Little House on the Prairie

It was the summer of 1956, when I was 9, that we moved into what was literally "a little house on the prairie." Prairie it was. To the south of our house, the landscape extended to the horizon with only a house here and there; to the east, for 40 miles or so, there may not have even been a house. I don't remember seeing one. The Rocky Mountains 60 miles or so to the west rose suddenly from the high plains, but as far as we could tell from our house, there was nothing between us and the mountains except for a few houses in the distance.

It was a little house. Mom, Dad and we four kids moved into a house that had what by today's standards would be a kitchenette; there was a dining room, a living room and 1 bedroom. Mom and Dad had the bedroom, of course; my brother and I slept on bunk beds in the dining room; I guess our sisters slept in the living room. I don't remember them having to sleep outside, anyway. And if you're thinking I left out a room, you're wrong. There was an even smaller house on the prairie, about 60 ft (20m) or so from the back door. It wasn't a bathroom because we didn't go out there to take a bath; we took a bath in a tin tub in Mom and Dad's bedroom every Saturday night.

In time, Dad added more bedrooms to the house and installed running water. We didn't have to hand pump water from the cistern any more; we boys didn't have to sleep in the dining room; the girls didn't have to sleep in the living room. Dad even installed a proper bathroom in the house...but that was after I had already left home.

Dad passed away in 1985, and Mom stayed on the farm until about 5 years ago. After living there for 50 years, she sold the farm and moved closer to town, closer to family.

Last Wednesday, the house, which had stood empty ever since Mom moved out, burned to the ground. Mom saw the report on TV, but the house was so engulfed in flames she didn't recognize it as the old home place. My brother-in-law went out there and said that the only thing left standing is the chimney from the fireplace Dad built in later years.

That's a sad thought, but I thought of something sadder. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 3:10-14 that we all will be judged one day according to the work we have done. Comparing our lives to building on a foundation, he said that if we build with wood, hay or straw, the fire of judgment will consume it; if we build with gold, silver or precious stones, our work will withstand the fire... "his work will be shown for what it is...It will be revealed with fire and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames." To lose everything one has spent a lifetime building, that is truly sad.

The wood and stucco construction of the old farmhouse could not withstand the fire; only the chimney remains. Mom, especially and understandably, feels a sadness, remembering all the work Dad did there, enlarging and improving the house. But what burned Wednesday is not the house Dad built; the house he built is still standing firm. Dad told a friend once that he didn't buy the farm to raise corn, or pigs, or... (I don't remember the exact words he used), but his aim was to raise a family. And he did.

He had no illusions of grandeur about the farm. He often referred to it as his "Rancho Not-so-Grande". He was concerned about building another sort of house, and the Lord willing, that house will be assembled again in August for Mom's 95th birthday. It's no longer a little house on the prairie; it has grown and spread across the US and way out into the middle of the Atlantic.

[The illustration above is the first--and to date, the only--watercolor I've ever done. Mom sent us a photo of the house taken during a snowstorm, apparently in 1997 according to what I wrote on the picture. A couple of years later I did the watercolor and sent it to her, and it hangs in the house where she now lives. In my various computer upgrades, I lost track of my scanned copy of the picture. My brother took this picture of it in its frame and sent it to me this week.]