I recently posted on my facebook page the same title. So much too say, but not on this blog.
As I said, we lost. No appeal. It’s over and done. My story is done here, no more blogging. My story is not done, it just is changing to a personal journal and maybe a book.
Please still feel free to contact me about your story. I am still here and will monitor comments and stories.
I will be here. I promise.
~Susan
Thank you for sharing. Sorry, I didn’t see your comment earlier. I am curious to how you found my blog. Did your parents ever speak about loosing their rental to Eminent Domain?
~Susan
I found your blog when I did a search which included keywords “eminent domain.” I first heard of the term “eminent domain” while listening to a talk show. I never discussed it with my parents. While discussing what happened with the city’s historian, she mentioned the term “eminent domain.”
Also, while listening to the discussion on the talk show about tearing down houses, and replacing the houses with something else… I realized that the eminent domain that was being discussed was the name of what I had experienced.
While I was in the city’s (two room) museum, talking to the city’s historian about the houses that were torn down and replaced with the parking lot… the historian said that tearing down the houses was “progress.” That was very upsetting to me. I told the historian that “progress” should not be made at the expense of forcing five families out of their homes. I didn’t speak to the historian again. I had no interest in hearing anything else she had to say. There was a woman in the other room who showed me around the museum.
I remember one day leaving for school from the old house, and when school was over, I walked home to the new house. There were some children at the school who lived a half block away from the new house… they showed my siblings and I how to get to the new house from school.
Once we were driving by the old house and noticed that the front door was open… so we all went into the house and looked around. The next thing that I remember is that all of the houses were gone, and replaced with the parking lot.
I don’t recall my parents ever “discussing” losing the house.
My father started making more money 6 years after we were forced out of the old house. If we could have stayed in the old house, we would have stayed there for those 6 years… then my father would have bought a house.
We lost our house to what I assume was eminent domain when I was in third grade. This was in a middle class suburb in Northern California. We were renters. Our house was on the same block with stores, including a grocery store. The houses on the block were the oldest houses in the city. The houses were replaced with a parking lot. There was an open field half a block away. If they wanted more parking, they could have put a parking lot there.
My father then bought a big house that he couldn’t really afford. After he bought a house, he worked every day of the week to pay off the mortgage. My mother learned how to drive. A second car was another expense we couldn’t really afford.
At the time I thought moving to a new house was an adventure, but now, decades later, I know how destructive it was to lose that house. The laundromat across the street is still there. I’ve washed my clothes there a couple of times. Being in the laundromat is as close as I can come to being in the old house.
The house was beautiful. It had a semicircular breakfast nook, hardwood floors, and a large backyard. The house had two bedrooms, and there was a playroom in the basement which could have been a third bedroom.
That parking lot was empty for decades. Now the parking lot is filled with cars. Currently, half of the businesses in the city are restaurants. Somebody told me that’s where the restaurant employees park, but, if they had put the parking lot half a block away, no one would have lost their houses.
At least the business owners responsible for tearing down the houses didn’t profit from what they did.