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Buying A Home In The 1950s
Topics: local history, Real Estate, homes, ads
Posted by citizenjournalist Tue Sep 25, 2007 09:20:49 PDT
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0 responses 0 comments Not two or three hundred thousand dollars, but ten thousand dollars was the price of an average, new, three bedroom tract home in the 1950's Bakersfield.

My wife and I had spent our first three years of marriage moving into and out of five rental houses. After our first son, Little George, was born, we decided we had had enough of nosey landlords and leaky roofs so we began shopping for out first new home. Newly married couples today would gasp at the low prices and ease of acquiring a brand new home in Bakersfield during the '50s. I had served  four years in the US Army during the Korean War so I could float a 4% GI loan on any new house under $10,000. Naturally scores of new tracts were being built, featuring homes to qualify for GI loans.

We shopped for months until we found our dream home. It was to be built in "Clarico Park". We were both born and raised in East Bakersfield so we were naturally attracted to that area. The newspaper ads claimed, "Vets no down payment, $9,999.00 total cost at $48 per month on 4% loans with no closing costs, escrow or impound fees." Some tracts were as low as $8,000 for a 3 bedroom home but we liked the Clerico Park location better. After picking out our 3 bedroom floor plan and all the colors, we were signing the sale papers when the salesman remarked there would be a fee to bind the sale, (we thought, here comes the bite), but the fee was only one dollar. As we walked out of that sales office we realized we had just bought our new home for $1.

We visited our new home-site nearly every evening to watch the construction progress and I took advantage of the opportunity to hammer scores of extra nails into any areas that looked like they needed extra strength. I also marked any mistakes I saw with a big yellow chalk X and wrote "correct this", it worked because the next day it would be corrected. We felt as though that house was becoming a part of us as we watched each stud, joist and rafter go into place.

Within two months our home was finished and all those luxury extras promised were added; a fresh air clothes dryer in the back yard, a small concrete trash burner and a four foot tall Modesto Ash tree in the front yard. But for $9,999 at $48 per month, our house was a great bargain. Besides, a healthy young couple like us could easily handle all those minor projects like lawns, landscaping, walkways, patios and fences.

At this time I was working for Bob's Muffler Shop at 24Th and N Street. My weekly salary of $75, after normal bills, didn't leave much for furnishing our new home but we learned about used appliance stores like Rhodes in East Bakersfield. A small down payment and $10 a month provided us with a refrigerator, washing machine, kitchen range, table, and chairs. Newly built houses back then had no appliances in the kitchens except a sink and cabinets. Friends and relatives gladly gave us the other needed essentials to begin our new life on Lexington Avenue.

The asphalt tile floors were satisfactory for summer time but we knew carpeting would be needed for warmth when winter arrived but we would cross that bridge when we reached it. And drapes would have to be made to cover our sliding patio doors but the important project at present was planting some grass and landscaping our dusty, barren property. We found, in time, it made no difference what kind of grass we planted, King Bermuda would win the grass war, eventually, so we planted hybrid Bermuda, besides crabgrass wouldn't dare grow in a Bermuda lawn.

Living on our tight budget required seeking out all the coupon grocery sales specials and taking advantage of the burger price wars that were fought right along with the gas price wars. Sometimes burgers sold 10 for a dollar. Occasionally, Etta, Little George and I would have a Saturday treat of a movie at the 99 Drive In Theater and on the way have dinner at Rae's Steak House on Pierce Road at 24Th Street. I don't know where they found cows big enough to produce rib steaks that large but they were as big as an elephants lower lip, served on a red hot, sizzling pewter platter with the waitress wearing asbestos gloves. Etta would immediately remove the huge rib bone from her steak and after tying a bib on Little George, he would begin gnawing the morsel to soothe his gums while teething. Shortly he would be covered with mashed potatoes, gravy and rib steak. The waitresses always got a laugh out of Little George munching that huge bone. The meal and movie cost us about five dollars.

Gasoline was usually around 29 cents or less a gallon, depending if a gas war was on, so weekend trips to the mountains or desert were frequent for recreation, fishing, rock hunting and camping out were favorites. Driving out into the foothills, letting the dog chase rabbits, hunting trapdoor spider homes, kite flying from a high hill. So many fun filled activities were practically free of cost.

All our neighbors were close friends back then and helped one another on projects like patio building, landscaping, cement work, or repairing the car. Anything that came up, someone in our neighborhood was adept at that trade. Everyone loved the lively, weekly Canasta party's, poker party's, barbeque's, fish fries or dances that someone always sponsored at their home. Etta found some tight weave, brown burlap on sale and with cotton sheets as lining she fashioned the most professional looking beautiful drapes for our patio sliding doors.

When a family ran low on groceries before their payday, the lady of the house made what became known locally as a "grocery run". A piece of cheese was borrowed from the Pritcharts, a package of spaghetti was borrowes from the Bakers, a can of tomato sauce from the Jenkins and on down the block till a meal was gathered for her family. Everyone joined in at some time so it became traditional. That was a wonderful sharing, caring group of people.

Crock pots came into use about this time and they were the greatest thing since sliced bread. Our dinner could be cooking while we were at work. I remember out first pot came with a cookbook and the first thing we prepared was navy bean soup. We even tried cooking Coots in the crock pot and that reminds me of the "Coot Shoots" of the 50's.

The Tracy ranch near Buttonwillow sponsored "Coot Shoots" every winter to thin the Coot,"Mud Hen", population because they were eating most of their grain crop. I reasoned the extra meat would help stretch our food budget. Coots are those small black waterfowl, we see everywhere, that resemble Daffy Duck. They furnished the shotgun shells and hunters showed up by the dozens. The California Department of Fish and Game conducted the shoot and furnished cookbooks which contained scores of delicious sounding recipes for preparing "White Bill", as they cunningly re-named the Mud Hens. I returned home with about a hundred Mud Hen breasts ready for the freezer. I shared them with my neighbors and using my new cook book prepared delicious sounding "Fricassee of Breast of White Bill" for dinner that night. They might change the name of a Mud Hen but that doesn't change the taste of a Mud Hen. They were a dark strong tasting meat and I tried all their recipes to no avail. Finally I tried cooking them in the crock pot with sour cream and herbs, eureka, they tasted like turkey but by then most of our neighbors had suspiciously "given theirs away".

As time went on, we and our neighbors had more children and the mothers all joined in PTA's, JBA, Campfire Girls, Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and something was always on next days agenda.

Our next door neighbor had a nine year old named "Chuckie". Now this lad was in trouble with his dad constantly, we could tell because when Chuckie was at home we could hear his name yelled loudly many times a day. Chuckie's father had recently installed a very large above ground swimming pool in their back yard. The 10,000 gallon plastic monster appeared to be on a slope but when I brought this to their attention the neighbor said it seemed safe enough. One July weekend, I and my family were barbecuing in our backyard, Chuckie and his family were frolicking in their pool next door and all was peace and calm. Then,"CHUCKEEEE",---- I heard that blood curdling yell and instantly a wall of water cascaded through our fence, down our yard and over our rear porch on its way to the front street. Chuckie had tried to climb into the pool from the outside and the wall collapsed releasing 10,000 gallons in a great tidal wave.----- For years it was talked of in our neighborhood as the "Great East-side Flood". Our water damage was slight but their pool was ruined and I guess they hauled it away because I never saw it again.

The 50s were the years of the trading stamp mania. Blue Chip Stamps, Orange, Plaid, Green, Gold Bond, Purple, Tru-Valu, the brands were endless and everyone saved them to redeem for a multitude of items, anything from a can opener to a ski boat. A school in Erie Pennsylvania saved 5.4 million Green Stamps to purchase a pair of gorillas for their local zoo. In shopping, one had to be sure to go on "double or triple stamp day". Trading stamps were given with the purchase of about everything from gasoline to funerals. It was estimated 80% of the US population saved trading stamps at that time. The premium redemption stores were scattered all over town and we usually had to stand in line with our arm loads of coupon books to get our new wheelbarrow or basketball. The trading stamp mania died in the '70s but merchandise sales over the internet spawned Greenpoints. Greenpoints have replaced Green Stamps in our new electronic world.

I truly wish all young couples beginning their married life could have the opportunity to purchase a home as Etta and I did, and if they could live in a friendly, caring neighborhood like ours it would be the greatest experience of their lives. We wouldn't trade the happiness or the heartaches of our early years of marriage in old Clerico Park for anything in the world.

                  (C) Copyrighted by George Gilbert Lynch, Aug. 12, 2003.

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