Every room needs a bit of red

Vera c. 1933

Dwelling

5x5"

My parents were school teachers during the start of the Great Depression. One day they came home from school to find that their home had been burned to the ground along with all their possessions except for a quilte and a pillow that a neighbor had snatched through a window. What to do?  Three of her 6 brothers lived in Pennsylvania and NYC and they invited them to come north as soon as the school year ended and they'd have work for them. One uncle owned a drugstore which had a tiny apartment upstairs so that's where Mom and Dad lived for 3 years while slowly accummulating a nest egg. Mother worked behind the counter, dressed in her white uniform while Dad went on the road, cleaning money out of penny machines, another of the brother's sidelines. Once they had enough money to buy another home they headed home to Arkansas.

Mother always said that every room needed a bit of red.