In anticipation of the Oak Park & River Forest Historical Society’s April 8 walking tour of Gunderson homes, I took my own tour of the Gunderson house where I grew up. The current owner was gracious in allowing me to explore the old homestead. I had no idea it was going to be such an emotional shock.
The poignant feelings started flooding back even before I entered the house. I stood on the stairs looking back toward the street, and it was an archetypal view I hadn’t seen since childhood. It was like a favorite painting that you’ve memorized: the familiar tree on the parkway, the row of houses across the street, the lawn and the streetlights.
The most dramatic change to the house was opening up the enclosed front porch. We didn’t know what we were missing. The porch runs the length of the front, and for the people who live there now, it’s their favorite spot. It’s also a gathering place for neighbors. In our day, neighbors gravitated to the house, but they had to sit on the steps.
Inside, the home has been beautifully restored: the narrow-board floors, beamed ceiling, and woodwork have all been stripped and stained. We were doing the opposite of restoration when we owned it. It was called “modernization” and involved painting woodwork, carpeting wood floors, and installing acoustic tile ceilings.
When I toured the first floor, memories and emotions were hitting me hard: there was that familiar Gunderson floor plan, with a hallway linking the front parlor, living room, and dining room. The layout provided our racing oval, with the hall serving as a straightaway. We ran endless laps around this circuit for some reason, and the children who live there now are also running laps.
Like us, they jump up and try and touch the crown molding above the doorways. We had used the molding as a makeshift basket where we could shoot balled up pieces of paper. Kids are still playing basketball in this manner.
The kitchen had been enlarged since we lived there but overall the rooms felt small. This must happen to many adults who revisit childhood homes. They are mansions of glory in our memory, but now that we’re older, the houses seem to have shrunk.
The stairs leading to the second floor still creak, which once upon a time prevented us from sneaking around at night. The bathroom still has the original full-size tub, but one of the two doors to the bathroom had been closed off. These were “ambush” doors when I was growing up: you never knew which lockless door an intruder would enter to surprise you in the bathroom.
That was the source of my anxious feelings at seeing the old place: the lack of privacy and boundaries the 11 of us endured. Also, seeing the unheated sleeping porch, my personal Siberia on winter nights, gave me the chills.
The Gunderson brothers were wise, though, when they made the third floor a separate living area. The attic, as we called it, was awarded to the oldest child at home, and finally I got my turn to ascend to this heaven of privacy. It had a door on the bottom that locked, with stairs winding up to a room that really had a view.
We used to leave the attic windows open in summer to dissipate heat. One day, I was looking for my dog and found that she had apparently gone out an attic window and was standing on the flat roof of the sleeping porch. She was scared to move. With half the neighborhood watching, I went out on the skinny slanting roof and slid over to the side of the quivering beast. I put my belt around her middle, cinched it tight and dragged her back to the open window.
If you grew up in a Gunderson and plan to take the tour, be prepared for some powerful memories and feelings. But even if you’ve never set foot inside a Gunderson, you still might experience the feeling of coming home.