The Move On Deckerville Road
Our lives were dramatically changed the day someone at Marlette Community Hospital made the decision to lay off all part-time workers. Doris, who had been working weekends at the hospital for years and had seniority over many other people in the lab, was among a number of faithful workers that lost their jobs. The loss of her paycheck was a severe blow to our household budget.
She put her application out to other area hospitals and immediately landed a new job at Caro Community Hospital. That was both good and bad news. The drive was too long for her to make every day, so she camped for a while with her mother and Matt in the spare bedroom. Since it looked like it was going to be a permanent arrangement, we decided to fix up the long-vacated mother-in-law house on the homestead property.
The place had a Cass City address but was located mid-way between Caro and Cass City at the corner of Deckerville and Hurds Corner Roads. Her parents living in the house next door were getting to a point where we felt they needed someone to watch over them, so the decision was made to sell our home and property and move into that little house. The decision posed many real problems. Not only were we going to be forced to scale down from a giant four-bedroom country home to a one-bedroom building no bigger than a garage, it now would be me that would commute to and from work.
Thus began the setting up of an elaborate plan designed to make an impossible situation work to deal with what seemed like an irresolvable problem. It took a lot of thought, but we made it all work.
The house we were moving into consisted of two rooms inside an almost square frame structure once erected by Doris’s father on a concrete slab. It was where Doris’s grandmother lived at the time I first met and married Doris. The family used an outdoor privy in those days, and the woman drew her water from an outside tap at the side of the main house. Thus, there was no plumbing. While the main house had two bedrooms and room for at least one of us to stay, this option was not offered. We had to find a way to fit Doris, me and Jennifer into this little place.
We began by putting our house on Elk Creek Road up for sale. In the meantime, Doris stayed in the homestead on days she worked at the hospital. Once we sold the house, we hired an auctioneer we met through our flea market dealings. He did a great job of promoting, advertising and selling our things. We had to literally sell almost everything we owned because we had no room for storing much except in a peculiar bedroom located to the rear of my office. We managed to pack away our most valued possessions, including one spare bed, in that room. My stereo and even a small television set also went to the office. That was how I established a kind of home away from home once we moved to the house on Deckerville Road.
It was during this chaotic time that Susan made her return from Florida and we were faced with yet another wrinkle in our plan. There was going to be no room in the little house to put her. Aaron said he had room where he lived in California so we sent Susan there on the week that we moved. That was how she relocated to California. We did not see her again for a very long time.
I had a plan for dealing with the little house, but it was going to take time to do accomplish all that needed to be done, and time was what we did not have. There was a small bedroom in one corner and the rest of the place was a large L-shaped room. We hung a sheet on a wire over one side of the L and put our bed behind it, thus giving ourselves some privacy. The larger part of that room would be divided into a living area, a mini-kitchenette and a very small bathroom and shower.
The first project was getting water to the house. I dug a trench from the main house to the little place and connected a water line leading to our place. We installed a wall thus creating the place where our bathroom would be. A kitchen sink and cabinet was installed just outside this wall and we soon had water, but desperately needed a toilet. That meant we needed a septic tank. I had a crazy idea for a quick remedy for this . . . a farm service business in Caro was selling large plastic water tanks that I thought would be the right size for us to use. Wayne and I drove to Caro, picked out one of them, and brought it home in his truck. Then I dug a very deep hole. There were a lot of rocks in that soil and it was a hard job, but I finally got a hole large enough to bury the tank. Then we rented a jack hammer to cut a hole for the drainpipe through the concrete floor and wall. We found the concrete poured under that house to be the hardest stuff I have ever encountered. But constant hammering, most of it accomplished by Wayne, finally punched the needed hole and we got a toilet hooked up and draining into that tank. I made a makeshift drain field and we were in business…..or so we thought.
One day we found a red tag posted on our door and a notice that the county building and plumbing inspector was going to be checking to see if our home met code. In the meantime we were ordered out of the house. We had to defy that order because we had no place else to go. We had no idea at first who turned us in. We later learned that Doris’ brothers had been plotting to divide up the property which had been quick-claim deeded to Doris and would be her inheritance after her mother passed.
Apparently a law in Michigan made such deeds exempt if Doris failed to live on the property. That we had inadvertently moved into that little house was wrecking their plans to seize ownership of the property. I do not believe Wayne was in on that plot but brothers Bub, Jerry and Frank clearly were.
We got out of that scrape with Wayne’s help again. He knew a contractor that would work fast and not overcharge. We drove to his place of business and told him our problem. He said he could get in, install a legal septic system and be out of there in a single day. He gave us a price, we agreed, and the work got done. By the time the building department came to inspect, everything was up to code.
We even squeezed a small hot water heater and metal shower unit in that small bathroom.
Everything was compact, but it worked. We had a small propane gas tank installed in the back yard and put in a wall furnace. The water heater also ran on propane.
So there we were, living in that make-shift, partly finished little house, sleeping and pooping behind hanging sheets, as the work was slowly getting done. I was driving a 40-mile trek back and forth between that place and my job in Sandusky. Jennifer was still in the Christian school so she was riding back and forth with me. We had to go in early every morning and school didn’t start for her until 9 a.m. so we fixed up the bed in the rear bedroom. She rode to Sandusky then went back to bed until it was time for me to drive her to school. We hired a woman to provide a place for her to go after school until I got out of work. That is how we worked it all out.
Everything was fitting into place like a complicated jig-saw puzzle until the next big event. That was the day I almost died.
Our lives were dramatically changed the day someone at Marlette Community Hospital made the decision to lay off all part-time workers. Doris, who had been working weekends at the hospital for years and had seniority over many other people in the lab, was among a number of faithful workers that lost their jobs. The loss of her paycheck was a severe blow to our household budget.
She put her application out to other area hospitals and immediately landed a new job at Caro Community Hospital. That was both good and bad news. The drive was too long for her to make every day, so she camped for a while with her mother and Matt in the spare bedroom. Since it looked like it was going to be a permanent arrangement, we decided to fix up the long-vacated mother-in-law house on the homestead property.
The place had a Cass City address but was located mid-way between Caro and Cass City at the corner of Deckerville and Hurds Corner Roads. Her parents living in the house next door were getting to a point where we felt they needed someone to watch over them, so the decision was made to sell our home and property and move into that little house. The decision posed many real problems. Not only were we going to be forced to scale down from a giant four-bedroom country home to a one-bedroom building no bigger than a garage, it now would be me that would commute to and from work.
Thus began the setting up of an elaborate plan designed to make an impossible situation work to deal with what seemed like an irresolvable problem. It took a lot of thought, but we made it all work.
The house we were moving into consisted of two rooms inside an almost square frame structure once erected by Doris’s father on a concrete slab. It was where Doris’s grandmother lived at the time I first met and married Doris. The family used an outdoor privy in those days, and the woman drew her water from an outside tap at the side of the main house. Thus, there was no plumbing. While the main house had two bedrooms and room for at least one of us to stay, this option was not offered. We had to find a way to fit Doris, me and Jennifer into this little place.
We began by putting our house on Elk Creek Road up for sale. In the meantime, Doris stayed in the homestead on days she worked at the hospital. Once we sold the house, we hired an auctioneer we met through our flea market dealings. He did a great job of promoting, advertising and selling our things. We had to literally sell almost everything we owned because we had no room for storing much except in a peculiar bedroom located to the rear of my office. We managed to pack away our most valued possessions, including one spare bed, in that room. My stereo and even a small television set also went to the office. That was how I established a kind of home away from home once we moved to the house on Deckerville Road.
It was during this chaotic time that Susan made her return from Florida and we were faced with yet another wrinkle in our plan. There was going to be no room in the little house to put her. Aaron said he had room where he lived in California so we sent Susan there on the week that we moved. That was how she relocated to California. We did not see her again for a very long time.
I had a plan for dealing with the little house, but it was going to take time to do accomplish all that needed to be done, and time was what we did not have. There was a small bedroom in one corner and the rest of the place was a large L-shaped room. We hung a sheet on a wire over one side of the L and put our bed behind it, thus giving ourselves some privacy. The larger part of that room would be divided into a living area, a mini-kitchenette and a very small bathroom and shower.
The first project was getting water to the house. I dug a trench from the main house to the little place and connected a water line leading to our place. We installed a wall thus creating the place where our bathroom would be. A kitchen sink and cabinet was installed just outside this wall and we soon had water, but desperately needed a toilet. That meant we needed a septic tank. I had a crazy idea for a quick remedy for this . . . a farm service business in Caro was selling large plastic water tanks that I thought would be the right size for us to use. Wayne and I drove to Caro, picked out one of them, and brought it home in his truck. Then I dug a very deep hole. There were a lot of rocks in that soil and it was a hard job, but I finally got a hole large enough to bury the tank. Then we rented a jack hammer to cut a hole for the drainpipe through the concrete floor and wall. We found the concrete poured under that house to be the hardest stuff I have ever encountered. But constant hammering, most of it accomplished by Wayne, finally punched the needed hole and we got a toilet hooked up and draining into that tank. I made a makeshift drain field and we were in business…..or so we thought.
One day we found a red tag posted on our door and a notice that the county building and plumbing inspector was going to be checking to see if our home met code. In the meantime we were ordered out of the house. We had to defy that order because we had no place else to go. We had no idea at first who turned us in. We later learned that Doris’ brothers had been plotting to divide up the property which had been quick-claim deeded to Doris and would be her inheritance after her mother passed.
Apparently a law in Michigan made such deeds exempt if Doris failed to live on the property. That we had inadvertently moved into that little house was wrecking their plans to seize ownership of the property. I do not believe Wayne was in on that plot but brothers Bub, Jerry and Frank clearly were.
We got out of that scrape with Wayne’s help again. He knew a contractor that would work fast and not overcharge. We drove to his place of business and told him our problem. He said he could get in, install a legal septic system and be out of there in a single day. He gave us a price, we agreed, and the work got done. By the time the building department came to inspect, everything was up to code.
We even squeezed a small hot water heater and metal shower unit in that small bathroom.
Everything was compact, but it worked. We had a small propane gas tank installed in the back yard and put in a wall furnace. The water heater also ran on propane.
So there we were, living in that make-shift, partly finished little house, sleeping and pooping behind hanging sheets, as the work was slowly getting done. I was driving a 40-mile trek back and forth between that place and my job in Sandusky. Jennifer was still in the Christian school so she was riding back and forth with me. We had to go in early every morning and school didn’t start for her until 9 a.m. so we fixed up the bed in the rear bedroom. She rode to Sandusky then went back to bed until it was time for me to drive her to school. We hired a woman to provide a place for her to go after school until I got out of work. That is how we worked it all out.
Everything was fitting into place like a complicated jig-saw puzzle until the next big event. That was the day I almost died.