Mama B's House
Our dream to own a one-of-a-kind mid-century modern house has come true.
From the first time we saw this house in Miller Beach, back in late 2006, we loved it. The house next door was for sale, and was the best property we'd seen while looking at homes in Miller. We sent our realtor over to talk to the owner of this crazy looking house, in off-chance that she'd be willing to sell. She wasn't interested.
Resigned we purchased the house next door. At least we'd live next door to one of Miller's most distinctive homes.
In a Google Maps photo from 2007, behind the trees, you can see our home peeking through. Mama B's is just on the right.
As the years went by we became friendly with our neighbor, Mrs. Bennette Robertson, better known as Mama B. She was as unusual as her home. The memories I have of when we talked with her are fragmented and sketchy like many of her stories. She loved to shock and be sassy.
Sassy? Hell! She could be downright mean! Many times I'd be out in the yard, pulling weeds and she'd be yelling at some neighborhood boy that she'd hired to mow her yard. "What's wrong with you? Are you stupid?!" I'd hear her shout. "That's not how it's done!"
Again from Google Maps, our house, this time in September 2008. You can tell we had just visited Ikea by the extra garbage piled by the trashcan. Not the ugly color of the awnings and the missing trees, which had rotted from the inside out..
She was born August 20, 1917. She worked for Mayor Richard J. Daley in Chicago. She always said that she was their "token black woman" and would be placed right up front when it would benefit his image. She claimed to have lots of dirt on his administration, backed by physical evidence that she kept in her kitchen, and planned an exposé of his dirty deeds. What information she had, she never shared with us, and if it existed I expect it is buried somewhere in the local landfill.
She regularly attended services at Bethel Lutheran Church, just a mile south of her home. She was always smartly dressed with a fabulous wig and hat, not just for church but anytime she left her home.
Google Maps from August 2013. Note how big our Rose of Sharon got over the years!
We invited her to a party at our house the summer of 2012. She became the focus of the party with her stories and remembrances. Later she told us that of all the decades that she lived in her home in Miller that that was the only time she had ever been invited into our house.
She described the day she purchased her home in the 80s. At the closing, she said, the husband was there but the wife refused to come since they were selling the home to a black woman.
She claimed to have many suitors through her widowed years. She said the men would always come on strong but then she'd use some salty language just to turn them off.
She outlived her entire family, her husband and all of her kids. She only had her grandkids left, who lived in Illinois.
In the winter of 2013, after a terrible snow storm, I was out shoveling. While upfront of our house an ambulance pulled up to Mama B's and they wheeled her in on a stretcher. She had had a stroke, I hear, and had collapsed in her home. That's the last I saw of her. She never returned home. She died February 25, 2014 after a few months in the hospital.
Her grandson showed up at our door one Sunday. He had just left her memorial service. He said she always spoke so highly of us, and how friendly we were. He said he and his sister would be fixing up Mama B's home for sale over the next few months, and asked that we could keep an eye on it.
They often were there, every weekend it seemed, fixing it up and cleaning out decades of clutter.
They stopped by to talk to me just before they had planned on putting it on the market. I told them I always loved it. They old me the price. My eyes bugged out of my head. Their asking price was much much higher than I ever imagined. I felt deflated. I guess we'll never get a chance to live there.
It was on the market for months. No movement. Never saw anyone there for a showing. It went off the market. The grandkids came back and did more cleaning and dumping. They had an estate sale which was poorly advertised and didn't look to me to be very successful. After it was over they invited me in and kept loading my arms with unsold items, for free, that they couldn't believe didn't sell.
It went back on the market at a significantly lower price but still it sat. The Gary Air Show was back in Miller the summer of 2015. I was sure this increase in traffic would bring lots of potential buyers. Nope.
Surprised by the lack of movement on the property, Bob and I felt we might be able to do some serious negotiating.
Fortunately we all arrived at a price we could agree on and we closed on Mama B's home.
I'll be using this blog to allow friends and family to track our progress in turning this ship around.