You Can’t Go Home Again — Title of the novel by Thomas Wolfe
“In life, a person will come and go from many homes. We may leave a house, a town, a room, but that does not mean those places leave us. Once entered, we never entirely depart the homes we make for ourselves in the world.” — Ari Berk
“The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” — Maya Angelou
Grief and gratitude, letting go and holding on, and things change have been themes for me this past year (and longer).
Note: This reminiscence was written in response to the prompt, Home, for my Door County Write On LGBTQ+ Writers’ Group.
It was the summer after kindergarten. My parents parked my younger sister Roz and I in front of the family’s first TV so we wouldn’t be underfoot as they packed for the move. I don’t remember if I was five or six-years-old, yet I do remember what I was watching, The Texas Star Theater with Milton Berle. Yes, I’m a child who grew up in front of the television and never stopped watching.
Our family lived in a rental house on Racine Street in Racine, Wisconsin. It was in what would be described as an inner-city neighborhood. White flight was in motion. My parents were young, in their early 20s, both worked while raising their two young girls, and saved money to purchase their first home in a southwest neighborhood of post-war FHA-financed starter homes for vets and young families.
Boomer Memories
Moving In
From a reminiscence, Boomer’s Playground:
“Nearly identical Cape Cod-style houses lined each side of the street for blocks, as far as one could see. The square boxes were only distinguished by minor embellishments. Some had dormer windows like our house; others had a bay window in the living room, some floor to ceiling windows in the front façade with shutters, exterior colors varied, white or hopeful pastel shades of pink, yellow, green, and blue, yet each house was sited identically, side by side. From a distance it looked like a freight train with square box cars. The land beneath the homes was flat; no variation in terrain, subdivided by green grass, concrete sidewalks, and the street; yards and boulevards adorned simply with newly planted trees and shrubs which grew taller as we did over the years.”
The Lenzke Family Home
The year was 1955 or 1956. Some details are quick to recall, others foggy. I do remember random memories from moving day. I imagined the previous owner of the house was an artist who abandoned a ceramic head that was used to prop the front door open as we moved into the house. Mom and Dad had to do some painting, there were stenciled geometric designs on the walls, which I later learned were most likely Mondrian-inspired. As an adult, I also imagined the previous owner was a member of the Beat Generation.
As our parents made the house their home, major changes followed. The second floor of the house was unfinished with only two bedrooms on the first floor. When sister Cindy arrived, followed by brother Rick, they hired a contractor to build one bedroom on the second floor, which was shared by Roz, Cindy, and I.
I loved it. It had a built-in dresser, closets under the angled roof line, and a toy chest in the dormer window. When the family went through all the photographs, papers, memorabilia, including newspaper clippings, etc. I kept the handwritten paper estimate for the bedroom construction, $650, not including heating, electrical, or painting. The other side of the second story remained unfinished and was used for storage.
Next, Dad had a Knotty Pine Basement Bar built in the early 1960’s where they partied with friends, sometimes post-bar time, late into the night. I would lay on the floor in my bedroom next to the heat register and listen to the sounds of drunken adults, their music, and sometimes arguments that would travel from the basement to our second-floor bedroom through the ductwork. One morning, when I came downstairs for breakfast there were bongos, conga drums, acoustic guitars, and leather-clad guests sleeping on the floor.
Blatz Party in Dad’s 1960s Knotty Pine Basement Bar
It was later discovered that some of the motorcycle-riding guests cleaned out the freezer of meat that my parents ordered from the butcher to feed the family for three or months. Dad also hosted poker games in the basement. He furnished sandwiches that Mom made and beer for a percentage of the table buy-in to play.
Memories Are Made of This
Our family grew from two parents with two daughters then added another sister, a brother, and a few years later, two more girls. When I look back, it’s hard to believe we all lived in the small home, 800+ square feet on the first floor. It had three bedrooms (two downstairs, one up), one small bathroom, and a kitchen just large enough for the appliances, a small kitchen counter and sink, with just enough room for a table to seat all of us. If you sat on the outside of the table in front of the stove, you were required to push in your chair or stand up to let somebody pass by.
Mom and Dad created traditions for the family. They were hardworking, blue-collar, and middle class. Between having babies, Mom worked in a factory, later as a line supervisor. Dad’s early working career was in factories too until he became a custodian for the Racine Unified School District. Later in his career, he trained all the new custodian staff, over 300 people.
We didn’t receive a lot of new clothes or toys except for special occasions like back to school, religious events like Easter, birthdays, and Christmas. Our parents saved for Christmas using the credit tools of the 1950s and 1960s, lay-away plans, and Christmas Club Savings. On Christmas Eve, we’d hang our stockings on the railing downstairs to the basement. We’d leave cookies, a carrot, and milk for Santa and Rudolph.
While we slept, Mom and Dad would retrieve the Christmas tree that a neighbor was hiding. They’d decorate the tree, fill all the stockings, arrange the presents in order from youngest to oldest, eat a cookie or two, take a bite from the carrot, drink some of the milk, and sleep for an hour or two until Dad would call us, by yelling in his happiest voice, “Merry Christmas.”
Other holidays were BIG productions too. As the family grew and our parents matured, they’d celebrate New Years Eve at home, wear funny hats, paper leis, blow noisemakers, and snack on cheese and crackers, including cheese in a can and Chicken in a Biscuit crackers.
Easter too was a major event. We’d decorate and hide eggs and our baskets the night before. Dad’s tradition was to color the last egg using all the remaining food coloring, coffee, and a Blatz beer. It was called the Poop Egg because of its color. Whoever found the egg the next morning had bragging rights for the year, though no other prize was included. We all received Easter baskets full of chocolate, jelly beans, malted milk eggs, candy resembling bunnies and Easter symbols, a toy, and a plastic egg with money.
Lenzke Family Poop Egg
The downside of both Easter and Christmas, we were forced to dress up in new outfits to celebrate the holidays with extended family at our paternal grandmother, Violet, and great grandmother, Helen’s (affectionately referred to as ‘The Grams’) 750 square foot, walk-up downtown Racine apartment. The saving grace is sometimes our oldest cousin Pat would talk the parents into letting us walk a couple of blocks to the downtown Rialto or Venetian movie theater to see a Disney movie.
Thanksgiving was a major undertaking, how to prepare and display all the holiday traditional comfort foods and pie buffet, as our family grew with new generations, and where would people enjoy the meal. Some ate downstairs at the basement bar, some in what became Mom’s bedroom, Mom, and Dad in the kitchen with whoever else could squeeze in. A couple of years the weather was unseasonably warm and some of us ate outside on the deck and played ‘horse’ in the driveway.
When Mom was aging and unable to tackle the whole meal, I arrived a day early and became her sous chef, while sisters would bring side dishes and pies. The kitchen was too small to have multiple people prepare food. When she died, Dad didn’t want to celebrate Thanksgiving anymore, yet I talked him into it a year later, and I took the lead preparing the meal with help from sisters and their kids In 2019, the last Thanksgiving we shared as a family, 19 people were celebrated in Dad’s little Cape Cod home.
The Fourth of July was another major family holiday that featured one of the largest Midwestern parades in Racine. Dad would take Roz and I down to lay out blankets and reserve spots for the family to join us two hours later. We’d have to defend our claim. As the eldest, I often faced off with adults who wanted to infringe on our territory. I hated that responsibility, though I loved the parade.
Afterwards we’d return to the Grams for hot dogs and chips, potato salad, and Jell-O, and for dessert either Grandma’s famous Peanut Bars, yellow cake with vanilla frosting rolled in chopped peanuts, or Pineapple Upside Down Cake.
Afterwards, while the adults drank Miller High Life Beer, the Champagne of Beers, since the apartment was overflowing with restless cousins, Pat would take us to the movies to see a Disney film. When we finally returned home, we’d light sparklers and try to see the major display from the lakefront, when the highest fireworks rose above the rooftops. The 4th seemed like the longest day of the year.
There were other holidays and traditions we celebrated every year as a family in the small Cape Cod home. There were birthdays, including Dad’s April Fool’s Birthday, when he would be the butt of pranks which he goodheartedly enjoyed. As kids we’d make breakfast in bed for Mom and Dad on Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day and years later we’d return with the next generation of children to celebrate all the moms and dads.
Birthdays, were always a big deal too. Sometimes birthday cakes would include multiple names and candles for each person to blow out. We celebrated other anniversaries too, Mom and Dad’s Wedding Anniversary, and years later after Mom died, join Dad on the anniversary of her death or birthday.
When we weren’t gathering in the family home, family would vacation together. Years ago, my youngest siblings and parents visited my husband Frank and I in Madison around the Fourth of July or UW Badger Football weekends, next most of the family would vacation up north in the summer in St. Germaine with Mom’s sister Betty. Years later, sisters Tami, Kelly, and later granddaughter, Casey, would vacation at Lake Lawn Lodge in Delavan, sometimes inviting friends to join them.
Lenzke Siblings (Circa 1980 est.)
At the center of these memories were the traditions and sacrifices our parents made. It’s nostalgic to look back and remember just the good times. There were challenging times too, estrangement, resentments, arguments, and alcohol-fueled memories. In the end however, we came back together as a family, forgave each other our imperfections and missteps, and hold these traditions and memories as gifts.
In the Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! are links to reminiscences of family memories and traditions.
Goodbye to Our Loved Ones & Family Home
“Home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there anymore.” ― Robin Hobb, Fool’s Fate
Oral history interview of our parents, Dick & Ethel Lenzke
We now find ourselves as a family at a crossroads. Mom died in 2016 and we made adjustments to how we gathered as a family. Dad died a few days before Christmas in 2023. We don’t have a plan for the future, how we’ll gather as a family, or not. We’re still grieving. I returned to therapy. With the death of both parents and two of our younger sisters, Tami summed it up this way. “We were a family of eight, now we are four.” I realized my role as the eldest child needs to be revisited. I helped raise my younger siblings, sometimes over-functioning as ‘the responsible one.’ I’m the eldest remaining family member now on both sides of our immediate paternal and maternal families. What is my role, if any, for the future?
I want to acknowledge all the hard work and care my siblings and their spouses provided our parents, most recently our father. Our brother, Rick and wife, Nancy, took care of financial decisions on behalf of our parents, and did most of the hard work coordinating the distribution of the furniture, and household items to prepare the house for sale. Rick was also Dad’s maintenance go-to person for house projects and landscaping.
Sister Kelly, and husband, Bill, were caregivers to Mom and Dad the last decade and Dad’s primary support after Mom died, enabling him to live independently in his home. Kelly did laundry, grocery shopping, and drove him to medical appointments. Bill made sure his beer closet was stocked with Blatz and assisted Kelly and Dad as needed.
Casey, Kelly’s daughter, and Mom and Dad’s granddaughter, who they helped raise, kept in touch with Dad by writing letters, phone calls, sent flowers and gifts, plus surprise visits with her family. He looked forward to all the news and visits from Casey and her family.
Lastly, when Dad got sick at the end of October, Kelly, Bill, and sister Tami, provided all the round-the-clock care he needed up until his death with support from hospice. Kelly also helped manage the distribution of household items and with Rick planned the visitation and funeral with contributions from Tami, Casey, and I.
I’m forever grateful that Dad and I were able to say our goodbyes and left no unfinished business or resentments. To read more about Dad’s illness, death, visitation, and funeral, see link below, The Last Goodbye.
Beginning with the day leading up to the visitation and funeral, the house was no longer a home without Dad in it, plus Mom’s absence too. It was now a house with memories. Dad would no longer as was his ritual, open the front door and wave goodbye as we left after a visit.
Dad waves goodbye and sends us home!
Tami and I returned to our family home before Rick was listing it for sale. It was our last opportunity to look at and claim photos, memorabilia, household and kitchen items, newspaper clippings and more. I left with the oldest of photos, newspaper clippings with obituaries, and anniversaries, the miscellaneous paper trail of the Lenzkes at 2101 Hayes Avenue.
Tami took one last photo of the two of us on the front porch of our beloved family home. We said goodbye to our childhood home. Like the book title and quote the beginning of the reminiscence, You Can’t Go Home Again, and “In life, a person will come and go from many homes. We may leave a house, a town, a room, but that does not mean those places leave us. Once entered, we never entirely depart the homes we make for ourselves in the world.”
Tami and my last visit home.
Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!
Home & Holidays
Full Moon on Christmas Day: Part I
Full Moon on Christmas Day: Part II
Thanksgiving: Things Change (Again, Again!)
Memorial Day: Memories, Flowers, & Gratitude
Remember: Childhood July 4th Celebrations
Home & Moving
Home: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow
Within These Walls: Moving Stories
Saying Goodbye
The Loud Family Loses a Loved One