Neighborhood overview with some marked points
The House & The Neighborhood We Lived In
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Neighborhood overview with some marked points |
A. 1836 Circle Drive -- Our House
This is the house we lived in from 1956 until the remaining family moved to San
Jose in 1967.
1836 Circle Drive, Eureka, California 95501
It was about 1/4 mile east of the city limits, in an area called Myrtle Town,
but the mailing address was Eureka.
When we first moved in, we had to walk to 18th Street to get our mail,
and the only telephone for the Circle Drive houses was on a telephone pole down
there.
When we did get a phone in the house, it was on a party line for a couple years.
We could listen in on the neighbors' conversations (and did).
All phone numbers in Eureka started with 442- or 443-, there was no area code, this was before
direct-distance-dialing.
To call long distance, you had to dial 0 and have the operator connect you.
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Three bedrooms, two baths (one of which never did work) for the six of us.
Even when new, you could sit in the house and see daylight along side of the
ceiling beams at the side walls.
For several years, Mike and I or Chuck and I went to sleep each night in the
living room couch fold out bed.
Mom and Dad bought this house for around $18,000 and sold it eleven years later
for about $24,000.
Houses didn't appreciate very much in Eureka in those
day.
B. LaFayette Elementary School
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We arrived in Eureka in time for me to start the sixth grade and Ruth to start
third grade at Lafayette Elementary School.
In those days, before all the political correctness, Lafayette was not spelled
with the capital "F"
Ruth's Notes -- My Mother was very active on the PTA and quite proud
that she and the other parents
raised enough money to by a portable stage for the multipurpose room.
We had lunch in the school cafeteria prepared by lunch ladies who learned our
likes and dislikes and portioned our food accordingly
because were were required to be members of "the clean plate club" at school.
The principal knew each student by name and would greet you in the walk ways and
halls.
C. Scrap Iron Gulley
There was a gulley not too far from home that Mike discovered.
There was a lot of old industrial equipment haphazardly stored here. Like
an old steam shovel.
This equipment was old, broken down, and quite rusty.
Mike and his friends used to disassemble parts and take it down to the scrap
iron dealer to get spending money.
Around the equipment in the gulley ponds of water would occur in the rainy season and I would watch tadpoles develop.
This gulley has long since been developed into a neighborhood of homes.
D. Log Pond
At the end of Park Street, there was log pond which was packed with redwood
logs.
These averaged six to ten feet in diameter and had been in the turbid water for
years and years.
The portions of the logs that were in the water were totally saturated and
covered with moss.
We would try to rock the logs roatating back and forth, more and more trying to
turn them over.
Of course, when the mossy part came to the top, it was far to slippery to stay
on.
The logs were so crowded that if anyone fell off in between, the logs would
probably come back together and trap that person under water.
E. Rope Swing
I'm a bit hazy as to the exact location, but I think the arrow in the photo is
pretty close.
There was an old barn and a rope swing that Ruth loved to "hang" around at.