Haunting the house

Homer Day, circa late 1960s

Several times a year, I make the trek on Interstate 80 across the state of Iowa to the Quad Cities to visit family. My nieces and nephew are getting older. My sister and I have finally cultivated a relationship in our adult life. My dad is nearly 70, and, at some point, I know this list of people is going to get smaller. As the years go by, I am growing eager to hang on to the things that are fading away. 

I spent my high school years in the small town of Ely, just outside of Cedar Rapids. My mom and I were the first occupants of that house, and it was a fine place to spend my teenage years, but it wasn’t the house I grew up in. 

Whenever I would leave my dad’s place in Moline, Illinois, I would drive over to the town of Rock Island. The place that I called “my house” was located on 32nd Street and 18th Avenue. My first memory is in this house. All those early developmental achievements happened there. So many birthdays, celebrations and deaths that I first experienced happened during the first 14 years of my life. I haven’t lived in that house for 26 years, but I still feel more attached to that place than I ever did in Ely or even my house in Des Moines now. I had taken it to be a constant in my life, unseen but always there. It was as much a part of me as I was a part of it. I have felt its absence since the day we moved out. Over the years, I have watched that house fall apart. I would drive by, and the unkept yard, gutters falling off and the garage looking completely unusable. It did not look like that when we lived there. Each year, I have watched it die a little more, yet I can’t seem to stop haunting my own house.

A few years ago, my dad and I were talking about the house he grew up in here in Des Moines. It was not the place he spent the largest part of his life, but it was where his memories began. We have (or maybe had) family members here in Des Moines who were here decades before I showed up. 

Dad’s early years were spent on East 38th Street. The house was originally owned by his grandmother, and his Uncle Dennis eventually built an addition on top of it years after his family moved out. It sat up on a hill, and in the front yard there was an old fashioned swing set made from galvanized pipe that had survived every storm since the late 1950s when it was built. Down the hill, Dad told me he and his uncle would play in Fourmile Creek. My grandfather, Homer Day, worked for the Rock Island Lines railroad company, but his siblings, including Dennis, were all teachers.

I don’t know the exact timelines, but before Dennis took over the house, my grandmother, Anne Day, was staying at home, but money wasn’t great. As the story goes, they made enough to feed the kids, but that was about it. Homer was transferred briefly to Trenton, Missouri, before eventually moving the family to Rock Island, Illinois. 

This part of our family history is hazy, and, personally, I feel disconnected to it. In fact, my grandfather had a marriage prior to the one with my grandmother, but we haven’t had any contact with them. My dad has half-brothers and half-sisters he doesn’t know. I have cousins I have never met. Ten years ago, my sister and I went through the whole 23andMe genetic testing (making it difficult for me to ever commit a crime in this lifetime). We found all sorts of relatives from that first bloodline. The one that was the most impactful was a cousin who we both thought looked similar to me. She would be the same age as me and lives in Indiana now. 

When I moved to Des Moines in 2007, I didn’t know any of this. My dad would just say he lived here briefly, but that was the end of it. When we went looking for the old house, it made it feel real for me, but Dad seemed disconnected. All these Des Moines blood relatives I have never met, and my dad poses a blunt question, “Who cares? Does your life change knowing they exist?” No, it doesn’t, but, in the last couple years, I have found myself over in that neighborhood more as my new favorite Mexican joint, Café con Leche, sits in the Hilltop Neighborhood. I drive by that street where my family tree started. 

Am I haunting the house… or is it haunting me? ♦

Kristian Day is a filmmaker and writer based in Des Moines. He also hosts the syndicated Iowa Basement Tapes radio program on 98.9 FM KFMG. Instagram: @kristianday | Twitter: @kristianmday