Our House Slid Down The Hill


Submitted by JVGH

We lived in a two room house across the creek from Grandma Lue VanCuren and up on the side of a hill. The photo of the corner of the porch where Joyce Lavern VanCuren is standing shows how high the porch was. Joyce was born 18 Feb 1940 and I know she and Ross were born here. This house had two doors coming out to the front porch and a back door out of the kitchen that was almost ground level. They built this house with only a stone at each corner at the back and poles underneath to hold it up. We played under the house in bad weather.

In Early spring of 1941 it was cold enough at night to freeze the ground but during the day all would thaw out making the hill just a layer of mud. This one day we had all been under the house playing most of the day when Mom called us in for supper. We were all at the kitchen table when low and behold the house started sliding down the hill with us in it. There was no warning. I do not remember a one of us saying a word but I do remember the silence when we stopped against a tree you see in the photo of Joan, Joyce and Prince.

Mom had a fire in the cook stove and the heating stove in the other room but neither of them turned over. The radio fell off the table and broke into pieces and the cabinet tilted and broke dishes but that was. We walked out the back door and I can still hear Mom saying, as she sat down on the ground, 'Kids what are we going to do?' Dad was in Kansas City, Missouri working and we lived a quarter to half a mile from the nearest house. I said that Claud and I would go to Ponca and get help. I know there was three men there that went back with us and they tried to get our dog, Prince, out from under the house but his back was broken. Doyle Villines had to shoot him. The last photo shows the five of us that were around the table with Mom when this all happened.

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