Before I became an Oklahoman I was a Yankee from northern Pennsylvania – where the cows outnumber the people and the deer outnumber the cows. One of my fondest memories of childhood is climbing the steps to my father’s art studio on “The Hill.” He purchased an old house built in the late 1870s with the Victorian-era style. The 14-room house had an old coal furnace, which didn’t work in the winter, and cold running water. Fortunately about 1915 it had been converted to electric lights, that were never upgraded. The building nestled into the east side of the mountain and there was no driving access directly to the house on the vertical property. But to me at the time, the three best things about the house were the huge, wrap-around porch, the upstairs catwalk back into the mountainside, and the stone stairs leading up to the house – all 44 of them!
Yes, 44 stone steps…which needed shoveling in the upstate Pennsylvania winters with snow measuring in the feet, not inches. That was my winter chore from the time I was 7 years old. Despite the stairs being the bane of my existence in winter they were one of my favorite places to sit in the spring and summer. There were two Sugar Maple trees about steps fifteen and twenty-five which provided lovely shade in the warm summer sunshine. Between steps twenty-eight and thirty-six there was an iron pole railing, as it was especially steep at that point. On that railing climbed the best-smelling, pale pink tea roses. Oftentimes from about June through August, you could find me with a book in hand, and a thermos of ice-cold, purple grape juice sitting on the steps being transported to other lands, times, and adventures in the shade of those maples with the sweet scent of roses wafting about in the languid afternoon sun.
At different points along the steps throughout the spring and summer I could find any number of flowers and even some wild strawberries. Towards the top of the stairs, on the north side of the house ran a trickling stream. That side of the house had a small copse of trees and was more moist and shady than the other side of the house. Near steps thirty to thirty-six bloomed wonderful lilies – striped orange tiger lilies and sunny yellow daylilies are the ones I remember best. Closer to the trees grew wild white and purple violets the size of an old silver dollar. Growing up the hill on both sides of the house were fields of yellow daffodils with their dainty little teacup and saucer and some wild shaggy multi-petaled ones. Pale yellow and white narcissus interspersed the daffodils. It was great fun to pick armfuls of these cheery flowers for my mother to put in vases all around our home.
Right next to the porch were two lovely, old lilac bushes that provided a gorgeous heady scent. There were three more on the other side of the house. I later learned that when a child died in a household during that period, often a lilac bush was planted by the entry. Since then, I have hoped that the grand old bushes were planted for the love of the plant, not for the tragedy of losing so many children.
Towards the end of June on the south side of the house bloomed hundreds of “flags” in the area where the old outhouse had been. It was many years before I knew “flags” were actually deep purple irises. My father called them flags because they bloomed just before the 4th of July. Near that spot also grew several black walnut trees, a green apple tree, a concord grape arbor, lovely pink, white, and lavender wild flox, milkweed with hundreds of Monarch butterflies, and wild blackberry and red raspberry bushes. Growing up there were always flowers to pick and fruit to munch on all spring and summer long. My fondest memories, though, are sitting on the cool stone step twenty-two just whiling away the hours listening to the buzz of the bugs, the air scented with flowers and fresh-cut grass, and an occasional gentle breeze lifting me off to new adventures in the pages of a library book.
