101 North Washington Street
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Chapter 2
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It was a short and pleasant walk home after closing the store. The fine spring weather coincided beautifully with a very nice take in the till. Easter was the second most important selling season at the Weiss Department Store. Good weather in the weeks leading up to Easter always inspired the shopper to dig a bit deeper in her purse. The millinery department was booming; hats were big this year, figuratively and literally. Open only 5 years and Abe was so optimistic about business that he felt financially comfortable building the finest home in town.
.
Sara had made most of the decisions about the house. Although Abe had vetoed the Chicago architect in favor of a South Bend firm, Sara got pretty much what she was after: sun rooms downstairs and upstairs, a fine library, and grand staircase in an impressive entry hall, 2 parlors, and a dining room with fireplace and leaded glass windows. It is what we would call “Prairie Style Influenced” if we wanted to project a certain affected sophistication. We might even go on about the Art Nouveau or the Frank Lloyd Wright influence. But that is pretty much ridiculous. In fact the place was a big square house just like the few other grand big square houses in town. It had the bric-a-brac fine touches in the sconces and chandeliers and the tile around the hearth where today a realtor would discover the Prairie School influence for the benefit of a sale. A overly chummy real estate sales lady might even insinuate in a stage whisper, “Who knows, I don’t think anybody has really researched it, but this could be a genuine Frank Lloyd Wright house!”
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As Abe turned the corner onto Washington Street he could see his stucco upper story and his slate roof rising above the intervening modest clapboard dwellings of his neighbors. He thought, “It’s kind of a shame we don’t have a street or section of fine homes in Starke Center. There just isn’t enough wealth in town.” Of course that wasn’t the first time he had that thought. Those exact words were proclaimed upon several private and social occasions in the past and he was destined to repeat those exact words again, so often in fact, as to become quite a bore on that point.
.
Abe’s reasoning about the lack of wealth was only partially correct. The geography of Starke Center was also to blame for lack of a street or section of fine homes. The glaciers left the windblown sand foundations of Starke Center awfully flat. The later half of her name indicates the main reason for the location of the town (crisscrossing railroad tracks another). A vast swamp, now drained by a series of muddy ditches, flowed into the Yellow River. River actually is an overly generous word to describe this man-dug, arrow straight, turbid ditch but there was a generous flow of water. Starke Center sat on a low, flat sandy ridge overlooking the river and the Knox Country Club on the floodplain. This might have been the best location for a row of finer homes, as there was no other geographic attraction to compete. Unfortunately, one of the railroad lines plowed right through the length of the ridge on its way through town depriving Abraham the realization of his rather bourgeois daydream.
.
.
Chapter 2
.
It was a short and pleasant walk home after closing the store. The fine spring weather coincided beautifully with a very nice take in the till. Easter was the second most important selling season at the Weiss Department Store. Good weather in the weeks leading up to Easter always inspired the shopper to dig a bit deeper in her purse. The millinery department was booming; hats were big this year, figuratively and literally. Open only 5 years and Abe was so optimistic about business that he felt financially comfortable building the finest home in town.
.
Sara had made most of the decisions about the house. Although Abe had vetoed the Chicago architect in favor of a South Bend firm, Sara got pretty much what she was after: sun rooms downstairs and upstairs, a fine library, and grand staircase in an impressive entry hall, 2 parlors, and a dining room with fireplace and leaded glass windows. It is what we would call “Prairie Style Influenced” if we wanted to project a certain affected sophistication. We might even go on about the Art Nouveau or the Frank Lloyd Wright influence. But that is pretty much ridiculous. In fact the place was a big square house just like the few other grand big square houses in town. It had the bric-a-brac fine touches in the sconces and chandeliers and the tile around the hearth where today a realtor would discover the Prairie School influence for the benefit of a sale. A overly chummy real estate sales lady might even insinuate in a stage whisper, “Who knows, I don’t think anybody has really researched it, but this could be a genuine Frank Lloyd Wright house!”
.
As Abe turned the corner onto Washington Street he could see his stucco upper story and his slate roof rising above the intervening modest clapboard dwellings of his neighbors. He thought, “It’s kind of a shame we don’t have a street or section of fine homes in Starke Center. There just isn’t enough wealth in town.” Of course that wasn’t the first time he had that thought. Those exact words were proclaimed upon several private and social occasions in the past and he was destined to repeat those exact words again, so often in fact, as to become quite a bore on that point.
.
Abe’s reasoning about the lack of wealth was only partially correct. The geography of Starke Center was also to blame for lack of a street or section of fine homes. The glaciers left the windblown sand foundations of Starke Center awfully flat. The later half of her name indicates the main reason for the location of the town (crisscrossing railroad tracks another). A vast swamp, now drained by a series of muddy ditches, flowed into the Yellow River. River actually is an overly generous word to describe this man-dug, arrow straight, turbid ditch but there was a generous flow of water. Starke Center sat on a low, flat sandy ridge overlooking the river and the Knox Country Club on the floodplain. This might have been the best location for a row of finer homes, as there was no other geographic attraction to compete. Unfortunately, one of the railroad lines plowed right through the length of the ridge on its way through town depriving Abraham the realization of his rather bourgeois daydream.
.
Am I being a little too hard on Abraham? Perhaps. I guess now is the right time to disclose, if not “a conflict of interest”, a material fact. I’m Abraham and Sara’s granddaughter. Matter of fact, I’m their only descendent. Of course this fact inspired my ironic “Honest to God” outburst a little while back. My heart has been hardened towards Abe by the bitter story of my Mother. Of course we must let this story unfold in its due course. Our story should flow in the beautiful manner of a sensuous and sinuous river, as there’s little beauty in a straight line.
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