to show you….to begin with I want to show you some new photos of 521 Lake Street.

We went to the courthouse and looked up the property address and found out that the land for this house was sold in 1867! We couldn't locate which person built the home, but it was shortly after that time….

The story goes that my grandpa bought this house without my Grandma even knowing…so we went on a hunt to see who and when they bought it. Grandpa bought the house from a man named Pier, who just happened to work where Grandpa did! Aha!!!! The mortgage was made out to both of my grandparents in the amount of …are you ready????? $4000.00 in 1947… I don’t have any photo of it when it was newer but here are the ones I took while I was just there….

This is the street, the yellow house is it…

They recently put siding on it and painted and spruced up the exterior. It was always this color.

As you can see, it is a good sized home. I am going to walk around it now, to show you the sides….

This was the bay window that was in the dining room, Grandma had her plants here, I remember some pretty flowers that were purple and had fuzzy soft leaves…

This is standing on the other side of the bay window. I am sure whoever was home ( a bunch of college kids) thought I was nuts!!!!

I am standing where my grandma’s garden was….this is the porch we all sat on, and it is attached to the kitchen. I remember as a kid getting those little pellets at the 4th of July and lighting a match to them and they became “snakes”….right on this sidewalk you see here.

Now I am on the other side of the house, the room above the kitchen with the green fence around it never was there before, that is the walk- in attic…some poor person has that for a room! HOT!!!!!!!!! and very COLD!!!!!!

This is the side porch, we never used it, don’t know why…..I do have a couple of group family shots on it. If I were to buy this house, this area would become a bathroom…no downstairs bathroom….unless the landlord put on in…..

This was taken where Grandpa’s garage was, they tore that down this year…..but the big purple bush???? It is a HUGE Lilac bush/tree!

I so wish I could own this home some day…..it has so many great memories for me!

In my next post I am going to show you a house that might be coming up for sale that is also a dream come true! More soon! And of course all of my goodies!!!! Have to get busy taking photos as soon as they arrive from UPS. Thanks for coming by and sharing this very special house tour with me!

Joe and Josie Harstad

I thought it was time you got to meet my grandparents who lived at 521 Lake Street. This is Joseph and Josephine aka Joe and Josie Harstad. I was named after both of them as I am Sandra Jo.

I have absolutely wonderful memories of both of them, as do all of my cousins. We often reminisce about our time in this home on Lake Street. My grandfather worked for a few different meat companies in his life time, he ended up at a place called Peter's Meats the longest, and my Uncle Bob, his son, worked there most of his life too. I can remember going into the refrigerated areas of the plant and pulling wieners off of the string and eating them right than and there! I know, don't go there please... :) My grandma Josie was of pure German descent and was a stoic woman. She never worked outside of the home, and I don't think she ever even learned to drive, as was the case of a lot of women of her time. Now when we speak of her we seem to all agree she was the serious one in the relationship. I never doubted she loved me, but she wasn't real demonstrative. But she did give good hugs! Now Grandpa on the other hand was a hoot! He always seemed in a good mood. I have one memory of him taking me to the new Woolworth's Store and I was to go along so he "wouldn't get lost". He bought me a chalkboard that had a little abacus on the top of bright colored beads...I still remember that so well today....he also liked to walk down to the lake, just a few blocks from their home and let us grand kids feed the ducks....I took my son Bryan back to Wisconsin when he was just two, I had lost both my folks and my Dad's sister, my Aunt Rosemary wanted me to come home. I took Bryan to feel the ducks and it was a powerful, surreal moment.

This home that means so much to all of us grand kids, ended up being a college town rental.....it was hard to see this house with so many memories end up looking like crap. So run down...I swore if it ever came up for sale, it was mine! Well....it came up for sale, but no one knew and and very quickly was snatched up by another rental company. This made me nuts for a few days....but I have let that company know if they ever want to sell it...let me know first! I have a lot of thoughts of what it would be like to own that home and lovingly restore it....you never know!!!! We might just have a retirement home yet! :) Thanks for letting me ramble...

The Magical House of the Harstads

Hello! This is my first post on my brand new blog! I really hope to be able to post at least every other day. I feel like at this point, I have a lot to share. This blog is in memory of my Grandma & Grandpa Harstad. The photo above is their house in Wisconsin. We lived in Ohio, so the family got to see them once a year most years, maybe twice if we were lucky to go for Christmas. I know it doesn't look like much, but it was a magical place for me! My brother and I were the only grandchildren that lived quite a ways away and rarely got to "come home", so Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josie were always happy to see us. The first thing we did after giving them a hug was to run to the pantry and get a cookie out of one of the large mouthed jars Grandma kept them in. Chocolate Chip and Sugar were my favorites! I have these jars in my kitchen now to remind me of those times. Even now, after all of these years, the little town they lived in feels like "home" to me. It is still as comfortable as ever to be there. So, please pull up a chair and stay awhile! I will be adding a lot of fun things to this blog....as soon as I figure out how! :)