Friday Family Photo

Home on Hannah Avenue
My parents owned this home in Mt. Morris, IL from 1951-1958, then moved to Lincoln Street until 1996 when they moved to the Pinecrest Apartments. However, it was the third house Dad bought in Mt. Morris that year. It was his habit to buy a home for his family sight unseen by my mother. I think she got tired of remodeling old clunkers, and said NO to the nice new home on the east side of town because she thought it was too small. So then he bought a new two story on the east end of Lincoln Street, but it was too small also. So he traded that home for this lovely big old house on Hannah Avenue. It also had room for Dad's truck since it had a large barn/garage, a full basement, full attic, 4 bedrooms, and a den/office that doubled as a music room.


My brother and the barn on HannahThis was a great "kid" house. Within two blocks of us lived many children and it had an extra acre in the back yard. It had a tree in the front yard (not in photo) that was perfect for climbing, and I staked my horse in the back. Mom had a huge garden (although that wasn't so great for kids because we had to help) and for awhile we even had chickens (loose zoning). For slumber parties, I took over the living room and Dad's office/music room, and my sister Carol had hers in the attic which had a high pitch and windows on 3 sides. I could have the whole CBYF church group (probably 20 kids or so) on the front porch. When a girl friend moved to Florida after our junior year, I had all the girls from our class in the living room for a good-bye party. Different groups and classes from school used our barn for floats.

Although I wasn't around the summer the decision was made to sell this, my favorite house, it was sold after Mother remodeled everything! The next house, which they lived in for 38 years was cramped, small, had no style and only one bathroom. However, she spent about 1/3 of the value of the home just remodeling the kitchen, and Dad didn't sell it until they were ready to go to a retirement apartment! She used every clipping she'd been saving for years on this kitchen and had a carpenter custom make all the cabinetry because she was short. I call it her payback kitchen.