Moving to the Mary-Etta

Friday, May 1, 1964.  Moving Day!  We'd already had a rummage sale in Grandpa and Grandma's basement.  The day before, on April 30th, Mom had helped Dan and me make and deliver May baskets to all of our neighborhood friends.  (Thanks, Mom!  That was going above and beyond the call of motherhood, even though we considered May Day to be an essential holiday back then.)  Everything from our apartment at the Oxnard Hotel was packed into a borrowed stock truck.  It was exciting to spend that last night in one of the biggest hotel rooms.  We stopped at Lincoln School on the way out of town so I could drop off a book and say one last good-bye to my third grade classmates, and then we were on our way.

I'd never been to Fairbury.  Mom and Dad had visited the Hotel Mary-Etta once, before they decided to take over management.  They gave us glowing descriptions of the party rooms, the cafe, with its auxiliary seating area called the "Garden," and the elevator, which we would use to get to our new apartment on the fourth floor.  Moving to the Mary-Etta was definitely a step up for us, in more ways than one.   

The three hour drive seemed to take forever.  Except for the long drive from Georgia back to Nebraska when I was a baby, I don't think I'd ever been more than a hundred miles from home.  Grandpa and Grandma Wegner and Grandpa and Grandma Vawser, along with Aunt Marilyn, came along to help us move, and Uncle Lee and Aunt Rose came from Grand Island with their four kids, too. The hotel employees and residents must have wondered just how many of those eight kids would be staying!

After we finally arrived, the six oldest kids lined up on the swivel stools at the cafe counter to eat lunch--hamburgers and french fries.  The Mary-Etta Cafe always made the best fries in town!  Then Marilyn took us across the street to the Jefferson County Museum, where we spent an hour or two sifting through the dusty artifacts and conversing with the caretaker, who wondered why we weren't in school.  That was the first of many trips to the museum for Dan and me. 

Meanwhile, the adults had the task of hauling all of our belongings upstairs on the elevator to our new apartment.  The apartment was a large one, with a big kitchen and living room, and three bedrooms.  Laura's crib didn't make the move with us, so now she would be sharing a double bed in my room, while Dan got a room of his own.  The apartment had two doors to the hotel hallway.  The main door had a doorbell and a peephole, so we could see who was outside the door.  During the day, our door wasn't locked, but as we got older and taller, we were instructed to always look through the peephole when someone came to the locked door at night, and to not let anyone in unless we knew them.  The other door opened from Dan's room to the main hallway.  As time went by, Dan, Laura, and I often used his door to leave the apartment, but never to enter, because we didn't have a key.

The main door opened from the hotel hallway, right by the elevator, into the spacious, airy, corner living room, which was painted "hotel green," my least favorite color.  Even the carpet was "hotel green," and our bedrooms were the same color.  Mom's favorite color was green, so I think she was happy.  Our apartment could have been advertised as having a wonderful view; when we looked out the large windows, we could see over the green treetops, clear across town.

Each room had a large radiator with a painted, metal radiator cover.  The radiator in the bathroom made a perfect window seat; I was destined to spend many winter days sitting on a pillow on the toasty bathroom radiator, reading and soaking up the warmth.  The living room and one of the bedrooms contained enormous, green, free-standing swamp coolers, which functioned as air-conditioners in the summer.  Dan loved to climb on top of the largest one in the living room and jump off when he was pretending to be a super hero.  This only happened when Mom and Dad weren't in the room, of course. As I look back, I think we should have felt sorry for the third floor residents who lived in the apartment below us.

The eat-in kitchen was located just to the right of the living room, and Mom and Dad's bedroom opened directly to the left.  The main disadvantage to that apartment was that we had to walk through Mom and Dad's room to get to the only bathroom, and on to the other two bedrooms.  So, if Laura and I were walking to our room from the living room, we went through Mom and Dad's room, down a short hallway that led past the bathroom and two walk-in closets, and through Dan's room to our own bedroom at the end of the line.  I'm sure that it was a bigger disadvantage for Mom and Dad than for us kids.

We loved the elevator!  At first, we weren't allowed to ride in the elevator unless an adult was with us.  This didn't pose a problem, because Larry, the bell hop, was usually available to take us up in the elevator if Mom or Dad weren't with us. The elevator was ancient, with a heavy glass and metal door that had to be opened manually, and an inner metal gate that had to be opened by hand, too.  We all developed strong biceps from opening those elevator doors several times a day.  We often rode upstairs in the elevator, as long as no hotel guests needed to use it, but we usually ran down all three massive flights of stairs to the hotel lobby.  If Dan and I chose to race Mom and Laura when they rode down in the elevator, we could usually beat them, even though we sounded like a thundering herd.  

The Hotel Mary-Etta was originally built as a three-story showplace in the early 1900s, when Fairbury was a booming railroad town; the fourth story was added several years later.  It seemed much larger than the Oxnard Hotel.  It was certainly busier, because it contained a barber shop, the cafe, and two large party rooms with a huge kitchen, as well as the tavern, which was managed by Dad's Aunt Viola and Uncle Charlie.  The Mary-Etta employed a lot of people as desk clerks, maids, cooks, waitresses, and dishwashers.  Living in the hotel was a lot like living in a castle.  The hotel itself resembled a small, bustling village; our family considered the entire building to be our home.  We may have complained a lot about not having a yard but, to compensate, we frequented all of Fairbury's gorgeous parks, and spent many Sunday afternoons touring the whole county together.  Living at the Mary-Etta was certainly a unique experience.  As we look back, I think that everyone in our family treasures many memories of the Mary-Etta.