Inside the First Room, Summer of 1949
at the Martz Studio under construction.
Inside the First Room, Summer of 1949
Becky (age 34), Karl (age 37), Brian (age 6), and Eric (age 9) sitting on the dirt floor inside the walls of the first room. This was the summer that we lived in tents while Karl was making the first room habitable. During this stage, Becky was known to heat food on a galvanized iron bucket with holes punched in the bottom, turned upside down over a fire.
We moved into this room in the fall of 1949 after
Karl had
roofed it.
He constructed
the front door himself -- it was heavy! Initially, the windows were filled in with
a translucent plastic with embedded fabric reinforcement. Before Karl finished
pouring a concrete floor, we lived on the dirt floor. Because the house was near the
foot of a large hill, there were drainage challenges. Once, after a heavy rain, we
awoke to find several inches of water on the dirt floor. Karl then dug trenches to
direct water away from the house.