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By Sally Armour Wotton
We were a contented family of three, I thought, when I was 5 years old. I rose early each morning and crawled into my parent’s bed, nestling into the warm space between them - taking my place as the centre of the universe.
Then, without warning, to me, my parents divorced and my universe crumbled. My mother decided to move from our house in Springfield, Illinois to Peoria, Illinois to be near her older sister, Clara, for comfort and support.
When Aunt Clara came to pick us up, I grasped the wooden railing of the front porch of my home with all my five-year-old strength crying and howling at the top of my voice. This home was the symbol of my universe, and I wasn’t letting it go. It took both of the sisters to wrench me loose and get me into the car. Mom held me in her lap and wiped my tears throughout the eternity of that ride. She assured me that she could be both mother and father for me in our new home and, through her love and determination, she was.
Mom found an apartment at 171 North Street in Peoria, a hundred and fifty miles south of Chicago and a block-and-a-half from Aunt Clara. 171 North Street became my home for the rest of my childhood and remains the symbol of home to me now.
Our apartment was in Miss Minnie Haley’s early Victorian house. Miss Haley was also an early Victorian. She wore rouge and lipstick every day, which made her wrinkled face appear pink and white striped, and she always bought dresses two sizes too large for her shrunken 85-year-old body, believing they were just the right size. “In my day, beautiful women were Rubenesque and my size has not changed.” She had more space than income so was willing to have a little girl and her mother share her home. We had a separate apartment, of course, but I pretty much had the run of the house.
The rooms had 14-foot high ceilings, marble fireplaces and ornate woodwork around the doors and windows. I loved the pocket doors between the old front and back parlours that slid in and out magically at my touch. But most of all I was fascinated by the newel post at the foot of the stairs. It had a non-functional gas lamp rising up from it. This “lamp” was a tall brass pole threaded through a cylindrical piece of multi-coloured cloisonné and topped with an etched glass shade. Halfway up the stairs at the landing was a small ledge in front of a stained glass window – just the right size for me to sit and hold court, gazing down the long flight of stairs at my imaginary subjects and the majestic newel post. I sat in splendour dressed in Mother’s velvet robe and pieces of her costume jewelry. At times I was a Queen (I felt princess was a menial role) or I was a bishop depending on the daydream of the moment. I had seen bishops when the older kids at church were confirmed, and they especially impressed me with their elegant costumes and manner of authority.
The brick sidewalk leading up to the gingerbread-trimmed front porch was the only pathway on the block that had not been replaced with concrete. The back garden began as a large, groomed lawn but paused at a hedge, then continued on the other side as a half-block area of trees, underbrush, wildflowers and snails. The other neighbourhood children and I thought we were clever to call it the woods. When I grew up, I learned it had been called that for generations.
By the time I was eight, I had discovered the basement and it became exclusively my space. It was an unfinished basement just waiting for a child to decorate and furnish. There were, of course, high ceilings and the main room had wide planks laid on the earth that decades of basement floods had curled. When you walked across this floor, the metal tubs that held the coals for the furnace created a percussion symphony.
The other rooms in the basement had uncovered earth floors; the delicious musty smell permeated the whole space. I got all the cast-offs from upstairs to furnish my underground haven – when the linoleum was replaced in our kitchen and when the stair carpet was renewed, I could put the old coverings down on my floor. I arranged garden furniture as a living room area and leaned an old sink with 2 pipe legs under a wall faucet with a bucket under the drain to become my kitchen. The end of the room had a water heater with a little gas flame - the focus of my inventor’s lab, where I worked diligently on the plans for a robot and a flying carpet. The basement was not only my playhouse but also the neighbourhood kid’s meeting headquarters and centre of fun. As its proprietor, I was in charge and discovered a new way to be the centre of the universe.
This was pre-Vatican Two and, even with only two or three Roman Catholic families, the neighbourhood was overrun with children. I chose to befriend those who were two to four years younger than I, which ensured my authority and gave me the sense of having “siblings.” I was naturally Chief of Police or Leading Scientist, School Principal or Mother.
My friends and I “shopped” for groceries in the woods and had wonderful meals of mulberries and wild rhubarb. I dragged found objects home from the alley to use in my inventor’s lab, like interesting bottles, tire rims and the springs from an old car seat. My
Friends’ parents wouldn’t let such treasures into their homes, but my basement playroom was my sanctuary and in it I was Queen of the Castle.
My aunt and the neighbours said, “Sally should be playing with children her own age; not playing let’s pretend all the time down in that basement– how will she ever grow up?” But I believe the freedom my mother allowed me in my basement and my choice of friends gave me the confidence and leadership skills which, as an only child, I might not have gained.
When I reached my teenage years, I outgrew a playroom, of course, but could still appreciate my basement haven as a retreat where I could dream and occasionally even do homework!
After University, I moved to New York City and my mother joined me for only a few months before her death. She brought the piece of cloisonné from the newel post gas lamp with her because we knew the house was slated to be sold and then demolished.
The Christmas after Mother’s death was bleak and lonely. All the decorating, gift-wrapping, eggnog and cheer among my friends just made me feel more alone. The New York I loved suddenly looked gray and withered and felt unresponsive. So, after some time away, I returned to Peoria to spend a few days around New Year’s with old friends. There was a light fall of snow on the ground and, after dinner one evening, my friends drove me around town to see our childhood haunts. They thought that my old house had been demolished but I wanted to come home one last time. We arrived at 171 North Street after dark to find a cleared space where the house had been. The brick walk that had led up to the front porch was just visible under the thin blanket of snow – an eerie walk that led nowhere. I looked away, sheltering my home in my mind.
The house is gone but my home is indestructible. It is there in my taste for antiquity, and my love of wild spaces in the city, and in the occasional whiff of an earthy, musty scent. It is at the core of that sacred space in me where my independence, sense of freedom, and creative imagination live.
Then, without warning, to me, my parents divorced and my universe crumbled. My mother decided to move from our house in Springfield, Illinois to Peoria, Illinois to be near her older sister, Clara, for comfort and support.
When Aunt Clara came to pick us up, I grasped the wooden railing of the front porch of my home with all my five-year-old strength crying and howling at the top of my voice. This home was the symbol of my universe, and I wasn’t letting it go. It took both of the sisters to wrench me loose and get me into the car. Mom held me in her lap and wiped my tears throughout the eternity of that ride. She assured me that she could be both mother and father for me in our new home and, through her love and determination, she was.
Mom found an apartment at 171 North Street in Peoria, a hundred and fifty miles south of Chicago and a block-and-a-half from Aunt Clara. 171 North Street became my home for the rest of my childhood and remains the symbol of home to me now.
Our apartment was in Miss Minnie Haley’s early Victorian house. Miss Haley was also an early Victorian. She wore rouge and lipstick every day, which made her wrinkled face appear pink and white striped, and she always bought dresses two sizes too large for her shrunken 85-year-old body, believing they were just the right size. “In my day, beautiful women were Rubenesque and my size has not changed.” She had more space than income so was willing to have a little girl and her mother share her home. We had a separate apartment, of course, but I pretty much had the run of the house.
The rooms had 14-foot high ceilings, marble fireplaces and ornate woodwork around the doors and windows. I loved the pocket doors between the old front and back parlours that slid in and out magically at my touch. But most of all I was fascinated by the newel post at the foot of the stairs. It had a non-functional gas lamp rising up from it. This “lamp” was a tall brass pole threaded through a cylindrical piece of multi-coloured cloisonné and topped with an etched glass shade. Halfway up the stairs at the landing was a small ledge in front of a stained glass window – just the right size for me to sit and hold court, gazing down the long flight of stairs at my imaginary subjects and the majestic newel post. I sat in splendour dressed in Mother’s velvet robe and pieces of her costume jewelry. At times I was a Queen (I felt princess was a menial role) or I was a bishop depending on the daydream of the moment. I had seen bishops when the older kids at church were confirmed, and they especially impressed me with their elegant costumes and manner of authority.
The brick sidewalk leading up to the gingerbread-trimmed front porch was the only pathway on the block that had not been replaced with concrete. The back garden began as a large, groomed lawn but paused at a hedge, then continued on the other side as a half-block area of trees, underbrush, wildflowers and snails. The other neighbourhood children and I thought we were clever to call it the woods. When I grew up, I learned it had been called that for generations.
By the time I was eight, I had discovered the basement and it became exclusively my space. It was an unfinished basement just waiting for a child to decorate and furnish. There were, of course, high ceilings and the main room had wide planks laid on the earth that decades of basement floods had curled. When you walked across this floor, the metal tubs that held the coals for the furnace created a percussion symphony.
The other rooms in the basement had uncovered earth floors; the delicious musty smell permeated the whole space. I got all the cast-offs from upstairs to furnish my underground haven – when the linoleum was replaced in our kitchen and when the stair carpet was renewed, I could put the old coverings down on my floor. I arranged garden furniture as a living room area and leaned an old sink with 2 pipe legs under a wall faucet with a bucket under the drain to become my kitchen. The end of the room had a water heater with a little gas flame - the focus of my inventor’s lab, where I worked diligently on the plans for a robot and a flying carpet. The basement was not only my playhouse but also the neighbourhood kid’s meeting headquarters and centre of fun. As its proprietor, I was in charge and discovered a new way to be the centre of the universe.
This was pre-Vatican Two and, even with only two or three Roman Catholic families, the neighbourhood was overrun with children. I chose to befriend those who were two to four years younger than I, which ensured my authority and gave me the sense of having “siblings.” I was naturally Chief of Police or Leading Scientist, School Principal or Mother.
My friends and I “shopped” for groceries in the woods and had wonderful meals of mulberries and wild rhubarb. I dragged found objects home from the alley to use in my inventor’s lab, like interesting bottles, tire rims and the springs from an old car seat. My
Friends’ parents wouldn’t let such treasures into their homes, but my basement playroom was my sanctuary and in it I was Queen of the Castle.
My aunt and the neighbours said, “Sally should be playing with children her own age; not playing let’s pretend all the time down in that basement– how will she ever grow up?” But I believe the freedom my mother allowed me in my basement and my choice of friends gave me the confidence and leadership skills which, as an only child, I might not have gained.
When I reached my teenage years, I outgrew a playroom, of course, but could still appreciate my basement haven as a retreat where I could dream and occasionally even do homework!
After University, I moved to New York City and my mother joined me for only a few months before her death. She brought the piece of cloisonné from the newel post gas lamp with her because we knew the house was slated to be sold and then demolished.
The Christmas after Mother’s death was bleak and lonely. All the decorating, gift-wrapping, eggnog and cheer among my friends just made me feel more alone. The New York I loved suddenly looked gray and withered and felt unresponsive. So, after some time away, I returned to Peoria to spend a few days around New Year’s with old friends. There was a light fall of snow on the ground and, after dinner one evening, my friends drove me around town to see our childhood haunts. They thought that my old house had been demolished but I wanted to come home one last time. We arrived at 171 North Street after dark to find a cleared space where the house had been. The brick walk that had led up to the front porch was just visible under the thin blanket of snow – an eerie walk that led nowhere. I looked away, sheltering my home in my mind.
The house is gone but my home is indestructible. It is there in my taste for antiquity, and my love of wild spaces in the city, and in the occasional whiff of an earthy, musty scent. It is at the core of that sacred space in me where my independence, sense of freedom, and creative imagination live.
