It looks a little different here, but my cousin was taking a ride in northern Ohio and took a picture of this house recently. My dad and friends built most of it from 1964 to 1965. Almost every weekend and some evenings during the week, I was there helping—lots of shoveling, 
both dirt and gravel.
During sixth grade, we lived in town above the bar my grandparents owned. Seven people cramped into a two-bedroom apartment with a converted room for my bedroom. It was a walk-through room for everyone, so there wasn’t much privacy. A major feature this place had over the first home was heat. Well, that and a lot more room.
The first home we lived in on Peck Road was about 700 square feet, and the only heat was a stove in the living room and opening the oven on frigid nights. I didn’t have a bedroom there either, and I was afforded little privacy. It was always cold in the winter. I liked it there, though. It had a great woods behind it for walking around all day or sitting in the woods daydreaming.
We moved to this home a month before 7th grade started. It wasn’t finished, but it was close enough. The floors were still plywood, and there were mounds of dirt out front. My dad and I cleared land by hand for two horses, built a couple of barns, and put in a fence, barbed wire, and electric.
Clearing the land was done with a chain, tractor, and me with an ax chopping roots while he pulled the tree forward with the chain and tractor. Other times, we traveled back roads collecting rocks for the driveway. It had a spring under it, and we had to fill it. We’d load rocks, toss those in the driveway, and pound the rocks with sledgehammers, watching the rock and stone disappear before getting another load. Because horses like to eat bark, one of my jobs that seemed never ending was to creosote the remaining trees.
What looks like a new barn behind the house is different from the one we built. The one to the right looks like the one we built, but I’m unsure. The front yard looks different today, too. The fence along the right side wasn’t there either, nor were the rocks in the yard just above the four trees to the left in the picture.
When my grandfather died during my junior year, I moved back to the bar to be with my grandmother. We only lived about 3-4 miles from the bar, and my mom worked there, so I saw her most days.
By the way, for those who think having horses is fun, it’s not. They have to be watered and fed every day, and in the winter, I would go out before school, light paper on fire to thaw the outdoor spigots and carry buckets of water to fill their water. Getting hay wasn’t so bad, but you had to clean the barn, and in the winter with a pitchfork, it’s almost a joke to try to do it. I have other ideas of fun than chipping away frozen horse manure.
We also staked the horses out to eat grass in the summer, which fell to me. It’s another great way to waste a day. Other people would ride, but not me; I got to the point where I hated the horses. My wife thinks the horses are a chick magnet. They weren’t for me; they were work.
When my parents decided to sell the quarter horse, people came when my parents weren’t home. I sold the horse and threw in the saddle for a total of $125.00 to get rid of it. When my parents got home and found out, they wanted to get rid of me.
Fast-forward to around 2000, when I started dating my future bride, Dawn. At some point, when her parents deemed it okay to invite me to their home, I walked in, and it was like deja vu. Everything, with a tiny exception, was like the home pictured. Thinking about it, my dad helped build her home she moved to Mantua to begin ninth grade. I remember my dad took the original, reworked one small area upstairs, and made another change with the basement.
I contacted the current owner when we decided to move back to Mantua. In calling, I wanted to see if he wanted to sell. No, he didn’t. When we found a home, I called again to see if he had changed his mind. He hadn’t. He did offer to let me stop by if I ever wanted to. That was 2022.
Remembering his offer, I mentioned it to my wife, suggesting she experienced what I did a little over 20 years ago. She said yes. So, now I have to try to find his number again.