Welcome home! Welcome Home!

On June 6, 1910, T.W. Mortimer got permission to hook a new house he was building up to the city water main. I’m not sure if Mortimer actually ended up living in the house – his P.O. address is listed across town on Nora Avenue – but everything indicates his crews pounded the nails. They did an excellent job, building the sturdy no-fuss foursquare I fell hopelessly in love with almost a century later.

Of course I got curious about who had lived in my house, especially after I located the bomb shelter in the backyard. Perhaps a famous brigadier general had lived there? Turned out the shelter was built in 1961, and absolutely nothing indicates a general ever lived in my house. A conductor did, as in streetcar conductor.

I found juvenile scribbles, like those I used to make covertly on my desk at school, left by previous habitants, permanent marks cut into some of the window frames with a nail or a pocketknife.

My bedroom wall read “Keith is dork” until I finally got rid of the wallpaper and painted the walls.

I often wondered who had done the scribbling.

Some research at City Hall turned up a list of owners going all the way back to 1910, but I never looked into any of it more deeply.

Then, just Wednesday, I had a contractor come over to do a one-time computer thing.

We chatted a bit about old houses and the lack of electrical outlets, and suddenly he says “I’m sorry if this seems a little odd, but I used to sleep in that bedroom over there.” And he points to my bedroom.

My jaw dropped clear to the floor.

“You mean you lived here?” I asked.

He sure did. About 15 years ago he was a foster kid for a brief period, he explained, and the family who took him in lived in my house.

The family had nine foster kids living in the upstairs bedrooms and tiny sewing room, he said.

“Nine?” I asked, still baffled.

Yes, nine kids, and they had two of their own kids, too.

I didn’t ask any more questions, though I really, really wanted to.

After all, we were just two strangers caught in a strange coincidence in an old house that meant something totally different to him than to me. And his name wasn’t Keith.

Soon the job was done, and he shook my hand, and we both went back to work.

As I locked the door, I’m sure I heard my house laugh.

“You thought you knew everything about me,” it seemed to say. “But I have so much left to tell you.”