OPPORTUNITY KNOX

Advice To Families, "If everything seems to going well, you have obviously overlooked something". My parents are doing good in New Orleans and they even buy a city block in a undeveloped area for one thousand dollars, near what is today the New Orleans Airport. My parents hired people to clear the land and start developing it. I remember all the family going out to the land, which only had access by bulldozer and they would take pictures of us kids with huge tropical plants and debris. This would actually be the first time my parents would take a business chance and would probably be thought of as entrepreneurs today.


During these times almost all of the Veterans from WWII are getting help through the GI Bill and help from the Government obtaining loans towards their new homes, but not us. Other people at Camp Plauche are moving on to their new homes and dreams but we seem to be stuck and will soon have to find somewhere to live. The prospects don't look very good, being that New Orleans is experiencing a big shortage with housing. With all this going on my Asthma attacks seem to be getting worse, doctors say a change in climate might help.


Without any warning in 1949 my dad finds out he will be transferred somewhere in Illinois and is given the opportunity to have his own district to maintain working out of our home. With this opportunity and the doctors saying this climate would be much better for my Asthma my parents decide to take the offer, going back to sea is not an option to my mother. My parents sell the city block for exactly what they paid for it and later use that money for a down payment for our first home we will own.


My father makes a trip to find a place to live in Illinois and my mother gets ready for the move from New Orleans. My mother is excited about going to Illinois as most of her family lives in Chicago. My dad's territory for his work covers the western middle of the state and he somehow finds a house in Knoxville, Illinois. I don't remember traveling from New Orleans to Knoxville for some reason but do remember our first night in the house. My dad is in Chicago getting prepared by his company and not at home when we move in. Again my mother is left to fend for herself but seems to have everything under control.


I can remember that first night in our new home and seemed like a night of horror. I can remember us having some furniture and Mom did have her bedroom furniture at least. The rain was coming down in blankets and seemed like the whole house was being surrounded by lightning and thunder, just like all those horror movies you really never wanted to see at my age. My mother being a scar-die cat in the first place did not help us kids feel any better. I think she had all of us believing we were all going to die by the hand of Frankenstein the first night in our new house. We all were in the same bed cold, no lights and shaking in our under wear.

As would be expected the night passed and we all survived to our surprise, Dad returns home and we start to settle in to our new home. My brother and myself are going to share a bedroom even though there are four, but none of us kids wants the forth bedroom which has a full staircase to the mysterious attic. Of course my sister gets her own bedroom next to our parents, girls always seem to get first choice. I am 6 years old, my sister 8 years old and my half brother is 11 years old when we think we have moved into the house of horror in a place we had never heard of. I should mention at this time that the population of Knoxville is only about 2000 people and unknown creatures.

Our Southern speaking family now starts it's new life in a Northern speaking town and wonder what is next. I think I have the most predominant Cajun accent anyone could ever have in our family, which I find out later isn't so cute as everyone thought it was in New Orleans.