A House is almost always a home.

In December of 1955, as I remember, my mother and dad moved to the rural community of Wright, Florida.  It was just a few miles away from where we had been living within the city limits of Fort Walton [now known as Fort Walton Beach].  As a child, I had only a vague idea of rural living.  I guess I would have guessed that a "farm" was a place where cows lived.

Lived, past tense.  Dairy cows had lived, just a decade before, on the acreage that my dad purchased.  Large cement cisterns were relics of that time.  There may have been a couple of those in evidence and an old barn graced the property, as well.  A beautiful grove of mature pecan trees dotted the landscape and in the spring, when the clover came up, we got the idea to call our new home "Cloverdale".

It's true that initially, the red blooms and green clover leafs became our playing field, but it didn't take long for us to realize that the bees also liked clover. 

The house itself, featured two stories, an unusual structure in our experience; it hadn't been lived in for a while and felt not at all like a cozy place.  There was no working furnace and northwest Florida can be cold in the winter.  Fortunately, the fireplace provided a temporary solution as we three kids gathered our blankets and with Mother's help, organized a "pallet*" city at night-time.  In less than a week's time, Dad had contracted to have gas heaters put into the walls!



*My grandmother’s house was small but always overflowed with family and guests during the holidays. Us young’uns (grandkids) always slept on and under a pile of quilt “pallets” on the floor, leaving the real beds to the grown ups.