The House in Wright

 Just running through a lot of memories so I thought I'd better put some down.

Growing up in Wright Florida was the best! I always took for granted growing up with our Aunt Virgie and Uncle Red as our neighbors. Red and Virgie had moved from the original homeplace of Goshen, Alabama a few years before our family moved to the Florida Panhandle. When my mother and father decided to move to the panhandle, we originally moved into the house Red and Virgie had purchased. Red and Virgie"s house was an old chicken house that had bee converted into a home. As a child it seemed huge! There was a large living room with a fireplace on the west-side. There was also space for a formal dining area where there was an antique circular oak claw footed petestal table. This was mostly used to collect things! Out the eastside was the kitchen, which was large as well. There was an eating area there as well and a laundry area. There was a door leading out to the backyard. Out of the living room there was a door on the north-side leading to the bedrooms. This opened to a hallway that ran the full length of the bedroom area. The first bedroom on the right was Red and Virgie's. It was a sizable room. The next bedroom was Linda's room. She was the only girl and needed her privacy, especially from all us prying boys! At the end of the hallway was just a large open room, no door on the room! This bedroom was shared by the boys in the house. At the time we moved down to FWB (Wright) Buddy was the only boy Red and Virgie had. Shortly after our move Mike was born.

We lived in Red's home until we found a rental home for our family. We moved into a home in what was known as the "Courts". This is where Mom and Dad met and became friends with Pat Patrick and his wife. We lived there for about a year. Dad bought 2 acres from Mr. Patrick on Hurlburt Road that backed up to Red and Virgie's property. Dad was working contract work with Ferris Powell on Eglin Air Force Base building homes and doing repairs. At this time Dad began building our home on the acreage he had purchased. The house was a work in progress for as long as we lived in Wright. He scrounged  wood and "no-longer-needed" pallets from Eglin. Dad also purchased or salvaged wood from the houses that were torn down in the "Courts". Our first home on the new property was a square shape with 5 rooms and a flat roof. You entered the house on the west side. There was a short hall with 4 doors coming off of it. The first door to the right was the bathroom, the second door on the right led to the kitchen on the right and the living room on the left. Back in the hallway the first door on the left was mom and dad's bedroom and the door at the end of the hallway was the kid's room, (Barbara, Johnny and myself). The next addition, built with cinder block and had cement slab floor. This addition doubled the square footage of the house adding a new living room, kitchen and dining area with a front door, opening toward Hurlburt Road and a rear door out the dining room area leading to the backyard and a path over to Red and Virgie's home. This addition also was a flat roof. With this addition, mom and dad moved their bedroom to what had been the living room and Barbara moved into the bedroom mom and dad had previously occupied. We were in "hog heaven"! All this new room, plus Barbara had her own room and Johnny and I shared a room. Dad had built the children a desk with 3 spaces. Each space had a cubby hole below the desk space so we could store our books, papers and supplies. The new kitchen had cabinets with formica tops and a "breakfast" bar, which quickly became a catch all for everything we didn't want to put away at the time!

The next addition was mom and dad's bedroom suite. This was built off the south side of the original house. The hallway that once passed through the living space and kitchen, now led to mom and dad's new bedroom suite. This was a large room, space for their bed and a couch. This couch wound up being the catchall for all the washed clothes! Anytime we needed clothes we just went to the pile and rummaged through until we found the exact article of clothes we needed. There was an ironing board and iron right next to it so we would just iron our clothes and be ready to go. In this suite there was a large closet and the beginnings of a bathroom, I don't recall it ever being finished before the family finally moved out of our Home! There was a sliding glass door on the west side of the suite that led out to the backyard. 

The final addition was added after I left and went into the Army. In the area that was the dining area in the block section of the house, dad took out the window and cut a doorway into the new addition. This new addition was also block. This became the family room. On the west wall, the entire wall was brick and had a fireplace in the center. There was a sliding glass door that opened to the backyard, right out to the patio daddy had created under the huge old oak tree. Along with this new addition dad added a two car carport. With the extension of the house, dad now put a hip roof on the entire house. 

The completion of the house in Wright took dad more than ten years. Dad was truly dedicated to making a beautiful, comfortable home for his family.