Here are some more reminders of the favorite Koftan family house, six miles east and two miles south of Center, a large two-story brick house (with an attic story or room, evidenced by the dormer windows) being relatively rare, I think, in the early part of the 20th century in northeast Nebraska.
As the photo below illustrates, it's where Velma grew up and Larry and Audree were born. It's where Jack lay in a second-floor bedroom with his spinal injury from the job in the Omaha stockyards. The doctor had to puncture Jack's spinal cord regularly to release the pressure, the fluid squirting up to the ceiling. Jack also contended the injury made his hearing so acute that he could hear a fly walking across that ceiling. It's also where Velma and Jack lived after they were married. Dad (Jack) was, of course, Grampa Koftan's hired man, and Mom said Gramma did everything she could to manipulate the couple into marriage, Velma only 18 and out of high school, Jack nine years older.
As one can see, it had front and back porches. The front lane was lined by rows of cedars, very distinctive from a distance. Velma loved it so much, she tried to buy it back from a later owner, who not only refused to sell it but had it condemned, which angered and frustrated the family. Lightning had struck and fissured a crack in the masonry, which Mom always considered minor damage. But that crack was used as an excuse to condemn and raze the house ultimately, which broke Mom's heart. She refused to speak to the perpetrator after that. As with what I call the Bloomfield farm, nothing is left to even indicate a farmstead was once there.
I have another photo of Mom and Audree by the brick house I'll have to show later, one of my very favorites. Seated, a bare corner of the brick house visible in the background, Velma (Mom) is holding a puppy, Audree a toddler by her side. I'm happy that Mom always had a dog the way I did.
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