Growing Up in Colonial Acres

Growing Up in Colonial Acres

Love, Loss and the House I Lived In
This is dedicated to my parents, who I miss everyday. To my sisters, who share these memories with me, and to our children who I write these stories for.

Colonial Acres was a great neighborhood to grow up in. In the 50’s the area from Wilbraham Rd that led to Springfield St. was known as Sixteen Acres. I am not sure how it got that name but as you crossed the town line into Wilbraham, the first two streets were known as Colonial Acres. The first street was West Colonial but the second street, Brookside Drive, where I lived, was so named because it followed the brook. The house lots on the left of the street each abutted the brook.

My father built the house in 1951. It is the only house I ever knew. My parents never wanted to live anyplace else. In later years, my mother always said the only way she would ever leave was in a pine box. The house was them, it became who they were and more than 50 years later, it did comfort each of them in their final hours. It seemed fitting and I cannot imagine it having happened any differently. Just as I cannot imagine the house with someone other than family taking care of it. Now, my sister lives there. It is her house, but somehow I feel that it is the house that owns us. It is a part of each of us, my two sisters and I, and it is even a part of each of our children, too.
I was born in ’51 but I was almost 2 by the time my mother and father and I moved in. It took my father and his buddy over a year to build the house, a little at a time, after work and on weekends. I don’t remember this but there are many photos that tell the story. It was a full dormered Cape. The downstairs was finished first and the upstairs bedrooms were not completed until I was 6. A breezeway, that’s what our porch was called, with an attached 2 car garage was also added in later years. Our driveway was dirt and gravel, for the first years too. There was a turn-a-round that flooded like a swimming pool if we had heavy downpours. One time, the water was deep and muddy and my mother let us put our swim suits on and play in it.

In those early years, the first floor was the living/dining room, a tiny kitchen and two bedrooms, one bigger one for my parents, and a small room where my sister and I slept. I think I liked sleeping in that room with my sister when I was little. It was a safe place at night as long as my mother closed the closet door tight and left the bedroom door open with the hall light on. Once, my sister and I jumped on our twin beds like trampolines. I did a front drop but missed the bed, and split my nose open. I had to have stitches and I never jumped that way on my bed again. Often times, if my sister had gone to bed before me since she was younger, she would already be asleep. If she was snoring , I would sneak out of my bed and hold her nose so she would stop. Sometimes it worked, but mostly it didn’t.

When I was 5, my younger sister was born and my father needed to begin finishing the upstairs bedrooms and bathroom. The first room done was mine. I loved my room. The wallpaper I picked was almost exactly like the paper in the bedroom I slept in at my grandmother’s house. A Colonial blue, geometric design that became three dimensional if you stared at it long enough while laying in bed trying to go to sleep. I spent many hours those first couple of years, lying in my bed at night, trying to go to sleep. I still had my door open, and the upstairs hall light on. I also had a nightlight that was the lower part of my bedside lamp. It was pretty bright and lit my whole room at night so there were no dark corners. There were still shadows, though, and there were many nights that I lay stiff as a board, scared to move a muscle because I was sure that I saw something move or that I had heard a noise. Still, I did love my room. I didn’t have to share it with my sister. I had all my own things, my own closet, my desk. My one window looked out over the backyard. I could see the brook. I could see the neighbor’s yards to the left and right. The sunlight streamed in and woke me on Summer mornings. The sounds of the frogs and peepers drifted through my window with the night breezes. Soon, my sister Robin’s room and even my parent’s room were finished. I finally felt at ease when I went to bed at night. I didn’t leave my door open wide anymore but only a crack. I always had my nightlight on for as long as I can remember. My father finished the 4th bedroom for my younger sister last and then we were all upstairs. That left the two rooms downstairs to be used as a guest room and a family room.

By then, the breezeway became a screened in porch that led to the attached garage. The built in swimming pool was dug and we spent our summer days and evenings doing cannonballs, dives and learning our swimming strokes.

My mother’s clothesline always had laundry hanging, my father never lacked for yard work or some house project that needed to be done. We always had each other to play with and plenty of neighborhood friends.

It was a good house and just like my parents, I never wanted to leave it.
 It owned us. It was a part of what growing up in Colonial Acres on Brookside Drive was all about.