My Childhood Home & Neighborhood, Part 2--Denver, Colorado

My second childhood home was located at 3065 S. Clayton Street in Denver, Colorado.  We moved to this home sometime in 1971--I think late summer or early fall.  We only lived in this house for about two years, but I remember this house a lot better than the first one.  I guess a lot of connections in the brain are established between the ages of 3 and 5!  I don't have any photographs of this house, but the picture above of my sisters Amy, Shellie and I was taken in the front yard.  (I think the picture was taken before a Relief Society fashion show that we were in--check out the cute dresses my mom sewed for us!)  You can see part of the driveway and garage of the house.  I'm pretty sure the house was white with red brick trim.  There was a large window in the front room and a bay window in the master bedroom. 

This house was one story with a full basement.  There were 3 bedrooms and two bathrooms on the main level.  I remember the layout of the main level pretty well, but the basement is a little fuzzy.  There was at least one bedroom down there (maybe 2) where my older brothers slept.  I think my grandpa Johnson helped do some renovations down there after we moved in--finished the bedrooms or added some closets or something like that.  I think the laundry room was under the stairs in the basement.  The basement also had a 2nd kitchen that we didn't use and a room that we used as a family room (that's where the television was).  I think there might have been another room that we used as a playroom too--but I could be imagining that!  I don't remember if there was a bathroom down there or not.

The main level is a lot clearer in my mind.  The front door opened into a small foyer area that opened up to the living room (I think there was a decorative half wall between the foyer and the living room.)  The kitchen / dining area was behind the living room.  It wasn't open to the living room, but there were two large doorways that led to the kitchen--one was opposite the front door.  That one led into the kitchen area, with the basement stairs and a door to the backyard on the left.  The other doorway was at the far end of the living room and that one led into the dining area.  There was a door in the dining area that went out to the back porch.  I think that wall (next to the porch door) had some built in shelves and / or cabinets.  There was a hall way to the left of the foyer that led to the bedrooms.  If I remember right, there was a bathroom and the master bedroom (which had its own bathroom) on the left and two other bedrooms on the right.  Tim and Ben (after he got big enough to move out of my parents' room) were in the first bedroom and Amy, Shellie and I shared the last bedroom on the right.  We slept in a bunk bed with Shellie on top and Amy & I in the bottom bunk.  (We were small enough that we fit in a twin bed easily.)  I'm sure it was a bit of a trial for Shellie to share a room with us, but after we moved out of the Denver house she never had to share a room with us again.

I think my favorite parts of this house were the back porch / yard and the bay window.  Here are a few pictures that were taken in the backyard:   

Amy and I, the day of our fourth birthday party.  Looks like we had roses growing in the backyard, and the back fence was tall and dark.

We had this cool swing set in the backyard that we played on a lot.  The swing set was brand new when this photo was taken; I think it replaced a smaller one.  That's me on the slide.  The girl on the teeter totter swing is a party guest.  You can see in this photo that the side fences were white and not as tall as the back fence.  I remember if I climbed on the fence a little bit I could see into the next yard.

Here's another shot taken in the backyard--this time on Halloween.  (Curtis and Erick must have been too old to dress up and Ben was too little...if he had even been born yet.  Not sure if this photo was taken in 1971 or 1972.  He was born while we lived in this house.)  In this photo you can see the corner of the back porch, as well as a pitching net which was probably Erick's.  The yard was a decent size--big enough for all us kids to run around in, anyway!  For one of our birthdays, Amy & I received a sand box which was kept on the back porch.  It was a really nice sandbox, with a red, white & blue striped awning on top.  We spent a lot of happy hours on the back porch playing in that sandbox!

I remember this neighborhood a lot better than my first one too.  Right across the street was the elementary school that some of my older siblings attended.  I looked forward to going there when I got old enough but we moved the fall I began Kindergarten, so I never did get to do that.  Sometimes during the summer, on weekends, or after school hours we would go across the street to play on the school play ground.  In the winter there was a hill on the edge of the playground where we would ride down sleds. 

Part way down the street there was an empty lot where kids liked to ride bikes / tricycles.  I think I ventured down there once by myself (on my tricycle) but I'm pretty certain that I was not supposed to do that.  I also remember walking to the corner once with some of my siblings and neighborhood kids to a traffic light that had a crosswalk, just so we could push the "walk" button, stop traffic, and cross the street.  I thought this was great fun but we got in trouble for it later.  If we went the other way down the street a long ways (past the empty lot), our street ended at a park that had a dragon made out of concrete.  I wanted to go there a lot but I was not allowed to go that far without a much older sibling or an adult.  That's one of the things I remember about Denver--there were lots of parks.  We went to a number of them when my brothers were playing Little League games or with friends.

Me coming down the slide at a Denver park

The days we lived in Denver were happy ones for me, overall.  I was young and fairly carefree.  I always had brothers and sisters to play with and sometimes we played with other kids too.  I remember a girl named Susan lived on one side of us--she was Tim's age and she was an only child, which was hard for me to imagine.  On the other side was a boy named Robert who was also about Tim's age, with a little sister named Colleen who was a year or two younger than me.  I can remember going to their houses to play sometimes.

Other places I remember visiting while we lived in Denver were the mint, the zoo, Rocky Mountain National Park, the Royal Gorge, Mesa Verde, and Pikes Peak & the Garden of the Gods.  We also went through the Eisenhower Tunnel.  I was kind of scared of tunnels at that age, but the Eisenhower Tunnel was well lit.  I loved the mountains and I loved it when it snowed!  (I have outgrown the love of snow, however, although I still love mountains.)  I think it was at this age that I began to love doing new things and seeing new places. 

That's my memories of my second childhood home. 

(If you look it up on Google maps, the house looks somewhat different--I think it's been painted a darker color and the large living room window has been replaced by another bay window.  The school is still there and looks just how I remember it.)