The Church - Then and Now

A few months ago I shared my childhood home here and here. My childhood home was the parsonage we lived in when my father was a minister in Central Oregon. I promised to show you the church where he was the minister. My childhood home has been completely restored and is now a wonderful vacation rental home. The church next door has also been completely restored and is also a vacation rental that would be a great place for us to have a reunion with our children and eight grandchildren.

Here is a photo taken by my mother when we lived there. You can see a bit of the parsonage where we lived on the left side of the photo.

Here was the church in winter. My dad was shoveling snow.

 And here I am peeking out the front doors of the church.

The church and the parsonage are on the National Register of Historic Places. The church was built in 1923 - the same year my parents were born. The church was historically called 'The Alliance Tabernacle'. The church is reported to be the first wooden church structure built entirely by volunteers from the congregation west of the Mississippi River. The National Register says it was a modest example of a Craftsman style church with a combination of clapboard and shingle side, one-over-one double hung windows and a small entry vestibule centered on the main facade and the roof boasted a monitor style central window down the ridge of the building. I remember all of those details so well.

Here's what it looks like today after the restoration.

It's beautiful! And there's the yellow home where I lived. There was a lot of life lived in these two buildings.

Come inside with me. When you step inside through the double front doors you enter the old 'vestibule' where I spent time before and after services as we visited with friends. That circular staircase wasn't there back in the day. The doorway on the left went into the old church nursery. There was a door on the right that led to the stairway to upstairs.

As you walked through the vestibule you walked right into the sanctuary. Oh, the memories of hours and hours spent here. These are the original floors - the same floors I walked on way back then. The upstairs has been opened up but it was closed and there were classrooms up there.  There was no hallway where the stairs are on the back wall. That was a wall at the back of the platform. There was a door on the left that went into my father's study. Rows of rather rustic wooden pews were on both sides of a central aisle.

This photo must have been taken from where the old platform was. You can see that a nice kitchen has been added for anyone who rents The Church.

A nice seating area is across from the kitchen.

Through the doorway on the right was the 'Sunday School office'. That's where the attendance records were kept and where the offerings from Sunday School and church services were counted. There were supplies and all kinds of interesting things in there. It always intrigued me when I was a kid.

The ceiling in the center of the sanctuary was at the bottom of the black beams. The rooms upstairs were a fun place for a kid to go for class. Somehow it always felt like a magical place to me. The walls of each classroom were between the sets of windows and we had to walk through one room to get to the next. There was no hallway.

The master bedroom seems to be through the door to the right - where the old Sunday School office used to be.

There was no bathroom in the church back in those days but a nice master bathroom has been added.

It's a nice addition to this corner of the building.

There is another bedroom. . .

And another bathroom on the downstairs level.

They have created a nice loft area at each end. Here's one end. . .

And the other one. The loft areas can also provide sleeping areas if needed. I'd like to spend time up here just daydreaming.

Outside, the building has been beautifully restored and some outside areas have been added. When I lived here this side of the building was a dirt hillside with bushes along the side of the building. I spent a lot of time playing in the dirt here and pretending every sort of thing a kid can imagine. There was a basement that could only be accessed from a little stairwell at the front of the church. Now it can be entered from this side. I can't wait to have a tour some day so I can see what they've done with the basement.

An outside seating area has been added on the hillside. It looks like an inviting place to spend some time.

There is another outside area with a firepit in the back of the church. This area was all dirt when I lived here. There was a flat area right behind the building and then the dirt hillside went up toward the next street above the church and the parsonage.

I was so happy to see that the church was still there and I could hardly believe how beautiful it is now. I have more memories than there is time to share - times I treasure and some times that were hard. There was magic and fun and reality and friends and family and memories to last a lifetime! Oh how I wish my mom and dad could see it now. They would be thrilled and they would have incredible memories to share, too. Someday when I am in that part of Oregon I hope to take a tour of the church and my childhood home, the parsonage. I'm sure I can tell the owners tales they have not heard before and history that's not written down.

Gifts From The Heart

Some very special people have given me gifts over the past couple of months and I can't wait to share them with you. The gifts are special because they come from the heart of the people who gave them to me.

My daughter has a way of finding the perfect gifts for me. This is what she gave me for Christmas. I'm sure you can understand why her heart raced a bit when she saw these pillows. She knew they would be the perfect gift for me. She always seems to find things I love and this time she really outdid herself!

Our son and daughter-in-law gave us a gift that keeps on giving. This photo was beautifully framed and now it hangs in the family photo gallery in our hallway. It touches my heart every day as I scoot by and see if there. We have been so blessed to have our children and grandchildren close by but the photos help us remember how much they mean to us when we're apart.

My sweetheart knows me well and, at times, he comes up with the most amazing surprises for me. He had planned to keep his Valentine's gift a surprise until the last minute but when he thought about the possibilities of a snafu, he decided to tell me two weeks ahead of time. The anticipation was almost as much fun as the gift. He saw an ad in the local paper and he knew I would absolutely love the event. He called and got tickets and when he told me I could hardly believe my ears!  A concert. I'm a musician and I love music so a concert is always a delight. But a concert of music from my youth? Even better!  The evening before Valentine's Day we had a nice dinner on our way into Portland.  We parked and walked to a fully restored vintage theater that is the home of many wonderful events. The night was clear and comfortably warm for this time of year. I love downtown Portland and seeing it at night is always a delight to my heart.

 

And then we were there!!!

Johnny Mathis in person! An evening to stroll down memory lane with familiar songs from my youth! The concert began with a few romantic pieces played by the Oregon Symphony Orchestra. They fun and familiar pieces, led by the young associate director. The director wore a light gray suit (black tie and tails), a big red bow-tie and bright red high-top sneakers! He talked and interacted with  the audience and explained why he had chosen the pieces they played. Often we heard the stories behind the music. He had a great personality and he made listening quite fun.  Intermission - and then what we were all waiting for! Johnny came onstage to the sound of thunderous applause. His performance didn't disappoint. I had a bit of trouble keeping quiet. I really want to sing along with him and I'm sure I wasn't the only one in the theater who felt the same way. Song after song and then it was over. What an evening! But there was one more treat in store for me. Something that wouldn't thrill some people but it was like frosting on the cake for me.

My sweetheart has been trained as a sound technician. He has been the 'sound guru' at our church for many years. He always loves to see the equipment and the people behind the scenes who make it possible for us to hear what is being sung or spoken. He knows they work very hard and often are unappreciated. True to form, on our way out, he stopped by the sound booth and engaged the sound technician in conversation. Soon they were talking about things that were foreign to me. It seemed like  my sweetheart enjoyed that almost as much as the concert. As we said goodbye and turned to leave, the sound man handed me his program notes for the evening. Oh, my - what a treat! To have the list of songs sung and have a souvenir unlike anything others took home made me smile.

We walked to our car and headed toward home but the evening wasn't over yet. My sweetheart stopped at the restaurant where we had eaten dinner earlier that evening so we could have dessert together. It was the perfect ending to a date that I will always remember! Before we left the theater I bought a two-CD set of forty of Johnny's favorite hits. And I may or may not play them over and over and sing as I work around the house. It's possible that I may be about to drive my sweetheart over the edge with my constant renditions of music that touched my heart when I was quite young. And it touches my heart again in this season of life!

It's not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving.Mother Theresa

My Childhood Home - Now

Before my blog break I shared my memories and photos of my childhood home. You can click here to see that post. I promised to show you what it looks like today and I gave you a sneak peek at the front of the house that showed the wonderful restoration that has been done.  This home is a vacation rental now and their website describes it like this:

Accommodating up to 8 people Lava Flo is a large three bedroom, two bath, Craftsman Bungalow located on Lava Road. The neighbors are McMenamins Old St. Francis school, a rectory, and a church! Flo also has a large, tiered yard full of lava rock and a hot tub. The front bedroom has a king-sized bed, the master at the back of the house has a queen sized bed, and the middle bedroom is furnished with two twin beds and a Smart TV. The house can easily accommodate six people but comes equipped with aerobeds upon request for an additional two houseguests. There is an attached laundry room at the back of the house with a washer/dryer, and off-street parking for up to three cars.

Now, let me take you inside.  So you don't get confused, I've used photos from two versions of their website. Some photos are older than others but they provide a good view of the house.  As you enter the house you step right into the living room.  The original front door was an old craftsman style door that was replaced with a different style but I love what they chose.  All of the windows in the house are the original windows.  They were in pretty bad shape when restoration began so the windows were sent out for reconditioning.  To think that these are the very windows my childish eyes looked through back in the day brings such pleasure to my heart.  The floors are all original and have been refinished.

Our floor-to-ceiling ‘natural’ from-the-forest Christmas tree stood between the corner windows every year.  It was decorated with strings of those old lights that got hot and burned your hand if you touched them.  And tinsel!  It was amazing how much tinsel those big trees took, and my mother insisted that each piece be put on the branches with precision.  Oh, how I would love to rent this house for the Christmas holidays and have a giant tree right there again. 

Looking toward the back of the house from here you can see more of the living room and the wonderful dining room where many special meals were shared with friends old and new.  There was a French door between the windows out onto a side porch and yard.  That door was replaced with this one that matches the front door.  The ceiling was flat when I lived there but I really love the way they opened it up.  My mother had a chair and a small table that held our phone where the little table sits beside the side door.  I spent so many, many hours in the corner when I was old enough to call my girlfriends and chat.  I love the French doors into the kitchen.  Remember them from the photo I shared from my childhood Christmas?  Yep, same doors!  To the right of those doors sat my dear, little mother’s desk and that ‘naughty-corner’ chair I showed you.

Let’s go through those French doors into the kitchen.  It’s exactly as it was when I lived there with a few updates!  I was thrilled that they didn’t change it.  I shed a few tears when I peeked through the back windows and saw that the kitchen was just as it was.  This is where my mother and I spent so much time – time together learning how to do household tasks, cooking, baking, cleaning and doing dishes.  There was no dishwasher back in those days, so we stood at the old sink below these very windows each evening to do the supper dishes together – she washed, I dried.  And as we worked together we played a Bible character game.  She was teaching more than ‘mundane’ household tasks.  She was teaching me about the lives and character of people in the Bible.  The window you see looks out onto the old, enclosed back porch that is now a new, modern laundry room.  Someday I’ll have to share more of my memories about that laundry room.  The little shelves between the window and door were there when I was a little girl.  My sweet mother had such pretty things on display there.  The door appears to be the same door that was there in those days.  I ran through that door, in and out to the back yard more times than I could possibly count.  The refrigerator was in a recessed area behind where the open door is in this photo when we first moved in.  A few years later the church board purchased a new, bigger refrigerator that stood exactly where this one is today.  The recessed area in the wall was sealed up, allowing a larger closet in the guestroom that you enter on the other side of the refrigerator.

Here’s a view of the kitchen from the back door.  When we first moved into the house a big, old wood cook stove stood in this corner.  I remember the curved, black stovepipe that went to the chimney appears to still be in that corner.  My little mother had more escapades with that wood stove but the heat it produced was wonderful on snowy, cold winter mornings when I ate breakfast at the kitchen table before I left for school.  An electric range replaced the wood stove and we thought we had really come up in the world!

If we step through the back door of the kitchen you can see the laundry porch.  My dear mother started out with a wringer washer and big, double cement laundry tubs out here.  No insulation in those outside walls and it got c-o-l-d in the winter.  No dryer – she hung the sheets outside as I shared in my childhood memory photos. Here’s what it’s like today.  Do you see shiplap?  She would have loved this. The original door was like the door from the kitchen into the porch but the new door provides more security.  The rock walls outside the windows were there and I spent a lot of time playing on and around those walls.  In my imagination, they became all kinds of things.  At the top of the terrace you can see an iron fence.  No fence in those days.  You’ll see more of this in a bit.

The website for this home indicates that our guestroom off the kitchen is now the master bedroom.  I peeked through the windows when I was there and it brought back such memories.  Memories of lying on the ‘big’ bed in the afternoon sun - daydreaming of adventures and making plans.  Memories of guests who came and were part of our family for a time.  And special memories of a very dear friend who became like a big sister to me when she lived with us for two years.

The guestroom had a small closet behind the kitchen wall.  From the vacation rental's description of this room and after looking at photos of the side of the house I think I've figured out where they added the master bathroom.  The guestroom shared a wall with the big walk-in closet in my bedroom.  Seeing a small window that's been added to the side of the house and from the photos from the website,my guess it that the big walk-in closet in my bedroom became the master bath.  That's a pretty wise choice, I'd say. Here's the glimpse of the master bathroom.

Let’s go back through the kitchen and into the living room-dining room area so I can show you the bedrooms. 

See that door on the inside wall between the living room and dining room?  When we go through that door we are in the hallway.  Before we do, I'd like to tell you about a door you can see in the hallway.  That door was there when I lived in this house but I don't know what's behind it now. I'm pretty sure it doesn't go where it led when I was a little girl.  The door opened to stairs that took us down to the huge, sometimes creepy, big basement. A monstrous wood furnace that heated our home stood in the middle of the basement.  My dear father got up more than once a night through the cold winter months to go down those stairs and add wood to the furnace to keep us snug and warm upstairs. I'm not sure if that door leads to the basement anymore - it could be that a coat closet was added during the renovations. It's obvious that a new source of heat was added because I see a thermostat on the living room wall.

Once we're in the hallway we'll turn to our right, toward the front of the house and enter what was my parents’ room.  It was not furnished like this at all.  It was cozy with a big brass headboard and foot-board that my dear mother found in the corner of the basement!  A bit of polish and elbow grease and it was a beauty.  If you look back into the hall you can see a bit of the doorway we came through from the living and dining area.

The front corner of my mother and father’s room had corner windows like those in the living room.

Back into the hall and just to our right we come to the bathroom.  This was the only bathroom when I lived here. They have kept much of the character of the room but have updated to accommodate modern conveniences.  The floor was like this and this HAS to be the original doorknob!  We locked the door with a skeleton key – very convenient if someone locked themselves in and couldn’t get out.  Someone like a small child.  My father had several skeleton keys because, for a long time, that’s how all the exterior door were locked!

Just inside the door, to the left, is the sink.  We had a free-standing sink with no counter but I like the way they've continued the vintage-style tile.

And above the sink is a cabinet like the original medicine cabinet.  I don’t know if they were able to refurbish what was there or if this is new.  The lights are similar to what I remember.

I must say that I was very disappointed that the old claw foot tub where I took my ‘Saturday night’ baths is not gone.  I believe the bathroom was remodeled and updated in the nineteen-seventies and this wall and tub were added.  At least the original window is there!

Let's go back out into the hall, to the right.  At the opposite end of the hall from my parents’ bedroom – was my room.  Oh, the stories those walls could tell!  So much play and imagination and dreaming and some tears along the way in this room.  Giggles and secrets shared when my girlfriends spent the night. This is my room! Don’t you think it’s appropriate that they chose to paint it yellow?

Now, I have to tell you a piece of history, trivia perhaps.  We did not have a second bathroom back in the day but there was a bathroom on the other side of my bedroom wall - the  wall you can't see in this photo.  Back then, that bathroom couldn’t be accessed from the house.  It was the ‘church’ bathroom and was only accessible from the driveway between our house and the church.  There was no plumbing in the church building in those days and since winters were harsh in that mountain town, a bathroom had been added to the house.  We moved into the house on a Saturday.  The next morning - Sunday - my mother heard voices 'in the wall' and she about freaked out.  After asking a few questions of someone in the church we found out about the 'church' bathroom.

Now, let’s go outside and see the yard and surrounding area.

Out through the front door and onto the front porch you could have seen the wonderful homes that were across the street.  ‘Grandma and Grandpa’ Duckworth lived in the house on the right.  They were such a dear couple and they became like grandparents since mine were all in California and I didn’t see them often.  On the left is the home of the owner of the ‘Piggly Wiggly’ grocery store around the corner.  These homes are no longer here.  They were moved across town and restored for vacation rentals.  A three-story hotel complex is across from ‘my’ house.  McMenamins bought the entire block where there are some historical buildings they have restored.  Their hotel is rustic and very much in keeping with the area.  

If we walk to the sidewalk and turn left to the driveway you can see the side of the parsonage and the church.  See the little house up straight ahead and up the stairs?  That’s where ‘Grandma and Grandpa’ Morgan lived.  They were an older couple in our church.  They didn’t have a car – they walked everywhere and they used our driveway to go back and forth even though their address was technically on the street above ours.  I spent many, long hours in their home.  They had the most wonderful toy box and she baked the best cookies!  They had raised two sons and were thrilled when a little girl moved into the parsonage!  Their little house is also a vacation rental now.

OK, let’s go around to the other side of the house.  We’ll go through the gate that wasn’t there when I was a child. 

And into the side yard where we spent so much time living outside.  It didn’t look like this but I do love what they’ve done.  The side yard was all grass except for the concrete steps you see that lead from the dining room door to the yard.

This photo gives you a look at the side of the house and the door to the side yard.  Of course, there was no deck, no rock patio, no hot tub!  But lots of birthday parties and gatherings and a lot of play and games and fun!

An updated photo from the website gives another view of the side yard.

Here are a few more photos that show you the size of the yard.  I loved being out here, no matter the weather.  I rolled over and over down the hill in the summer and made snow angels and tried to sled down the hill in the winter.  

If you saw the photos from my post about my childhood home back then, my dear mother’s clothesline was where the table and chairs are in the photo below.  Again, there was no iron fence around the yard and no wood fence at the top of the terrace.  The wood fence on the side of the terrace was built while we lived here.  The Catholic Church and Rectory were next door to us. The side fence was added to give privacy to the priests, to give them a quiet place to walk and meditate and pray.  When the fence was first built somehow I got my little self up high enough to hang on the top of the fence with my face peering over - and I hung there and watched the priests as they walked and prayed.  Well, I did that until my mother found out!  It never happened again.

The upper terrace is completely different than it was.  I was pleased to see what they’ve done with it.  It had never been landscaped and wasn’t used for anything except for playing in the dirt!

Another view from the terrace.

This is my childhood home! Five-thirty Lava Road in Bend, Oregon.

I loved it back then – and I love it now.  I would love to design a sweet, little bungalow home with the same footprint – and perhaps an update and change or two.  Someday I hope to return and take a tour of the house. Or, better yet, rent it and snoop through every single corner and nook and cranny.  This was the parsonage and I must show you the church.  It’s been restored, too.  I’ll save that for another time. Soon.

photos from  Lavabelles Vacation Rentals