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The definition of “home” depends on whom you ask
Sara Debold
David and Charlotte Nagel put a lot of work into the design of their trailer home in Ed’s Trailer Park. “We improvise,” David says. The couple uses puzzles to decorate the walls, and they turned a simple garden statue into a lawn fountain by adding a drainage pipe.
November 9, 2006 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Home has the amazing ability to piece together memories and familiarity. The address might change and belongings might be packed and unpacked, but a home’s definition is not determined by location. Four walls might construct a home; however, as these stories will tell, it’s sometimes what is on those walls that truly matter. Although these Columbia residents each have a different definition of the perfect home, they all understand the importance of defining it in their own terms.
A room with a view
Thieland Onyenwere (second from right) poses with her family outside their current Columbia home. Kali ...
David and Charlotte Nagel put a lot of work into the design of their trailer ...
Bob and Sandy Huesgen say they enjoy their new apartment in Kelly’s Ridge complex. The ...
“When people come in, they’re amazed at how contained it is,” Katya DeLuisa says. “There’s everything you need to live. That’s what’s so great about living in an RV.”
DeLuisa, 53, calls a 1980 Dodge RV her home. For the past seven years, she has put more miles on her home than some people have on their car. The tan and white 20-foot RV she purchased for $2,500 had 52,000 miles under its belt when she bought it. Thirteen thousand miles have whizzed by since, and DeLuisa has no plans to settle down or retire. In fact, she doesn’t know why she didn’t choose this lifestyle earlier.
DeLuisa has what she needs to live comfortably in her RV. Her kitchen is complete with a four-burner stove and a table for two. The kitchen table serves as a place to eat meals and as a desk. She uses public resources for the things not available in her home. For example, she accesses the Internet at local libraries. DeLuisa spends $100 each month on her main two bills: cell phone and insurance.
What began as a visit to a friend in Columbia turned into a job opportunity. DeLuisa got involved with School of Service-Access Arts and with their help began Linking Elder Generations, Art, Community and Youth. LEGACY, DeLuisa says, educates family members on how to use art to communicate with relatives with dementia.
DeLuisa used to sell her art, but four years ago, she became tired of “the whole art business.”
“I hated selling my art like it was tomatoes,” DeLuisa says.
She turned to journaling for her creative expression and began teaching a journaling workshop to Alzheimer’s patients. On average it takes a year for patients to finish their journals, and when the journals are complete, the patients sometimes develop a clearer way to communicate with loved ones.
DeLuisa organizes workshops and creates programs for people in the latter stages of dementia. She has made people aware that sometimes there’s still a way to communicate with Alzheimer’s patients. Living in her RV allows DeLuisa to do what she loves: helping people through the medium of art.
Since she was 15 years old and left the inner-Chicago housing project where she grew up, DeLuisa has lived a nomadic lifestyle. With everything she has seen of the world, from the jungles of Latin America to the varying vegetation of Florida, no explanation seems necessary for why she can’t sit still. DeLuisa says there is an answer for her lifestyle, and it lies right outside her RV’s windows.
“In Sedona, I had the most incredible view of the red rocks and the canyons,” she says. “In Florida, I had a view of the ocean. Actually, I’m going to have one when I go now. Sometimes, I’ll just stop at a rest stop somewhere because the view is just great and make myself lunch and just look out my window.”
DeLuisa’s next stop is San Maria, Fla., a little island 30 miles north of Sarasota where she will visit her new grandson. With opportunities nationwide to illuminate the value of art, staying in one place for more than six months is simply out of the question for DeLuisa. If there’s any sorrow in parting ways, it is not detectable in her voice. She has places to go and people to see. There are families yearning to communicate with loved ones who have Alzheimer’s, and there are patients with words and stories to share.
“So the best thing you can do is to not have plans.” DeLuisa says. “Basically, work with what you’ve got right now, and let it take you to the next step. If you live that way, you never go wrong. It’s always the right stuff, the next step.”
Have home, will travel
Visiting Bob and Sandy Huesgen’s home on the west side of Columbia is like walking through a three-dimensional scrapbook of the couple’s life journeys. Knickknacks nestle in the nooks and crannies of the couple’s two-bedroom apartment, and each framed photo and figurine tells a story about the corners of the world they have lived in.
For the Huesgens, home has been a great many places. Bob’s 24 years of military service in the United States Air Force took the couple everywhere from Washington, D.C., to California to Alaska to France. Twenty-nine years ago, the couple bought what was meant to be a weekend vacation home at the Lake of the Ozarks, but the vacation didn’t end until last year. The Huesgens, now in their early 70s, decided it was time to live closer to their doctors.
Today, the couple calls Columbia their home. When they moved into their newly built apartment one year ago, evidence of construction lingered. Dust from lumber and drywall settled on the tan kitchen counters, and the smell of fresh carpet and new paint filled the air. The couple complemented the apartment’s newness by adding some modern items. They traded their large couch for a sleek suede loveseat and bought glass-topped coffee and end tables. Much of the rest of their home, however, reflects the Huesgens’ history.
Sandy’s first priority was to fill the home with photos. On each of the end tables in the living room sits a photo taken during Bob’s three years in France during the 1960s. In one, the couple’s daughter embraces a golden-orange dog. In the other, Bob and his daughter sip pretend tea out of tiny cups. Both faded photos capture the past.
“These are things you cannot leave behind,” Bob says about the nostalgic pictures. During the course of their moves, the couple has had to sell or give away many objects, but they make sure to hold on to the irreplaceable items.
Scattered throughout the rest of the home, the Huesgens’ keepsake collection illustrates a world tour of sorts. On one bookshelf, a penny bank shaped like General Pershing (a souvenir from Sandy’s father’s service in World War I) mingles with an eight-piece mug set from the couple’s travels to Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, along with platters handed down from Sandy’s mother, a ceramic bull from Spain and a figurine of Paris’ Arc de Triomphe. Behind the dining room table sits a china chest from Yugoslavia. Stone tribal figures from Alaska and miniature sculptures of Moses and a Pietà rest on the tables in the living room.
“Our home has a little bit of every place we’ve enjoyed,” Bob says. Each of these mementos contributes to making the Huesgens’ house a home, but the physical structure also contributes to the cozy feel of the apartment.
After retirement, Sandy developed a love of cooking. For her, the openness between the kitchen and living room is perfect for whipping up a recipe and being social at the same time. The couple also feels at home on the patio, where they enjoy grilling and watching opossums and deer wander through the trees. The wooded area outside their windows creates a sense of privacy and isolation, even though their home is sandwiched between other apartments.
For Sandy, the most important element in creating a comfortable home has nothing to do with its construction or decoration. For the past 52 years, she and Bob have lived in a variety of structures in many different cities around the world. Throughout these journeys, Sandy says one theme remains constant: “Home is where my spouse is.”
Be our guest
“We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”
Mother Teresa’s often-quoted statement hangs on the wall of Brian and Kathy Slind’s dining room. In the 11 months they have owned and lived at University Avenue Bed and Breakfast, their share of small things has fashioned a cozy bed and breakfast out of this historic home.
At 6 each morning, Kathy prepares breakfast, which usually consists of fresh, seasonal fruit and bacon and eggs. When their guests leave to explore Columbia, the Slinds’ work continues. Across the hall from the office where Brian works, Kathy stands over the sink in the spotless white kitchen and washes dishes. Next, the laundry must be done. With four rooms in the red brick home that can hold up to eight guests in all, sorting whites from colors is a daily chore.
The Slinds know from firsthand experience what makes people feel at home. The couple has been on the other side of the guestbook because they have stayed in bed and breakfasts across the Northwest. Brian can’t remember a vacation without a B&B. Where they stay has been equally as important to them as the destination itself. When they married four years ago, the couple decided owning a bed and breakfast would be their retirement plan because they “could be retired and still make additional income,” Brian says.
The Slinds purchased the University Avenue Bed and Breakfast, formally the McMurray House, nearly a year ago. The home’s interior is decorated with sturdy wooden furniture, comfortable couches and beds layered with quilts almost too beautiful to sleep under.
Brian and Kathy were in Branson to purchase another bed and breakfast, but as that deal was falling through, they learned the McMurray House was on the market. Brian and Kathy said goodbye to Branson a day early to come to Columbia.
Initially, the house was a little rough around the edges. In the 11 months since they signed the papers, Brian and Kathy have poured $30,000 into the property. They have added air conditioning and heating. These upgrades are a welcome change for guests and for the Slinds, who have not adjusted to Columbia’s humidity.
Visitors to the university and regulars keep the bed and breakfast busy, and Kathy sees every check-in as an opportunity to meet new people and to welcome them into her home. And Brian enjoys being co-master of his own domain.
“The fact that I’m my own boss is a good thing,” he says.
Putting the pieces together
Every morning around 8:30, Charlotte Nagel fills her coffee mug and settles into a chair at the small round table in her kitchen. Between sips, she shuffles through pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and snaps them together when she finds a match. Half an hour later, her husband, David, joins in the ritual.
Day by day, piece by piece, images of seascapes or angels begin to emerge. When two weeks pass, another puzzle is completed, but the colorful cardboard chips never make it back into the box. Instead, they are glued together and hung as artwork.
The Nagels have added 32 puzzles to the walls of their two-bedroom trailer. Over the past two years, they moved to a mobile home park on the east side of Columbia three years ago, and since then have made their house into a home the same way they put together puzzles: one piece at a time.
Every few weeks when they have spending money to spare, the couple likes to add an item to their dwelling’s décor. Each piece represents a small part of their lives, such as David’s fascination with fishing or Charlotte’s enchantment with plants.
“We fill our house with our interests, hobbies and what we love,” David says. “That’s a lot of what makes it a home.”
Even so, their home is worth more than the sum of its pieces. While the Nagels’ collections of miniature motorcycles and wildlife wall hangings provide a glimpse as to who the couple is, the home as a whole is a testament to how far the couple has come.
David and Charlotte met five years ago at the Salvation Army. They married several months later, promising to have and to hold and to help each other overcome homelessness — and they did. That triumph makes putting together the pieces of their home all the more rewarding.
When they were looking to rent a mobile home three years ago, they were immediately attracted to their current home. The corners of the woodwork canopy between the living room and kitchen are adorned with wagon wheels — a detail Charlotte, a certified nurse assistant with Lenoir Woods senior living community, and David, a psychiatric aide with Integration Plus, Inc., appreciated. Charlotte says she is a country girl at heart and fell in love with the home’s ranch style.
The mobile home was not perfect, however, and needed some TLC before it became the couple’s home. Just as the Nagels tackle puzzles by first connecting the edge pieces, the couple first focused much of their attention on sprucing up the outside perimeter of their home. They cleared away piles of gray rock and scattered grass seed. In time, they used wood planks to designate plots for rose bushes and perennials, and they created an area for a bench and a barbecue. The cactus garden in front of the trailer is nestled in a bed of black porous gravel and embellished with larger souvenir rocks that the couple found on a camping trip.
The Nagels also display mementos inside their home. Next to one of their rustic worn-leather couches stands what the couple calls the “love table.” On this special end table rest keepsakes from the couple’s Valentine’s Day celebrations, such as a cloth rose and a small silver box containing a photo of David.
Many of the other shelves and surfaces in the living room are brimming with knickknacks and figurines, but, like each piece of a puzzle, everything has its place. David pokes fun at how his wife will sometimes adjust objects a mere centimeter or two if they seem a little off kilter.
“I’m a clean freak,” Charlotte says. “If it doesn’t look nice, then I don’t feel good about myself.” The couple believes that having a tidy space creates a more relaxing home environment, but it also keeps their cat, Feebee, and ferret, Sassy, out of mischief. The Nagels are in the process of ferret-proofing their home because the brown and white speckled pet likes digging in flowerpots, and he can nudge open cupboard doors with his pink nose and climb inside. The house is also home to aquatic species, such as guppies and ghost shrimp, that live in a freshwater tank.
In the future, David hopes to build a rock garden waterfall outside and fill the pond with goldfish. This project is one of many the Nagels hope to add to their trailer. Like the jigsaw creations that grow little by little each morning at their kitchen table, David and Charlotte see their home as a work in progress. Some spaces in their house, such as the exercise room and the hallway that connects it to the bedroom, are blank canvases just waiting for the right pieces to fall into place, while existing elements, such as the tan carpet, might be replaced with wood flooring.
The Nagels have the freedom to choose the type of pieces needed to finish making their house a home. Lucky for them, like the picture on the front of the puzzle boxes, their home can change to whatever they dream.
Hello...I found your Nov. 11th, 06 article about Katya DeLuisa who I have spoken to in Sarasota, Florida about house sitting in her RV...I now could use her services if still available, but, have not been able to contact her...if it would be possible for you to forward this comment to her I would appreciate it...I will include my contact information...e-mail= (philipjohnbower@hotmail.com)phone= (Canada-902-257-2855 until February) (U.S.-941-359-0970)...thanks...as to the article, I did know she lived in an RV, but, didn't know of her artistic skills and work with seniors...very interesting...I'll thank you in advance, should it be possible to forward this information to her...sincerely, Philip Bower
Posted by Philip Bower on Dec 30, 2007 at 5:09 p.m. (Report Comment)