I feel very fortunate to be a visual person because Google Maps does not show the residence of Jacob and Clara Link to be located at 4435 Crittenden Drive in Louisville, Kentucky.
After a tiring day, before falling asleep, I find it a comfort to close my eyes and visit that home where my Grandparents lived.
If I make a summer visit, I step onto the front walk and look to the right towards the Senhen’s home. There is a hammock hung between two trees one of which has pears almost ripe enough for canning into preserves.
My Grandfather Link’s bicycle leans against the other tree so I know it is after 5:00 p.m. and he has returned home from the Wood Mosaic Company located farther out Crittenden Drive. He made tools for the Company because as a young man he had learned the blacksmithing trade.
Looking to the left of the home I notice a clump of Iris that had been brought from my Grandfather’s homeplace farther out the Drive. Family tradition would begin when bulbs were taken to homes in Louisville as well as far reaching states.
An old porch swing moves by a warm breeze as if my cousins are sitting there with me and we are once again singing, “Mares eat oats and Does eat oats…”
Stepping up the front porch I look inside the glass pane on the porch door to the left and see my Grandfather hanging his work clothes in the Chifforobe and know he will be heading out to his garden behind the house to tend his plants until supper time.
I open the front porch door and walk into the living room to see the familiar print of “The Agony In The Garden” hanging on the opposite wall. A large table is covered by a crocheted table cloth. A radio has a prominent place on a small table next to my Grandfather’s arm chair. A couch sits along the wall next to the pot bellied stove. I know in the front bedroom there is a mantle with a Dresden figure. I would someday sleep in the bed that once stood in that front bedroom.
A side bedroom door was next to the couch. I remember taking naps on that couch and in later years it would hold a place of honor in my Illinois Avenue home.
Off the hallway to the right was a closet and a bathroom. At the end of the hallway also to the right was a closet with a trapdoor leading to the cellar.
The kitchen and back bedroom were at the end of the hallway. The green kitchen table would one day come to Illinois Avenue.
It is easy to see my Grandmother stand beside the kitchen pot belly stove and hear her talk about her recipe for pineapple sherbet ice cream which she makes in ice cube trays in the frig.
Looking out the back door, I see my Grandfather Link has walked to his garden while I have been wandering around in his home. I think perhaps I will join him and learn how he grows sturdy tomato plants. He once told me he bought his desk with funds he gained from selling tomato plants each year. Victory Gardeners held him in high esteem for his annual crop. I have much to learn.