The Hooterville Tree

Susan Mary Marshall. Born February 24, 1967.

By the time I came along in a winter storm in 1967, the house my father built on Bell`s Turn in the east end of St. John’s sheltered eleven people - eight children, two parents, a deaf grandmother and a Siamese cat named Mouse. We co-existed in a rectangular 1,200-square-foot wooden box with one bathroom, a large kitchen, living room, entrance hall and four bedrooms. My three brothers slept in the back bedroom which was connected by a secret closet to what should have been the master in the front. This front bedroom housed us five girls and Mouse while my parents and grandmother were relegated to two tiny rooms on the opposite end of the house over the garage.