Larch Upstairs

The Thorspecken family lived at 239 Larch Avenue, Dumont New Jersey between 1955 and 1971. The family grew and then grew a bit smaller as daughters and sons got married. The upstairs bedrooms were set aside for children. There was also a nursery on the ground floor that doubled as a dining room. At time there were five children in this small house. So where did they all stay? It turns out there were two bunk beds in the back bedroom. Kids were constantly being moved from room to room over the years.

I only remember staying in the upstairs front bedroom at the top of the staircase. I remember this since I once crawled out the bedroom window and scooted down the roof and sat on the peak of the garage roof. Apparently my two brothers were in the back bedroom. That bedroom has a large fan that looked like it was from a World War II aircraft. That huge fan would keep the home cool in the summer. It exhausted the hot air out of what doubled as a closet.

One of my older sisters remembered also sleeping in the front bedroom upstairs. She remembered since she had little privacy any time my brothers wanted to run downstairs. My other older sister got married a year after I was born, so the house was the most crowded for that year. New borns must have stayed in the nursery downstairs or in the master bedroom. No photos exist of the upstairs bedrooms so exact placement of furniture is a guess.