In December of 1977, I proposed marriage to Michael. He declined my offer. I don't remember exactly what he said or how he said it, but I didn't actually hear the word, "NO!" I heard "Later." We kept on dating.

In December of 1978, Michael proposed marriage to me. I recall answering with a resounding, "When?" Michael remembers it differently.

No one knew of our "engagement" until April of 1979, when I told my parents. Later the same month we officially picked a date, September 15, and I rearranged my vacation from work. I was willing to give up my Easter (birthday) week so that a co-worker could get more "visit time" out of her trip home to New Mexico to visit her mother. Somewhat "swapping" vacations was frowned upon by the Union, but there were only nice people between us on the seniority list. It all worked out, as you will see later.

During our pre-nuptial conversations, it had been decided that we, between us, had enough money to put a down payment on a house and enough of an income to afford it. We would have to be careful and modest in our house shopping. We hoped for a small single house. A semi-detached or end of the row townhouse was our second choice. We didn't really let ourselves hope for a nice yard and full-grown trees.

I had called a local realtor and asked to be shown houses in the price range that Michael and I thought would be appropriate. Well, every house they came up with was either $10,000 more or in desperate need of demolition! I began to lose heart. A house in my parent's neighborhood was becoming a distinct possibility. Don't get me wrong, I adore my parents. I adored my parents so much that at age 26 I was still living at home with them. I just wasn't sure that moving "across the street" was the way that I wanted to start my/our married life.

On June 14, 1979 while I was taking my usual route to work, I saw a "For Sale" sign in the front yard of a house. The house had white aluminum siding, with green faux window shutters and two very tall spruce trees in the front yard. It was a small single house with a bit of a yard. I rapidly memorized the realtor's telephone number.

At work a vague awareness that the house was familiar to me started to form. During my morning break, I telephoned the realtor and set up to see the house the following evening. He told me the "asking" price and I hung up the phone knowing that I had just found our house!

One of my co-workers, a lovely lady named Blanche, had overheard my conversation and asked me if I knew what the address was for my potential house. I didn't, so I described the structure's exterior to her. She asked me if I remembered Eleanor (nee Frederick) Friday.

Then I remembered, she had been one of the nice ladies that worked on the third floor of the building when I had come there for a "job visit" about seven years earlier.

Then I remembered - she had been murdered in that house by her husband's nephew! He had escaped from the State Hospital across the street and broke into her house to get drug money. It was a big tragedy! Another nephew of hers was my parents' paperboy when I was very young.

Believe-it-or-not, my mind was actually spinning! I wanted this house. I knew that it was in our price range and it had at least two full-grown trees. (The backyard wasn't visible from the street.)

Blanche reassured me. She had been friends with Eleanor for years and thought that she would like the idea of me living there. Eleanor's house was very important to her; she had bought it by herself before she married. Eleanor had married "later in life" as they used to say.

The next evening my parents and I went to look at the house. As I walked up to the front door, I realized that the house number was "1002." My parents house, the only other place that I have actually lived, is "1000."

The interior of the house was delightful. It was a "small house with big rooms" as Michael says.

The living room had three windows and two doorways, but still had enough straight line wall space to place a sofa and other furniture.

Each bedroom had two windows and an adequate closet.

The bathroom was ceramic tile, pink and ruby. Pink isn't my favorite color for a bathroom. I will admit that it adds a certain warmth.  And indoor plumbing was a definite "must".

The kitchen had a ceramic tile floor, (mosaic) countertop and tiled walls with 1950's knotty pine cabinets with small shelves on both sides of the window over the kitchen sink. An actual window, over the sink, facing the backyard! The other kitchen window was over the stove and faced the neighbors' front yards and the street.

We were going to have a basement: a full basement with a concrete floor and plumbing hook up for a washer.

The backyard, oh my, the backyard was wonderful. About twenty large deciduous trees lined up the yard to the small hill where the property line was. A nice little hill where you might want to bring a sled when it snows or roll down the hill on a warm Spring day. We were going to own trees, actual trees! Later that night, Michael and I went to dinner at our local favorite place. As we drove past the house, I tried to point and say, "See all of those tall trees, they're going to be ours." At dinner, I excitedly drew the floor plan of the house for him on a napkin.

I wish that I had kept the sketch, not that it good or even very accurate. It would have looked good scanned in for our website.

We made settlement on our house on July 6, 1979. Settlement was just in time to save the previous owner from having the mortgage foreclosed. We became the seventh owners of a twenty-four year old house.

The Ten-Oh-Two (1002) Project had officially begun. . . .