Remembering a Special Home

I have to thank LauraHinNJ for her recent post featuring a painting of main street in Red Bank, beautifully decorated for Christmas. It reminded me of a painting of Grandma’s house which was featured on a Christmas card a few years ago. The cards were printed to raise funds for the Canadian Mental Health Association, and I cannot even remember how I received one of them. I went on a search this morning and found the card in the top drawer of my dresser, along with many other important but forgotten cards and papers.

















As I have mentioned in other posts, Grandma and Granddad were doctors in the small town where they lived. The large red brick house, on the main street of town, was built on the same property where their first home burned down. When facing the house, the rooms to the left of the front door were where the waiting room, dispensary, examining room and office were located. The kitchen was on the other side at the front of the house, and it was a big treat to eat a meal on the flat top of the radiator in front of the window. The first floor had a large dining room, living room, and a sun room which looked out on the rear garden. The bedrooms were upstairs and the large basement housed many monsters who scared me greatly. If I was sent to the cold cellar to get something, I would stand at the top of the stairs to summon my courage and them run down and up as fast as possible. There were no wall light switches downstairs, and you had to walk into the middle of a dark room to pull a cord on a ceiling fixture. As children, we were fascinated by the dumb waiter and the laundry chute which ran from the second floor to the trap door in the laundry room. I have many happy memories of this house and still dream about it from time to time.
This painting, by Susan Hally, is very accurate except the ivy that grew on the house is missing. The brown house with green shutters was also owned by my grandparents, and next door to that was the local butcher shop. I can find nothing about the artist on the internet, and do not know if prints are even available for this painting. Thanks to digital scanning, I will be able to print and frame a copy for myself.