Growing up in the 1950's was great. We didn't always have everything we wanted but we seemed to have everything we needed and that was always enough, we knew how to make do with the things we had.
Our family was not the standard for the day, large families were starting to go the way of the DODO bird, most families were three kids at most where as I am the oldest of five. My family was not rich by any means, dad was the soul income and it wasn't much but we always had food on the table, clothes on our backs and a roof over our heads. We called that roof our home, it was not the Taj Mahal but it kept us warm and dry. The first house I can remember was on Bledsoe Street in Gallatin, Tennessee about 1950. I don't remember much about it except it was old with many coats of paint on the walls that was peeling and contained lead. Over the next few years we lived in several houses, old frame houses with no or little insulation. Some had minimum electrical service, no indoor plumbing and a pot belly stove for heat. They had an odor about them of old wood and floor wax, they weren't big houses but then we weren't a big family - not yet anyway.
I was eight years old and starting the third grade at Donelson Elementary when we moved into a small two bedroom house on Colonial Dr.. There were three other rooms in the house that made up the bath, kitchen / dinning / laundry and living room. Although remembering things to be bigger than they were has disappointed me in the past, this little house could not have been more than eight or nine hundred square feet. The family had grown to six by this time, little sister was still in diapers at the time and the youngest of us, Ronnie, was still just a sparkle in dad's eye.
The house was small but we made it work for us. Mom and dad occupied one bedroom which was the same size as the other bedroom. Me, brother Pat, Clint and sister Vickie slept in the other bedroom, we had a double bed that Pat and I used, Clint and Vickie slept on bunkbeds. When little brother Ronnie came along, he slept in a wooden baby bed with mom and dad.
The next house came when I went into the six or seventh grade, it was on Tamworth Dr. in Donelson. It was a little bigger but not by much. It had three bedrooms, one for mom and dad, one for me, Pat and Clint and the other for Vickie and Ronnie. Small as it was, we made do with we what we had.
The next house came when I started the eight grade. Dad moved us to Mt. Juliet, to a new subdivision. one of his customers was in real-estate. The house was new, brick and the largest so far, about 1300 square feet, it was three bedrooms and one bath. The most important thing to know was it was not a rental, dad finally bit the bullet and bought a house. Up till now, none of the homes had central heat and air, actually they didn't have central anything, this house was no different but it was new. While all of the homes held many memories this one was no different except that I'm now a teenager in the country. We were less crowded and more comfortable than any time before, Vickie and Ronnie were still not of school age and shared a bed. We lived there till the start of my senior year then dad wanted to be closer to work so we moved to Hermitage Hills and I finished my last year riding back to Mt. Juliet with a teacher.
The house in Hermitage Hills was a little older and a little smaller but it had a window unit air conditioner in the back wall of the kitchen / den and it had 1 1/2 baths. We were crowded for a while but I wasn't there for long because I left for boot camp after turning 18. at the end of my senior year.
It seems like the average home back then was maybe 1300 square feet or less. A large home ran around 1800 to 2000 square feet and mansions, only found in the better parts of the city, went well above 3000 square feet. In comparison, the homes of today are huge, it's like everybody has to have at least 3000 square feet but 5000 would be better. If you have a family of four you better get at least five bedrooms though six would be better and at least three bathrooms with a powder room in the foyer, I didn't know what a foyer was. And what home would be complete if it didn't have a full basement and a three to four car garage?
I don't know what is driving people today when it comes to the size of their home. The family size is smaller, just one or two kids, sometimes it's just the husband and wife. Home sizes today have given the saying "bigger is better" a whole new meaning, Of course, that bigger home comes with a cost, prices have skyrocketed as has the interest rate and therefore the mortgage payment but it hasn't slowed down the desire for a bigger and better home than the guy down the street.
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