Although she’s long gone, the old Frye house stores fond memories for me. I called her home for the majority of my maturating years.
Sadly, the house has been replaced with a car wash. However, in her day she was the cat’s meow. Built sometime in the 1800s, she was a beauty; boasting two stories, a large corner lot surrounded by gigantic cedar trees and a clay tennis court. She definitely stood out, especially in the small community in rural Oklahoma. The house had belonged to my fraternal great-grandfather who left the house in his will to all of his children who may need a place to live. As a matter of fact, it could not legally be sold, until the last of the children had died.
Sometime in the 1930s, the upper story burned. (At one time I had an old black and white photo of the actual fire.) The former two-story house was converted to a one story. This was its condition when my family and I took possession when I was eight years old. The tennis court was gone and so were the large cedars. As a matter of fact, the best part about the ole girl at this point was its price!
My Mom hated the house! Having no insulation (it wasn’t standard in those days), made the house cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Dad finally had a window AC put in the kitchen area so Mom would not perish from the heat while cooking. Actually, it wasn’t too bad in the summers because the 12′ ceilings helped keep it cool. The winters, however, were brutal! The only source of heat was open gas burners in the bedrooms. (See photo.) Dad turned the heaters off at night because Mom was afraid of a house fire. The high ceilings, nicely kept what little heat we had on the ceilings! I slept under so many blankets; it’s a wonder I didn’t grow up with the body of Gumby!
We managed to avoid all Oklahoma tornadoes by seeking shelter in our outside entrance cellar. When Mom thought a tornado was on the way, we would make a beeline out the back door and to the cellar–usually in blinding rain. In the cold, damp cellar were various spiders and other leggy critters. It freaked me out! However, I guess we have Mom to thank for avoiding being sucked up in a horrific vortex.
Built in a different era, the house had a strange layout. The former rectangular-shaped sun porch was been converted into two bedrooms occupied by my brother and me. I had to go through my brother’s room to get to mine. My parents had it worse, though. You had to go through the living room and their bedroom to get to the kitchen. A good case for keeping your bed made!
My younger years were spent in that little room and I loved it. (Sometimes I was scared because two walls of windows surrounded me and it didn’t feel totally secure.) However, my parents did a bang-up job adapting the space for a little girl. I had pink poodle wallpaper and a fairly large closet. Dad built me a shelving unit out of 1x12s and bricks surrounding the walls under my windows. I remember he made a crystal radio for me and I loved listening to the scratchy chatter late into the night when I was supposed to be sleeping.
When I got into junior high, my parents moved me into another room just off the kitchen. Dad installed a dance bar since I was an aspiring dancer. All the rooms had beautiful wooden floors. I remember this because when my Dad could not wake me up to go to school, he would lift the edge of my bed and I’d roll onto the hard floor! I don’t remember much more about his room except it was next to a creepy small storage room with an outside door.
In spite of the weird layout and temperature problems, the house was a great place in which to blossom.
Mom and Dad had done their best to spruce up the old gal. The rooms had huge sash windows. In the living room, Mom made drapes out of a printed material. The Paris-themed drapes were gray, pink and black—popular colors in the 50s. Dad fashioned two discarded car seats into very comfortable living room chairs–kind of like a love seat with only one boxy arm on each chair. I remember doing my shorthand homework on the arm of the chair while watching TV. Our dining table was at the end of the room and was a glass-toped outdoor patio set. The living room had a large fireplace. Many kid weeny roasts were enjoyed over the fire.
Adjacent to the kitchen had once been a screened in porch also. It had been enclosed and was now our day-to-day dining room. When Mom was not serving her three-course dinners every night, it was sometimes used as a music room. My Mom was a smokin’ hot piano player and my boyfriend and some of his friends played music. So we had a great time making music. Mostly I just danced around, since I was the aspiring dancer and not a musician.
When I was a senior in high school, my parents built a new home. I lived in it only a few months before leaving for college. That was ok, though, because to me the new house was never home.