Growing up in Florida during the 1920s and 1930s,
my memory is that many families moved twice yearly to accommodate
“winter visitors” from the north. To me, moving days were
almost always in the spring or fall. Even during the 1940s, as reliable
a source as Webster's Dictionary defined the term as, “A
day on which many tenants change their residences: In the United
States, moving days are May 1 and October 1.”
And so perhaps I may be forgiven my casual
approach in starting to look for a truck and crew to move us in
wartime Washington. After all, our new apartment manager had designated
January 15 as move in day for all tenants. Little did I suspect
that locating a mover was nearly as difficult as finding an apartment.
In Washington, it seemed, EVERY day was moving day.
We discovered quickly that getting a date with Betty
Grable would almost be easier than hiring a moving company for
even a few hours! The list of wails and woes put forth by each
moving company made us feel we were making an unreasonable demand
rather than a request to hire their services. My first dozen or
more inquiries each met with such a litany of complaints about
overwork and overbooking that it began to appear our choices were
between waiting an extra four months or locating a horse and wagon.
Finally, I decided there was no choice but to beg
for a favor from a former employer. As luck would have it, a past
temporary secretarial position had been with a small moving and
storage company. The fact that I had said hello to the owner of
the company began to assume enormous importance. And so I called
on this kind gentleman and poured my urgent tale of woe into his
already overtaxed ears. Maybe my desperate appeal frightened him.
Probably he was so exhausted already that he was unable to offer
adequate resistance. It's possible he was just being kind. At
any rate he agreed to move us.
Moving Day At Last…
January 15, 1944, was the day we were to occupy our
new apartment— a date designated by the builder as the time
our new unit was to be completed. I suppose the phrase "ready
for occupancy" is a most flexible one. I'm sure our definition
didn't coincide with that of the construction crew. We were poles
apart on that idea — just
how far apart we were still blissfully unaware!
On January 15, then, we rose with the sun in a state
of great expectancy —
and also a sense of urgency as a major snowstorm had been forecast
for later in the day. We completed all the usual last minute packing,
tripping and stumbling over the boxes, barrels, baskets and all
the sundry odds and ends we had accumulated in order to be ready
for moving day.
I'm sure the assortments assembled in each of our
packing boxes would have charmed any garage sale enthusiast. In
our haste, we did indeed create intricate gatherings of strange
bedfellows: The contents of the medicine cabinet were mixed right
in with the kitchen spices. Another basket was indiscriminately
filled with canned goods, tennis shoes, our photograph albums,
decks of cards, my hair dryer and a rack of pipes. The coffee
pot and frying pan, which were kept out to use in preparing breakfast,
were shoved inside the dirty clothes bag, flanked by the electric
clocks and toaster, and the entire conglomeration was hidden by
the sheets and pillow cases which had been on duty until that
morning. All our half empty cereal boxes and cartons of staples
had inside them smaller and smaller packages until each was just
like a child's set of nesting blocks. It was more fun re-opening
them at the other end of the trip —
like "Cracker Jacks," with a surprise in each box!
By the time the movers arrived, we had already
crammed and squeezed into our car everything we felt was fragile
or in need of special attention. And the husky moving men, handling
our possessions like experienced jugglers, soon took care of loading
everything else in their van.
And so we were off. I squeezed into the front seat
of the car, surrounded on all sides by suitcases and clothing.
While I clutched the glass coffee maker in one hand and the bowl
of ivy in the other, my husband eased the car into gear and our
moving day began in earnest. Do things sound too easy at this
point? Ah...then you are much wiser than we were!
Our Arrival
and the Sea of Mud…
On arrival, we found our moving
van parked along the main road, several hundred yards from the
building. We drove up behind it and joined the movers in surveying
the uninviting landscape in front of our new apartment.
Vague plans must have been made for a drive in front
of the apartments, for stakes had been placed here and there.
At this point, however, the entire terrain from the main road
to the apartment door was one vast expanse of slippery, slimy
mud, interlaced with ruts of varying widths and depths.
Sidewalks were non-existent. The lawn was only a
dream of the far distant future. The shrubbery and trees which
eventually would beautify the grounds were, I suppose, still living
happily in the mother forest. In their places were ugly, smelly,
smoky, black smudgepots placed at random throughout the grounds.
Dump carts were abandoned in the mud. Odds and ends of lumber,
piles of trash, soda bottles, newspapers, cans of paint and lunch
bags completed this initial landscaping.
In the background stood the bleak apartment buildings,
all wartime models — plain
and severe, devoid of all unnecessary frills. They had no screens,
no blinds, no railings, no gutters or drains, no steps, no mailboxes.
We didn't care. To us those details were then insignificant.
Our immediate problem was to find a trail by which
we could reach our entrance. It seemed to be a question of every
man for himself, so we chose a couple of choice ruts, beckoned
to the moving van to follow, then bounced, jolted and twisted
our way through the slushy mire to a point some one hundred yards
from our apartment. From here, the only way to continue the journey
was by foot. Dodging mud puddles and assorted debris, we made
a slow and tedious trip to the gangplank leading into our home-to-be.
I'm sure no pirate of old, boarding his conquered
sloop, ever felt more victorious than we did when we actually
took possession of our hard-won prize! Alas, our elation was of
very brief duration. Even before we entered the outer door, the
sickening odor of fresh paint drifted out to us; once we crossed
the threshold it was easy to understand the reason.
Meet the
Painters…
The painters were there, in action.
All the walls were freshly painted, still wet and, of course,
the areas last painted were the things we would be most likely
to touch — the doors,
woodwork, and window sills.
One of the painters was in a most jovial mood. He
had been forced to work overtime in order to complete the unit
and had been drowning his sorrows the past two nights. To overcome
the aftermath of his indulgence, he was still celebrating after
a fashion. He didn't care what he painted nor where just then.
I think that with only a slight prompting he would gladly have
given all our furniture a quick once-over as well.
The Moving
Men Had Their Own System…
One perilous trip from car to apartment was
enough for me. I gave up quickly and, as an expectant mother and
member of the weaker sex, exercised my prerogative to stay indoors
and supervise while the men carried out their duties as human
pack horses.
I soon lost count of the number of excursions they
made to and from the car and truck. What I do remember most distinctly
is the accumulation of mud on their feet. This muddy coating increased
and thickened each time they entered the door until by the time
the last chair was inside their feet and legs looked just like
big, clumsy columns of dripping, oozing mud.
I dashed about frantically, trying to place newspapers
in what I hoped would be their paths, seldom guessing correctly.
Generally the newspapers uselessly fluttered about and never managed
to connect with the main concentrations of mud. By the time the
last box had been carried in, the apartment floor looked like
a stable badly in need of cleaning. Worse, whenever the movers
walked too close to the walls, the mud and fresh paint combined
to form many intricate and interesting patterns.
Earlier I had entertained hopes of telling the movers
where to place furniture so that when they left we could sail
right into our usual housekeeping. Alas, no —
their job was simply to move and once the article was dumped down,
wild horses couldn't persuade them to place it elsewhere.
Except for our living room and bedroom furniture,
every other item of our household possessions was carted into
our tiny second bedroom and piled to the ceiling. At least when
something was missing we knew where to look. This small room at
one time contained all our silverware, dishes, sheets, towels,
pots, pans, miscellaneous kitchen utensils, our entire stock of
groceries, cleaning supplies, books, magazines, record and photograph
albums, all our clothing, lamps, blankets, clocks, suitcases,
bric-a-brac, curtains, blankets, etc. Everything!
In our inexperience, we had labeled nothing and
neither of us could remember which box contained what, so finding
anything become a major treasure hunt. Nevertheless, not one item
was broken! I suppose that should be proof of our wonderful packing
but more likely it's just proof that a kind providence was smiling
on us that morning.
Harold Saves
The Day…
My husband, Harold, dined out for
months on the story of his own near disaster on moving day. Our
prized wedding gifts had been six lovely shrimp cocktail glasses,
very large and fragile, and also six beautiful long-stemmed water
goblets. Had the packing of these items been left to me, I would
have put them in a box the best way I could and held them in my
lap during the ride over to the apartment. I'm also sure that
no more than half of them would have survived. But Harold insisted
on taking over this detail...
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Marguerite & Harold
in their
new apartment
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He must have spent an hour preparing the glasses
for their journey, handling each as carefully as a precious gem.
He stuffed them with tissue, wrapped and re-wrapped each with
layers and layers of paper and put six glasses in a box large
enough, I thought, to hold all our dishes and glasses. He was
most particular that at least several inches of filler lay between
each item and when the operation was completed he tenderly replaced
the top and announced that we could transport these boxes ourselves.
We made a soft nest for them in the back seat
amid some blankets and cast many an anxious eye on our precious
cargo en route to our destination. When we arrived, Harold permitted
no one to help him remove them from the car. His journey through
the mud was successful. Not once did he falter. Neatly balancing
the two boxes, he walked the narrow gangplank with professional
ease and triumphantly reached the entrance. Possibly he had become
overconfident, but at this point disaster struck. As he attempted
to open the heavy door, he momentarily lost his balance and both
boxes slipped from his arms, hurling themselves and their precious
cargo onto a cement ledge some twelve feet below.
Now at this turn of events anyone else would just
have accepted the inevitable, climbed down to pick up the battered
boxes and shattered bits of glassware and ruefully carted them
to the trashpile. Not Harold! He jumped down, collected the boxes,
carried them into the kitchen, unwrapped them carefully, and one
by one held up the glistening goblets, each completely intact,
and said boastfully, “See, I told you I knew how to pack
these darned things!”
Finally, all our possessions were safely inside
and our movers tramped out, leaving their final contribution of
mud with each step. As they left, the first few flakes of snow
began to drift down lazily, only a gentle prelude to the heavy
blanket soon to follow.
Cold, Dark and Hungry…
Shortly thereafter the resident
manager paid us a visit to present a list of rules by which we
were to govern our conduct in our new community home. We were
also visited in turn by the plumber, by the electrician, by the
man to “see about the stove” which was not yet connected,
by the man “to see about the refrigerator” which stood
in the middle of the kitchen floor, by the janitor “to see
about the trash” and by the building superintendent to “see
about everything.”
Apparently they were all just on a harmless sightseeing
tour for nothing more was accomplished. The stove still wouldn't
burn, the electric refrigerator would still not make ice, the
lights were not on, the water wouldn't run, the bathroom equipment
could not be operated in a modern manner, the trash still lay
in heaps everywhere.
But one thing was operating. Our jolly little painter
was still with us, working away with his paintbrush, slapping
at everything within reach.
When the last visitor departed, we had our first
moment of calm and could begin to take a careful look at our new
surroundings. The living room furniture was huddled in the center
of the room, solemn and grotesque. Sections of the bed frame lay
in the bedroom, each leaning in a different direction. Our bed
linens, blankets and pillows were somewhere in that shapeless
mess which rose ceiling high in the small room, possibly on top
but more likely at the bottom of the heap.
It was January and we were cold, for we could
not turn on the heat until the paint on the radiators was dry.
Before night, we'd probably have to unshuffle every package to
find the makings of a decent bed. Before we could prepare a meal
we would first have to unscramble all the groceries and cooking
utensils and also persuade someone to connect the stove. If we
wanted a drink of water we would probably have to borrow our jolly
painter's thermos.
Home At
Last…
We looked out through dirty, paint-spattered
windows onto a landscape strewn with rubbish as far as our eyes
could see. The sky overhead had gradually darkened to an ugly
foreboding gray. The snow that had begun so gently was now falling
heavily.
But as we watched we could see the snow gradually
forming into banks and drifts, slowly obliterating the ugliness
of the grounds and transforming the construction debris into statues
of ghostly beauty. We could also see our neighbors scurrying faster
and faster on their trips from their cars into their respective
apartments, hastening to complete moving before the rapidly falling
snow completely erased the paths they had so painstakingly tramped
out in the mud.
To anyone else, the picture before us would have
been one of filthy disorder and barren ugliness. But to us the
scene became a vision of loveliness, shaped by our own hopes and
feelings. Just as the snow transformed the wretched smudge pots
into objects of sculptured beauty, so did our joy in securing
a home, together with our dreams of the future, cause us to see
a park instead of a construction site.
We would soon be parents. And we had crossed
the threshold into a new environment, among people we had yet
to meet. But we were home.
