Having retired, I was faced with a difficult problem.
I realized, from past observation, that it was necessary that I should find something that would keep me interested and occupied, if I was not to begin to deteriorate mentally and physically. I had no hobbies; I didn't play cards; I didn't care for hunting deer (with a shotgun) or for fishing; I hadn't played golf since the morning of Pearl Harbor. After much thought I decided to remodel the old slave quarters on the place and to fit it up as a wood working shop, with a carefully selected assortment of power tools. I had always liked to work with my hands, but, in my 46 years service, I had never had the time and the opportunity to do so, since it had been so easy to call the QM or the Engineer for a plumber, carpenter or electrician.
As a matter of fact I didn't know the difference between a bench saw and a band saw or a jig saw.
After studying numerous catalogs and conferring with many different people I installed a fairly complete wood working shop and purchased a number of handbooks on the various tools, which I studied assiduously.
The shop has been a boon to me, and I know of no more pleasant or more effective means of providing both physical and mental exercise and relaxation for a retired person. It has enabled me to build a good deal of furniture and to take over practically all maintenance work connected with the place.
Each piece of furniture that I have built has been designed to meet a particular need, and has been an original design. In each case the design has taken considerable time. Having decided upon the general type of piece desired, I have studied various catalogs, reviewed a number of Homecraft magazines which I have accumulated, and examined much furniture in stores, homes, motels and elsewhere. Then in the actual design the detailed dimensions of each joint and of each piece of lumber have had to be worked out. Next it has been necessary to plan just how, with the equipment available (or required to be procured) the actual shop work could be done. Finally it has been necessary to decide just what kind of finish should be given the piece when completed. (In the Blonde finish furniture in the Living Room, and in that made for Shirley, some 40 different mixtures were made before getting one that was satisfactory.) Then the finish itself has to be applied.
These various activities have afforded ample mental and physical exercise to maintain a keen interest in life, for which I am profoundly grateful.
Upon my return to Summerville to live the question at once arose as to where we should live.
The heating system in the house consisted of a wood burning one pipe furnace, which was totally inadequate for heating the house, the tin roof was beginning to leak, and the general appearance of the house was run down. However, the house was constructed entirely of long leaf pine lumber (the sills being 12 or 14 inches on a side, the joists being 3 by 12 inches, and the studding being 4" by 4", all of which was in splendid condition.)
It was a question whether to tear the house down and, using as much as possible of the lumber, to build a modern bungalo type house, or whether to rehabilitate the house itself. The large rooms, the fireplaces, the arrangement of the rooms (each room having three exposures -- to catch any breeze that might be coming) and the feeling that there had been much pleasant living in the house by many generations of home loving people, all led us to feel that this house, if given careful and considerate attention, would be a more suitable and more pleasant house for us and for our children and grandchildren than a new bungalo type house could ever be, and we accordingly decided to rehabilitate the house and make it our home.
So Wm. Seele and three or four of his assistants were employed at work for some five or six months. They removed the tin roof (and the two layers of hand made cypress shingles underlying it) and installed asbestos shingles, rebuilt the barn into a double car garage, rebuilt the old slave's quarters into a shop, rebuilt the front fence, replastered much of the walls of the sitting room and of the bed room above it, laid a concrete apron at the entrance road to the place, opened up another entrance at the east end of the property, and did various other similar jobs.
While I was on duty in Boston I had met a very competent Heating Engineer and I had many talks with him about the best type of heating system to install in an old house like ours. I became interested in the technical details of the matter, and I procured several books on the subject, which I studied with much interest. As a result I decided to design, and then to install, a hot water, 3 zone, reverse return system, and this work was begun soon after I retired. The shortage of all kinds of heating equipment and parts just after the war was even more marked than during the war, and, as the result of the ensuing delays, the installation was not completed until January, 1948. This installation has been most satisfactory in all respects.
In the summer of 1949 I installed an attic fan. In 1956 an Air Conditioner was installed in the Living Room. As the result of these three installations we are really more comfortable, all the year round, at home than at any other place.
The maintenance of the place has kept me quite fully occupied, since, with the shop available, I have been able to take this over almost entirely. This has included such items as the installing of new piping for the plumbing, the installation of new electric wiring throughout the house and in the garage and in the shop, the painting of the exterior of the house (once only however) and of the entire interior of the house, the construction of 2nd floor rooms in the cabin (with an attic fan) and of the glass enclosure for the cabin porch.
At the end of the two years that Perry was on duty as a student officer at Cal Tech he graduated with a Master's degree in Aeronautical Engineering. This was a most difficult accomplishment. His difficulties were in no way minimized (and neither were Shirley's) by the fact that, during this period, both Huston and Dan were born.
Perry Huston Eubank, Jr. was born September 18, 1946 at the Dorchester County Hospital, Summerville, S. C., Dr. Louis S. Miles presiding. Perry, at the time had just reported for duty as a student officer at Cal Tech.
Daniel Fulton Eubank was born on January 6, 1948 , at the Huntington Memorial Hospital at Pasadena, California.
Lawrence Gray Eubank was born July 7, 1952, at the Station Hospital, Camp Carson, California, Perry at that time being on duty as Chief of Staff, Continental Antiaircraft Command, at Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Stephen Gray (sic!) Eubank was born September 12, 1958, at the Dorchester County Hospital, Summerville, S. C., Dr. Louis S. Miles being the Master of Ceremonies, Perry, at that time, had just arrived at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, for duty as Assistant Brigade Commander.