Pulling away from our home, down the gravel driveway for the last time is a sight burned into my memory bank. I sat in the back seat of my fathers big white Cadillac on the far right just behind my Mom where I always sat.
As we passed the old barn where I had played I cried out, “My doll house!”
My Mom said to me, “Oh, Linny, there’s just no room for it. We left it behind. We had to.”
Not only did I loose my doll house that day but we lost our home to bankruptcy, a word and concept I was about to learn a lot about, I was seven.
My parents had designed this house and had it built just for us. We lived in an idyllic hamlet in the rolling hills of northern New Jersey, a little town named Oldwick. Historical sights were abundant. Polished brass signs on inns along the road claiming that ‘George Washington slept here’. This was where my childhood was supposed to happen.
Small lanes tarred and graveled. A main street one block long with Mary’s Soda Fountain, a general store, a magic shop, a tavern/inn, two churches and a little red school house where my Brownie meetings were held. The Johnson and Johnson family home which was surrounded by the typical 3 rung white fence and could be seen from our front yard. Mrs Johnson rode a black buggy pulled by a big black horse past our home on her way to town on Sunday mornings wearing a long black riding coat and a bonnet.
We not only lost my doll house we lost our future, our dreams, our hopes. If we hadn’t left my doll house behind I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to learn such profound lessons in life.
I loved that house. We went for Sunday afternoon rides for years driving past that house. Memories for all. I did not know of your pain and loss. I was too young. No one ever told me. I am so sorry, Linda.
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