Even though I have no memory of living there,  I recognized the house almost immediately as we drove down Michigan Avenue in August 2010.  The overgrown yard and faded, peeling paint presented quite a different picture than the one in my mind, which was a composite of old family photos and stories related by my parents.   I envisioned a gray clapboard house surrounded by a well kept yard, and I was disappointed to see “our house” abandoned and neglected.  1707 Michigan Avenue was the address I came home to after being born in Saginaw General Hospital on Mothers’ Day – 9 May 1954.

Of that house my mom writes in her history:  “We moved to Saginaw, Michigan in the early spring of 1954, into an old house at 707 N. Michigan Avenue which was quite nice.  We had 3 bedrooms and a bath on the second floor with a good sized living room, dining room and kitchen down, along with a big old basement with a huge coal furnace.  It was so much more room than we had been used to having that we felt very lucky.”

My dad remembers that the rent was $75/month which was 20% of his salary of $375/month or $4500 annually.

And I don’t remember anything, because I was so young.