Album 1, Part 6 (pages 21-24)

Now begins the era of Dot, Ed and family living at 3149 S. Karlov. Link to map. Dot and Ed moved from the Brown House to this old Slack family home after Dot's mother Elizabeth died in 1932. The house was left to her seven living children. The oldest, Ada, died there at age 23 from diphtheria. She had occupied the little bedroom off of the back parlor. Edward and Elizabeth also died in that house. Dot and her sisters Anne and Margaret were all married in the front parlor. Edward and Elizabeth, their daughter Ada, and Dot and Ed's daughter Dorothy were all buried from the front parlor, the custom of the era.

The sketch below shows the general layout of the house, but not details like closets, the bay-window-type push-out on the north side, and a similar push-in on the south side to form a small courtyard for windows between this house and its mirror image to the south, which had a common wall between. Dot's father Edward had built both houses.

Dot and Ed bought the home for $3000 from Dot's siblings, using their share of the inherited home as a down payment. Anne and Edward (Ted), unmarried at the time, remained in the home and retained their bedrooms. Anne was in the little front bedroom off the front parlor, which she also used as a music studio. Ted had the room off of the middle parlor which later became the dining room. Dot and Ed's four children squeezed into the rest of the house. Their household furnishings were stored in the basement while things were sorted out. Dot and Ed had Edward had Elizabeth's bedroom, across from the bathroom.

Eventually, when furniture was sorted, Ed and Dot kept the late 1800's style furniture that was in their bedroom. Larue was put to bed in the big bed and then carried to the couch in the back parlor to finish the night. In front of the couch was a little pot-bellied stove with isinglass windows in the door. Dot and Ed slept in the big bed after Larue was put on the couch. Bert slept in a crib next to Dot and Ed's bed. Don and Bob shared a double brass bed in the little back bedroom off the back parlor. (Dorothy was no longer at home. She lived in a sanitarium where she was safe.)

Later, when furniture was more sorted, it became an amalgam of all from both homes. Most of the original late 1800's- style was kept and Dot and Ed gave their unwanted things to Goodwill Industries. A daybed was put along the chimney wall of the middle parlor. That parlor was used very little. Larue was put there where she could spend the entire night and in cold winter warm her feet on the chimney.

Eventually, Anne and Ted married. Anne and her husband turned the old kitchen and pantry on the downstairs level into an apartment. From there they moved to St Louis and then back to Chicago where Anne died several years later of cancer. Ted moved with his wife into an apartment in Chicago. Only a year or two later Ted died of a blood clot which reached his heart.

With Anne and Ted gone Dot and Ed and the children used all four bedrooms on the main floor. The middle parlor became a dining room and the rear parlor was made into a kitchen, still with the pot-bellied stove. As years past bedrooms switched among family members. For the longest period, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Larue slept in the front bedroom, Dot and Ed in the next (the reason it's called master bedroom in the sketch), Don in the third bedroom, and Bob and Bert shared the back bedroom with bunk beds. After World War II the entire house was again re-arranged to accommodate three families during the housing crunch. More on that later.