An Engineer in the Woods, Installment 1: Where
Thursday, May 18, 2017
More mornings than not, Mary Beth, Christy, Miriam and Donina are serenaded with at least one story of my latest house disaster. Due to their perverse natures, and the basic satisfaction that anyone gets when they learn that one of the Bosses is a long way from perfection (for me you can measure that distance in light years), they have begun to look forward to my morning tirades, and have suggested that they would make great blogs. I’m not sure that I fully agree, but they are quite persistent, so here is the first one of what will be a multi-part series, at least until you ask me to STOP...
Two significant parts of my upbringing that made me the engineer that I am were how I was raised and where I was raised. There are plenty of “how” stories but I’ll summarize them quickly. I grew-up working. At age 9, I earned my first two paychecks after completing a flood survey with my brother in Frankfort, and construction staking for a road project as one of our “family picnics” in Crest Hill. By age 13, I was on a surveying crew every summer, I added “Draftsman” to my resume at 16, at 18 I ran one of our surveying crews, at 22 I was a 50-hour a week “part-time” wastewater treatment systems design engineer for a firm in Champaign while I worked on my Master’s degree, at 25 I was a 70-hour a week construction inspector and wastewater treatment systems design engineer for REHCE, at 30 I was a Vice President, at 43 I became President, and at 54 I’m tired…But where I grew-up is the point of this series.
Several years before the mistake surprise of my birth, which was 9 months after my parents’ celebration of Mom’s 40th birthday, Dad and Mom bought a piece of property in a “future” subdivision in unincorporated Troy Township. Jefferson Street (½ mile to the south) was a gravel road, Black Road (½ mile to the north) was a gravel path, Essington Street (½ mile to the east) was a dirt path, and Interstate 55 (½ mile to the west) was under construction. In the late 1950’s no one could understand why you would want to live so far west of Joliet! The lot was full of 200 year-old oak trees, had ravines on both sides and a 20-foot high bluff in the middle overlooking a swamp in the back. Either Dad had a vision, or he got the property cheap because no one could figure-out how to build a house there – either way, he and Mom began designing their dream home, the first and only home that they owned. By 1962 they had scraped together enough pennies to start construction.
In November of 1963 I was 10 months old and we moved into the “completed” house. I’ve seen the pictures and heard the stories. Dad had built a series of sluices to provide water to the downstairs down-ladder bathroom. There was always a bucket of water next to the toilets for flushing. Not many electrical outlets, but lots of two-pronged extension cords. I learned to walk on plywood, and a year after we moved-in I had a new baby sister, Helen. My older siblings, Bruce and Jan were in high school, Mom stayed home with us young-uns, and Dad worked at the office in Marycrest late into most nights. When he wasn’t at the office he was at meetings for clients sometimes early into the next morning. When he was home he was “finishing the house” which, as-of today is still not quite finished.
We lost Dad in January of 2007, a week before his 85th birthday, and Mom lived there alone until she passed in March of 2015 at age 92. I’ll probably blog about them at some point because they were unique and great members of the “Great Generation”, and we loved and miss them greatly, but this blog is about the house that has been Kristen’s and my project since the summer of 2015 which, coincidently, is when my hair began to thin... Stay tuned!
Have a great day!
Howard
