Several readers responded to my recent column about building a house in the 1920s. One of them mentioned the option of purchasing a pre-fab house kit from the Sears & Roebuck catalog. A quick check on Wikipedia showed that Sears reported more than 70,000 of these homes were sold in North America between 1908 and 1940.  Some of them are still around.  In fact, Elgin, Illinois, has more than 200 Sears Modern Homes (as they were called) in its historical district.

Some of the most interesting responses came from readers who remembered ways of adding on to an existing house.  For example, a lady who grew up in Illinois, where basements are practical, recalled that her dad and a neighbor worked for a long time digging a basement addition to their home.  Her dad was really small and his helper was huge, so they seemed a bit like Mutt and Jeff (for those of you who remember that old comic strip).  The basement became a place for Mama to do laundry and the kids played with a hand-cranked record player down there.  So it was a useful addition to the house.

One of my elderwriters wrote a story about the house she grew up in.  When they moved it there was just a kitchen and two rooms, called the north room and the front room. The kitchen had a small porch on each side, and Daddy soon enclosed the porch to make two very small rooms.  One became a bedroom for the writer and her sister.  There was just room enough for a bed and chifferobe.  The close quarters shared by two girls (who were not at all alike) resulted in many fusses.

As I thought more about this topic, I recalled that the house I grew up in had been built by my grandfather in two stages.  Sometime before WWI, he had built a “dogtrot” house, meaning it had an open hallway with rooms on both sides.  Then as his family grew and he could afford to enlarge the house in the 1920s, an addition was built in the same fashion.  At the same time the dogtrot hall was enclosed at each end. The dog lost his runway.

A sizable front porch was also attached and a small back porch became an open laundry area.  During my childhood electricity arrived, indoor plumbing required some rearrangement of the rooms, and the little backporch was screened.

The house was inherited by my sister, whose husband is an architect.  He took pleasure in designing a total reconfiguration of the floorplan, moving walls around for more efficient use of the space, and even adding a room in the attic that is accessible from the front porch.

My grandfather would not recognize the house now, but I think he would be pleased to see what the little dogtrot cabin he first erected over a hundred years ago has become.

A retired English professor, Dr. Jerry Lincecum teaches classes for older adults who want to write their life stories.  He welcomes your reminiscences on any topic: jlincecum@me.com