The house I grew up in (we moved in while I was in 2nd grade) was a house that had been built in the early 1800s and was known as the Illk house. It was the neighborhood that my family had always been in and had I’m sure been built by a person (Abraham Illk) that in some convoluted way related to us. The bricks for the house were made in the wood near the house and my father would say this house has stood for 100 years and will stand for 100 more! When the wind would blow for a huge storm, we couldn’t hear anything from inside the house.
One of the stories I remember from my childhood was our washer and dryer needing replaced….. my father had let my brother and I take apart the old ones and play with all the parts, including using the casing to store some animal we had found in the woods. My father was in the field when the new washer and dryer were delivered….. Of course the new washer and dryer were a littler larger than the opening to turn the corner and go down the stairs. The delivery man, not having a clue what my family is like, said the famous words – If we only had another 1/2 an inch! So my mother after saying are you sure? Grabbed a hammer and knocked the plaster off the wall.
The delivery quickly put the washer and dryer into the basement and ran as fast as they could out of the house – probably expecting my dad to show up and hurt them in some way. My brother currently living in the house still hasn’t fixed the plaster, 40 years later! The lathe on the stairs is still visible, and it’s just the spot directly inside the door. The basement is unfinished with parts being dirt basically open to the outside, and in one spot there is an opening that has stairs that lead up under the kitchen going directly to the floor and into the dirt. I remember cats having kittens under the kitchen and having to crawl under the kitchen to see them.
The picture from the Oakwood Centennial book shows the Illk house before we moved in. Now the porch doesn’t have the roof and a kitchen and garage have been added on the other side of the living room windows. We actually got the house from Ralph Goodrich when as I entered second grade.
