The following is an excerpt from an oral history with three of the Sundstrom children (Doris, Patricia, and Albert), who grew up at 1129 Park Avenue. Interviewed by Dalton Gackle in 2019. Their home is featured on the Park City Museum’s Annual Historic Home Tour on June 17. The tour goes from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and features thirteen buildings. Learn more and purchase tickets at https://parkcityhistory.org/event/annual-historic-home-tour-2023/.
Doris: As I am sitting here, I can remember at nighttime, my bed and my oldest sister Carol’s bed being the couch in the front room. Because there was a bedroom and a front room at that time. I can remember the sink being in that same room… dripping water for whatever water was needed. Then I can remember it being on the other side of the wall because a kitchenette was added. The couch, sleeping on the couch, that was the bed each night for a while, a few years.
Albert: I can remember when our dad put a shower in. We bathed in the number three tub in the kitchen. I remember when he put the shower in, that was kind of an exciting time. To be able to get clean that way.
Patricia: Speaking of getting the shower in… at that time the water was heated through a coal stove and it would heat the water into the water tank. Hot water really was limited. But I enjoyed the shower so much that I would shower and shower. Then my dad finally turn the valve so that it would turn the hot water off. I would have to finish my showers in the cold water. Because I wasn’t allowing anybody else to enjoy the nice hot water. I wanted it all for myself.
Laughter
Patricia: I am going to say it was probably about 1949 when we got the shower. Our folks ordered the shower through… maybe the Sears or the Montgomery catalog. Even… there was hardware store here ran by Mr. Durante and maybe they ordered it through him. The shower came in on the train. Bob’s dad got his truck and they picked up the shower and brought it down to our house.
Albert: My recollection is… I was thinking I was about ten, eleven years old. I went with my father down to the depot to pick up the shower. It was a metal shower.
Patricia: So up to that point, we bathed in a number three round metal tub in the kitchen. We took turns, didn’t we? I was always last.
Albert: We took turns.
Patricia: Yes, we did take turns.
Albert: Our dad came home from work and there was hot water for him. He filled the tub up and everybody had to go all different directions while he took his bath.
Credit: Park City Historical Society & Museum, Kendall Webb Collection
Dalton: I wanted to ask you to tell me some stories about your family home. I believe you told me it was originally a barn and then a machine shop.
Albert: It was originally a barn, I guess for horses. Then my dad turned it into a machine shop he had a lathe and I guess other equipment in there. Then he converted it into a house. It had a bedroom and a front room. Later on, he built on the back. He put in a kitchen.
Patricia: Nowadays, they call them great rooms.
Laughter
Albert: Yes, it was a great room. It was where we met morning, noon and night. Then, later on, he built a bedroom onto the north side. After that, then he moved a room from his old house over and put it on and that was my bedroom. That’s the back room of the house.
Dalton: The additions he’s doing, are these fairly quick in succession or is it over a long period of time?
Albert: Probably quite a bit of time spent between them. I guess when enough money came in, they could get the material to do it with.
Doris: The needs were there because the family was growing and needed separate rooms.
Albert: Money was tight.
Patricia: Dad did not add the kitchen on until after I was born and that was in 1940. So, it was after that. Up to that point all four of us kids… what is now the living room, was the bedroom, was the kitchen and the living room.
Patricia: The little house is bits and pieces.
Albert: Pieces here and pieces there and probably a piece or two from the mine.
The full oral history with the Sundstroms is available in the Museum’s Hal Compton Research Library.