Houses, Not Homes

(The Rest of the Story)

Tommy Towery

LHS '64

It was interesting reading Rainer’s stories about him and his father. It made me envious in a way. I never had the relationship with my father that Rainer did with his, and in my Huntsville days, I never lived in a house where we could build a garage. In fact, by the time I was 17 and graduated from Lee, I had lived in ten different houses in different neighborhoods and they were all rental properties. My immediate family consisted of my father, a disabled Veteran, having lost a leg on D-Day and was in and out of the Veterans' Hospitals, and my mother who had earlier suffered from Tuberculosis (TB)  and was also in and out of the sanatoriums a couple of times while I was young.  Located away from local urban populations, these self-sufficient medical complexes became isolated communities containing a series of buildings that provided housing for patients and staff. There was also my brother Don, who was three years older than me. We moved four times from the time I was born and when I started my first grade of school at Farley Elementary School at the age of six. We were living in Redstone Park then. Getting out for "cotton picking" season was my biggest memory of that place. During the Christmas break, we moved into a house on Halsey Avenue and I transferred to Rison. I walked to school from there. Before finishing the first grade at Rison we moved to a house in Huntsville Park.  My brother Don and I rode a city bus from West Huntsville to and from Rison each day to finish out the school year. The next house in which I lived was the one on East Clinton. We lived there for seven years and that is why I identify mostly with that house. That was my home from the year I entered the second grade until we moved before I entered the ninth. 

I was living on East Clinton when I was eight years old, and that was the year my parents were divorced and I basically became estranged from my father. He worked at the Arsenal and moved to Chase.  With him gone, my maternal grandmother moved in with us to help cover family expenses.  So I remained on East Clinton with my mother, my grandmother, and Don. It was strange back then having my parents divorced. It was not as common, even rare, for parents to get divorced. The divorce rate in the 50's was 2.3 per 1,000 people. As of 2024, the U.S. divorce rate remains between 40% to 50% for first marriages.  In a way I was very embarrassed to tell anyone about the divorce. I remember crying when I found out. I only had one friend whose parents were also divorced, and that was Buddy Crabtree. It was not a nice divorce and my association with my father became almost non-existent. I rarely saw him and birthdays and Christmases came and went without us seeing each other. He did not even attend or acknowledge when I was presented with my Eagle Scout medal or my graduation ceremony from Lee. I did not get a graduation present from him. He had some problems and it’s a long and detailed story which I will not go into. I don’t think any of my close friends like Bob Walker, Lewis Brewer, Dianne Hughey, Caroline McCutcheon, or Ginger Cagle ever met him. And these were the people I hung out with almost daily. I doubt if any of my friends from Bradley's or Carter's Skateland ever met him. 

The house on East Clinton was the one where I lived when we rented out our extra rooms to the roomers. When the housing availability situation caught up and eliminated the need for people to rent rooms we had to give up that house because we lost the income we had from renting to them. We moved to a smaller house on Hart Drive, over in the West Huntsville and Butler school districts.  We only lived there for the summer of 1960 (about three months) and moved to a rental house on McCullough Avenue just before I started the ninth grade at Lee Junior High. It was right next door to Ray Walker’s house and it was from there I rode the bus to school throughout the ninth grade.

Not only did we never own a house in Huntsville, there were times we did not even have a working car. My modes of transportation were the bus, my bicycle, or my feet. Even at seven years old it was common for me to walk downtown by myself to go to the movies or the square or The Grand Newsstand. In the summers, I would walk to the Big Spring Swimming Pool. I even walked to Carter's Skateland many times. Eventually, I ended up with a car. The red and white ’53 Ford I finally inherited by default when all the other drivers in the family moved away was the best we could do, and it was plagued with problems. It is in the photo above, parked in front of the apartment on Webster Drive. I missed a lot of school because without a reliable car, I did not always have a way to get there. It was a mile and a half walk and took 30 minutes to cover it. Had it not been for Tommy Thompson and Dianne Hughey giving me rides on some bad days, I do not know what I would have done.  And, since the Statute of Limitations has run out, I will admit that I never had insurance on the car or myself back then. I did not even know how to start getting insurance and knew we probably could not afford it anyway. My only wreck happened on a trip over to Dianne’s house one day when a lady ran a stop sign and I T-boned her car. It was not my fault and I was never asked to produce insurance information. That was how the "Red Bomb" ended up with a white front end. 

Before I entered the tenth grade at Lee, my family made its final Huntsville move. We moved to Webster Drive in the Lincoln Park housing project.  Lincoln Park was a public housing property funded through HUD's Public Housing program. It offered rent subsidies, making it an option for low-income residents. Even though it was subsidized housing, it was the newest structure I had ever lived in. I was not aware we had moved into the “projects”, but was happy to live in an apartment so modern. At the time it was still my mother, grandmother, Don, and me living there. Around the time I entered the 11th grade, Don quit school and joined the Navy. That reduced my father's Child Support payment to $42 a month. My mother met a man at a dance at the VFW club and started dating him. He was an electrician from Memphis who was in town working on Von Braun's office building. Just before I entered my senior year at Lee, she married him and moved to Memphis and her move left only me and my grandmother in the house. I stayed with her so I could finish high school with my friends at Lee.  I had no interest in changing schools for my senior year. On most days I was normally home alone from the time school let out until my grandmother got home from work at 10:30pm. She never learned to drive and relied on the bus and taxi cabs to get to and from working nights as a short-order cook at the Rebel Inn in West Huntsville. It was a three-bedroom apartment so we really were not qualified to stay there based on family size, but we never reported my mother and Don moving out so the two of us stayed there. Only after I graduated was my grandmother made to move into a one-bedroom apartment.

One of the things I remember the most about those times is that I was always made to feel comfortable in whatever crowd I was in. My poor financial status was never a problem with those friends I ran around with. I was never made to feel low class or never not accepted in any activity. I was never teased or laughed at. I was just one of the crowd. Even my wreck of a car was enjoyed by more than criticized by those who had better ones. I was never made to feel out of place. For those things I will always remember my classmates with pride.

Looking back now, I regret never working as a teenager and helping out the family. I never realized how bad off financially we really were. I still got to do the things I wanted to do and the only time I ever felt poor was when I wanted to go to Florida with all my friends during my senior year’s Spring Break. I could not raise the $40 I needed for the Hi-Y trip. $40 of buying power in 1964 equals $413.05 in 2025. My poor financial status continued after graduation and my dreams of attending Alabama were replaced with my enrollment at Memphis State University, which was much easier on the pocketbook. I moved to Memphis and into the new house my mother and stepfather had purchased. It was not a rental.  I paid $82.50 in tuition my first semester. I started to work for the first time, a job at our local Y.M.C.A. I graduated without having any student loans to pay off. 

Later in my life, after I had joined the Air Force, I was able to finally mend the fences with my father and we became closer. As an adult in the military I could better understand the problems he faced in his life. He died while I was stationed in England.

For the record, I have lived in 14 additional houses after graduation. That makes 24 different places I called home. The one in which I now live is paid for and I own two reliable cars as well. Life may have started out a little rough, but eventually my life turned out fantastic.

The Wayback Machine

"Downtown" 

"Downtown" is a song written and produced by English composer Tony Hatch. Its lyrics speak of going to spend time in an urban downtown as a means of escape from everyday life. The 1964 version recorded by British singer Petula Clark became an international hit, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and number two on the UK Singles Chart. Hatch received the 1981 Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically.

Sally "Petula" Clark (born 15 November 1932) is a British singer, actress, and songwriter. She started her professional career as a child performer and has had the longest career of any British entertainer, spanning more than 85 years. Clark's professional career began during the Second World War as a child entertainer on BBC Radio. She was 32 years old when she recorded "Downtown."

Released in four separate languages in late 1964, "Downtown" was a success in the UK, France (in both the English and the French versions), the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, and Italy, and Rhodesia, Japan, and India as well. During a visit to London, Warner Bros. executive Joe Smith heard it and acquired the rights for the United States. "Downtown" went to number one in the American charts in January 1965, and three million copies were sold in the United States.

Petula Clark thus became the first UK female artist to have a US No. 1 hit during the rock era and the second in the annals of US charted music, Vera Lynn having hit No. 1 in the US with "Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart" in 1952. "Downtown" also made Clark the first UK female artist to have a single certified as a Gold record for US sales of one million units. On Billboard's annual Disk Jockey poll, "Downtown" was voted the second best single release of 1965 and Petula Clark was voted third most popular female vocalist. "Downtown" would be the first of 15 consecutive hits Clark would place in the US Top 40 during a period when she'd have considerably less chart impact in her native UK, there reaching the Top 40 eight times.

Thanks again to Rainer for sharing his stories with the rest of us. I have another of his for next week. My story this issue may be the strangest one I have shared with you. I think I really just needed to get it off my chest. I acknowledge I had a strange childhood, but thanks to my friends and my association with the Boy Scouts I was able to get through it. The story is not designed to get you to pity me, for I know for certain some of you had just of an incredible upbringing as I did. I have heard some of the stories over the years at the reunions. 

Oh, and by the way, I was called in last week to be another background talent in a new movie they are shooting in Memphis. The movie is "The Last Story of David Allen" and I played a guest in a hotel lobby scene. It was only one day, and a very short set which will probably be cut anyway, but I can add it to my acting resume. 

LEE LUNCH BUNCH

Classes of ’64, ’65, ‘66

Thursday, April 24, 2025 11:00 a.m.

Carrabbas’s Italian Grill

(Upper parking deck at Parkway Place Mall)

Classmates from ‘64, ’65, and ’66, please mark your calendars for the next Lee Lunch Bunch. This begins the 15th year of our lunches together. This is also the 60th year from graduation for the Class of 1965. Hopefully, many of this group will be able to come on this date, share all of the latest from our daily lives, and have a good meal together.

Please do let me know if you are planning to come. I will need to let the manager know how many no later than a couple of days before. Thanks and hope to see you in April.

Patsy Hughes Oldroyd ‘65

304 Wellington Rd.

Athens, AL 35613

H (256) 232-7583

C (256) 432-3396

keithandpatsy@att.net

Last Week's Questions, Answers, And Comments

Janet Holland,  LHS ‘67, "I enjoy all the memories, but I especially enjoyed Rainer’s family history. It was so beautifully written and thorough; I wish I knew more about Dad’s Nuremberg trials and meeting each man on trial; Sunday’s with the Duchess of Gloucester before going over to Europe; tales of each astronaut, not just the ones that came to our house. Iris von Braun and Sabina Schmidt’s stories are equally fascinating. We were blessed with growing up with a group of unique people at an unusual time in history. Rainier has shown me once again how close our families were at that time. With Mrs. von  Braun’s passing, we are the next generation. Thank you to everyone for their memories."

Mary Ann Bond Wallace, LHS ‘64, "Thank you so much Rainer for sharing your family history and the details of life during their lives.  So important to keep these memories alive.  I think many times about the questions I never asked my parents about growing up, what their lives were like.....So many people/relatives in my parents lives that I never met and now wish I had asked more questions. Tommy, I look forward to your newsletter each week.  Thank you for all the time you put into your life work."

Mike Cortright, LHS ‘65, "I thoroughly enjoyed Rainer's (Klauss)  musings of the past, entitled "The Garage and Garage Part II, that Tommy  published in this year’s March 31st and April 7th editions. The articles were so well written. I could literally feel his emotions come through his words regarding  his father, his siblings, his heritage extending  from Germany and of course,  his life in Huntsville...his gratefulness for that time in his life was ever apparent. Thank you for sharing!"