Our first home...but dare we stay in it?

Max and I had been married for three years, when we bought the old farmhouse on Dunhill Road. We were both tired of our tiny apartment in the city, and we saw it as a dream come true. But neither of us was prepared for the strange series of events that awaited us there.

I remember clearly the day we held the closing on the house. The couple we bought the farmhouse from, Lois and Brad Taylor, were about our age. They had lived there only a year, and, although their intentions were good, they had not done much in the way of restoring the house. They were also anxious to sell the house.

"I hope you two will be very happy," Brad Taylor said. "I guess Lois and I just weren't cut out for the solitude here".

With that, Brad handed us two sets of keys for our new home.

"We always meant to get a spare set made, and never did," Lois explained.

Max smiled. "This'll be fine for now."

"Good luck to you," Brad said. He and Max shook hands. That was the last we ever saw of the Taylors.

On the first day of spring, we moved in. As we drove our rented truck through the small town of Wheaton, Max and I grinned at each other. I knew, without exchanging a word with him, that he was as happy as I.

We bumped and rattled past the Wheaton post office, the gas station, the grocery store, the laundromat. Everything seemed so cozy and friendly. On the outskirts of town, we made a right turn and headed down a dirt road toward 1211 Dunhill.

I could write a book about everything that needed to be fixed in that house. The porch sagged, the chimney needed patching, the shutters -- the ones that were there -- hung unpainted at crazy angles. But the sprawling old house had character and, we thought, possibilities. Besides, it was surrounded by ten gently sloping, wooded acres. After three years of cramped apartment living, we couldn't wait to stretch out. Read More  

In the 80s, women were grappling with the question, "How do I juggle everything?" Find out more about Life for Women in the 80s.