1021 Morven Street Lancaster, California 93534
(This picture was taken from Google and is only a few years old. The house looks much the same as I remember it looking when we lived there, though. We never parked cars on the side lawn, the tree in front is much larger, and I think there were trees similar to the one right by the garage planted in front of the short adobe brick wall, but other than that it hasn't changed much.)
Before I start talking about my fourth childhood home, I want to thank Amy for going to Mom & Dad's house and finding and scanning pictures taken while we lived in this house. That's why there are a lot more pictures in this post than in the others, which makes it a lot more interesting, I think. So a great big THANK YOU to Amy for her help!!! Thank you also to Frank, who figured out a way to get the picture of the front of the house off of Google. What would I do without him?
We moved from Houston, Texas to Lancaster, California in March 1977. Lancaster is in the middle of the Mojave Desert, so it was quite a change from green, humid Houston. I remember when my parents went to Lancaster to go house hunting because for the first time I had a real opinion about what I wanted our new house to be like. The main thing I remember us younger kids wanting was a pool. Don't all houses in California have a pool? Well, no, they don't (obviously-- none of our previous California houses had a pool) but we got lucky this time and our new house did indeed have a pool. I remember how excited we all were when we heard the news!
I remember the plane ride from Houston to Los Angeles because the flight we were on was continuing to Hawaii. The airline provided coloring books for us that were full of Hawaiian themed pictures. I thought it would be cool to go to Hawaii and I was disappointed that we weren't going there--and a little confused why we couldn't just stay on the plane and go! (I still haven't been to Hawaii--sigh!)
Anyway, we got off in LA. Everything seemed so bright to me; I was used to all the shade trees in Houston. I don't know exactly what day we arrived in California, but as it turns out we arrived several days ahead of our furniture; the moving van broke down or something like that. We stayed in a hotel (Antelope Valley Best Western) for several days which I thought was kind of cool but also boring because we had very few toys to play with. I remember wandering around the hotel grounds and discovering shuffle board games, small fountains and gardens. I thought it was very pretty but there wasn't much to do. The coolest part of the hotel stay was getting to eat at the hotel's coffee shop every day. I discovered that I love BLT sandwiches!
I remember going to visit the house at least once when it was still empty. I thought it was pretty ugly from the outside (particularly the rust red color) but it was a nice house in many ways.
We had a small grass yard in the front of the house. Behind the lawn, a short adobe brick wall surrounded a small courtyard immediately in front of the house. I liked the courtyard, which was made up of cement slabs with decorative brick in between. There was an opening in the middle of the courtyard where a tree was planted so it was usually fairly shady in there. There was also a pomegranite bush growing up against the house. There was a walk from the driveway up to the front door that ran along one side of the courtyard (the side that was created by the garage wall). The garage roof sloped over the front walk but in front the roof was only the beams, so you could see the sky overhead. On the right side of the front walk (next to the courtyard) there was a long bench. I liked that bench--in nice weather, it was a great place to play or to sit and read a book.
The front door opened into a small foyer that was open to the living room. Stairs leading up to the 2nd floor were on the left side of the foyer (when you walked in). They ran along the left wall, but were open to the living room on the right. To the left of the front door there was a door to the 2 car garage. I think there may have been a closet there too, but I can't remember for sure. The picture below was taken in the living room; you can see the front door in the background. I had forgotten that we had a mail slot in the front door instead of a mailbox, but there it is in the picture.
Shellie, 8th grade graduation, June 1977
Check out the orange shag carpet on the floor and the record player behind Shellie!
The living room was rather dramatic, with a cathedral ceiling. The stairs leading up to the second level had a wrought iron railing and there were no risers behind the cement slab steps, which were also covered with orange shag carpet. My mom immediately made a rule that no one was allowed to go under the steps and put their hand through the openings between steps in order to grab the ankle of someone who was ascending or descending the stairs. (For obvious safety reasons!) We also were not allowed to climb up the steps on the outside of the railing, which was possible since the railing was set four or five inches from the outer edge of the steps. At the top of the steps there was a room that was open to the living room below, with a wrought iron railing running along that side of the room. I thought it was so cool that we had an indoor balcony! My mom immediately made a rule that we were not allowed to throw or hang anyone or anything over the balcony. (For obvious safety reasons!) Erick blatantly disobeyed that rule as soon as he got home from college that spring by grabbing me in a cradling position in his arms and hanging his arms with me in them over the edge of the balcony. I remember being terrified and screaming my head off although he probably had a pretty good grip on me and I doubt now that my life was in peril. (But he still scarred me for life--thanks, Erick!) In spite of my obvious fear of heights I do remember that I sometimes liked to sit on the floor of the balcony room (as we called it) with my legs dangling over the edge--there was just enough room between the bottom of the railing and the floor for me to slide my legs through there. Sadly, it doesn't appear that we took any pictures of the stairs or the balcony so you will just have to try to visualize them.
The living room also had a fireplace on the front wall (opposite from the balcony) which you can see in the photo below:
There was a sliding glass door to the backyard (actually side yard, I guess) on the right wall (opposite from the stairs) which you can see behind the couch in the picture below:
Ben and Tim, probably around February 1978
Those things on their arms were full of air and the idea was you could "box" each other without hurting anyone or anything. Theoretically, anyway...!
Or maybe that is actually a window behind the couch. There may have been a window next to the sliding glass door; I can't remember for sure. The door is definitely behind Tim in the picture below, although it is covered up by lovely orange curtains (to match the orange shag carpet). Gotta love all the orange!
Tim's 11th birthday, March 1978
Behind the living room was a large eat in kitchen. When entering the kitchen, the cupboards and appliances were on the right; they ran along the front wall and turned the corner on the right wall. I think there may have been a pantry in the left wall but I don't remember for sure. The right wall was lined with windows and the back wall also had windows as well as another sliding glass door leading to the back yard.
Here is Ben sitting on the kitchen table. (February 1978, sixth birthday) Did we really have a harvest gold dishwasher?! Apparently we did--you can see it on the right side of the picture behind Ben. (Well, it was the 70's after all.) You can also see a window behind Ben. It was one of these windows along this wall that a burgler used to enter our house one night (after removing the screen), although he (or she) left everything except my Mom's purse untouched and the only thing missing from my Mom's purse was a small amount of cash. (We found her purse in the bushes later, after cancelling all the credit cards and changing the locks on our house.) But I digress. In the picture below you can see a little more of the kitchen counters and cabinets. I had forgotten that the counters were white tile until I saw this picture. I also forgot about the ugly brown shade over the kitchen window, but I do remember I liked having a window over the kitchen sink because I could look outside while I did the dishes. I think there was a shelf just outside this window for plants, but we didn't use it (none of us were really green thumbs back then).
March 1978
Clockwise from left: Amy, Ben, Hans, Me, Tim, Shellie
Ben, February 1978. Yes, he got two cakes that year. This one was for the family, on his actual birthday. The other one was for his birthday party.
You can kind of see in this picture that the eat in area of the kitchen was fairly large. There was room behind the kitchen table for the typing table you can see in the photo, as well as for several other pieces of furniture. You can see the linoleum floor, too. When we moved into the house, this whole area had shag carpet (brown, I think). Who puts shag carpet in their eating area?! My parents were not thrilled with it either, apparently, because shortly after moving in, they pulled up the carpet and installed the linoleum floor, which came in squares. You can see more of the floor in the picture below. I remember I liked the new floor although it looks a bit wild to me now.
Ben, February 1978
In the picture above you can see more of the furniture that fit along the left wall. This picture also shows the beginning of a hallway. If you went down this hallway, there was a bathroom and the master bedroom (with its own bathroom at the back, probably directly behind the hall bathroom) on the left and a laundry room and another bedroom (Shellie's) on the right. There was a built in cabinet at the end of the hallway. The hall bathroom had a tub but the upstairs bathroom didn't, so I remember taking baths down there. I remember that a few times when Shellie wasn't home she let Amy and I sleep in her room, which was a special treat (for some reason).
In the photo below you can see the sliding glass door leading out into the backyard. (Mickey is taped to it). I think that's my Mom's desk on the left (behind Donald) and you can see more orange curtains on the right. (In our defense, I think all the orange curtains were already there when we moved in.)
I included the picture below because you can see some of the detail of the linoleum floor. Plus, that's a pretty cool cake, don't you think? Those red hearts are chewy candy hearts. Shellie probably decorated the cake--she did most of the cake decorating by this time, being a lot more talented at it than the rest of us.
I don't have any pictures taken in the upstairs of the house. The balcony room was at the top of the stairs and extended to the right. We used this room for a television / family room. There was a window in the right wall that had a wooden shade instead of curtains. I liked the shade because it had a colored glass panel in it. There were three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs also. The bedroom that Amy and I shared was immediately behind the balcony room, in the corner of the house located over the kitchen. It had dark blue shag carpet on the floor; I remember I liked the color. It was a pretty large room, with plenty of room for our twin beds and other furniture, and it had a large walk in closet too (on the left wall). I don't remember much about the room's decor anymore except that there was a red, white and blue striped curtain on the window (in the wall opposite from the door and closet) which clashed spectacularly with our cute pink / green / yellow pastel bedding that we brought from the Houston house. I liked the "4th of July" curtains, though. We may have used different bedspreads while living there (maybe red or dark blue ones?) but I can't remember now.
The bedroom next to ours (overlooking the backyard) belonged to Hans. He shared it at various times with Erick or Curtis, although Erick was living at college (BYU) a lot of the time that we lived in Lancaster and Curtis was on his mission when we moved there and came home very shortly before we moved away. He only lived in the house for a couple of weeks. Next to Hans's room, on the opposite corner of the house from the room Amy and I shared, was the bedroom that Tim and Ben shared. A large L-shaped walk in closet connected their bedroom to Hans's room. When we moved into the house, we could walk all the way through the closet from one room into the other, which we thought was pretty cool. Shortly after we moved in, however, my dad built shelves for the closet which were placed so that the large closet was divided into two smaller ones and we couldn't walk through it anymore. The upstairs bathroom was next to Tim & Ben's bedroom, across the hall from Hans's room.
That finishes up the description of the house. We had a large backyard at this house too, but there was no lawn. The entire backyard was concrete slabs with decorative brick trim, just like the courtyard in front, with the exception of the small narrow side yard on the master bedroom side of the house, where there was dirt--we planted a garden there but I don't remember having much success with it. Having a concrete backyard may sound extremely barren, but it wasn't. There were a number of openings in the concrete where trees were planted--mostly in the side yard next to the kitchen. Those trees had fruit on them that looked like cherries but tasted like plums. We dubbed this strange fruit "chums", and for years after we moved away from Lancaster, you could still find jars of "chum jam" on our pantry shelf. At some point someone told us that the real name of the fruit was Chinese Plum, but by then the name "chum" had stuck. Sometimes we missed having a grassy backyard (and the swing set and jungle gym had to be sold before we left Houston) but the concrete was good for games of hopscotch or four square.
This photo of me on my 9th birthday (July 5, 1977) was taken in the backyard. You can see the concrete ground in front of me and some of the brick trim behind me. You can also see that the yard was surrounded by a tall adobe brick wall. (Notice I got a life preserver, for use in the pool. I got some great presents that year, by the way. That big Lego set was so cool...we built things with that set by the hour. We played the Cat's Eye game by the hour too...that's what kids used to do before there were video games. And I am so mad at myself for not keeping that Holly Hobbie colorforms dollhouse set! It had vinyl furniture cutouts that could be stuck wherever I wanted on the dollhouse panel, which had three stories with a large room on each floor. The panel with the house could be propped up and a lamp put behind it. Several of the windows / lights had cut outs in the cardboard and were covered with a thin paper so that when the light was on behind it, it looked like the lights in the house were on and that moonlight was shining in the windows--so cool!) Ok, that was a long sidetrack; sorry. The entire back end of the yard was fenced off with a wrought iron fence enclosing the pool area. (My mom immediately made a rule that we were not allowed to go into this area at all unless we were with an adult, for obvious safety reasons. Are you noticing a theme here?) There was a large planter with trees and flowers at one end of the pool area (it was a pain to get the hoses out there to water it), but most of this area was filled up by the pool.
Here is Ben standing in front of the gate to the pool. (May, 1977) Doesn't he look cute in his baseball uniform? I remember the first time we went to see the house that I rested my arms on top of the gate and got quite a shock (a static electric one). Behind Ben, you can see the shallow end of the pool. There were steps on the side nearest to him. On the far left of the picture you can sort of see a seat on the far side of the pool. Shellie and several friends (I think her YW class maybe) are sitting on this seat in the picture below:
July 1977
Shellie is in the pool, second from left
On the far left of this picture you can barely see some brick steps. The deck around that end of the pool (the deep end) was higher than the rest of the pool area. There was a small diving board on that end, too. I did not know how to swim when we moved to California, but I took lessons while we were there and became fairly proficient. We actually got to take lessons for free in our own pool because we allowed the YMCA to use our pool to teach several swimming classes in the mornings during the summer months. (I still remember one little boy who must have been scared of water, who would arrive at our house screaming for every lesson and had to be dragged through our side yard to the pool by his mother. He probably still has nightmares about our house.) We had to stay away from the pool while lessons were going on--we were only allowed outside for our own lessons. I don't remember spending a ton of time in the pool, but we all look very tan and / or sunburned in most of the pictures from this era, with sunbleached hair, so we probably swam more often than I think we did and by the time we moved away I could swim underwater from one end of the pool to the other (the long way) without coming up for air. Hans was even more impressive--he learned how to blow water out of his lungs so that he could walk on the bottom of the pool in the deep end.
Here's one more shot taken in the backyard, where you can see one of the trees growing in the planter in the pool area as well as the pool area wall, just to the right of the gate. (My birthday photo was taken in the corner behind where Erick is standing, next to the adobe brick wall.)
Erick in September 1978, shortly before leaving for his mission.
Love the glasses! And the wide tie! :)
Our house was in a neighborhood surrounded by another adobe brick wall. I didn't like this neighborhood as much as the Houston neighborhood--it wasn't as pretty and I didn't really find a "kindred spirit" among the neighborhood kids, at least not until another Mormon family with girls close to my age moved in down the street.
We used to walk down the street and around 3 corners to get to our bus stop just outside our development on 10th Street East. There was a large vacant lot just outside the neighborhood where Joshua trees and various other cactus grew. (I doubt it's vacant now though.) A few blocks down 10th Street on the corner of Avenue J, there was a grocery store called Market Basket. Across the street from the grocery store was a Seven Eleven; we sometimes rode our bikes over there to buy candy. Our church building was also on Avenue J, a few blocks down from the Seven Eleven. It was a walkable distance from our home, but it was a long walk and I only remember actually walking there once.
Lancaster was very small when we lived there (I hear it's grown a lot since then.) It was quite a change from the large suburban areas we lived in previously, in Houston and Denver. There weren't a lot of places to shop--I remember going to a department store called Gemco (kind of like Wal-Mart, only MUCH smaller) to buy birthday presents for siblings but I think my parents had to roam pretty far afield, to the outskirts of Los Angeles maybe, to get any serious shopping done for things like Christmas or boys going on missions. The area was somewhat agricultural, I think, and there was a community fair every year--I remember going to see a rodeo at the fair once.
We only lived in Lancaster for about 18 months, arriving in March 1977 and moving away in December 1978. I liked living there but I don't remember being terribly sad when the time came to move again.
