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Memories greet a family at the door

A woman buys back the home where she grew up and her mother carried out Salvation Army work.

By COLLEEN JENKINS
Published March 20, 2006

	[Times photo: Brendan Fitterer]
	May Plennert sits outside the home at 5917 Indiana Avenue that she shared with her husband, Nicholas, and their four children for 34 years in New Port Richey. Her daughter, Ellen Holeman, bought back the house last month. The family has big plans for the home like bringing in old family furniture and landscaping.

NEW PORT RICHEY - Ellen Holeman hadn't lived at the house at 5917 Indiana Avenue in three decades, but her memories of the place returned in minutes.

Though the house had once borne a public purpose, the memories were personal, the kind evoked by a smell or a sound or even a certain slab of wood. The knotty pine cabinets her father built still lined the kitchen. A tree still shaded the spot where her brother waxed his '50s-era Chevys.

It still felt like home, even if it wasn't anymore.

So Holeman decided to do something about that.

* * *

In 1958, when Indiana Avenue was a dirt road, May and Nicholas Plennert moved their family into a two-story home on a spacious corner lot.

May Plennert was fou r years into running west Pasco's first Salvation Army service unit. The front porch of the family's new home quickly became a collection point for food baskets at Thanksgiving and Easter and donation kettles at Christmas.

Beyond the porch, the home bustled with the comings and goings of the four Plennert children: Bob, Donald, Bill and Ellen.

It was the place where they celebrated the holidays around a little Christmas tree that sat atop May Plennert's living room desk.

Where a pillow broke a window during a sleepover with some neighbor kids.

Where Ellen got a shiny blue bike for her eighth birthday, and Bill decorated his bedroom window with Fats Domino and Chubby Checker celebrity cards.

Where they sat in the bay window and watched Hurricane Donna knock down their chimney.

Where they raised three cats, three dogs and a parakeet named Petie Boy.

Where friends and neighbors felt welcome and at home, too.

"Whenever anybody came into it," Ellen Holeman said, "they always said mom made it feel homey."

"It was a nice, happy home," May Plennert said.

For 34 years, the home was part of their family. And the family was part of the home.

* * *

Even after her parents moved in 1992, Holeman, all grown up and an elementary school teacher, drove by the old homestead every so often to see how it changed.

In December, she spotted a sign out front: For Sale.

The current owner, Karen Casson, happened to be the cousin of Holeman's high school prom date and Bill Plennert's best friend. A few phone calls later, Holeman found herself standing in her childhood kitchen.

The hardwood floors were new - "We had carpet and linoleum," Holeman said - and so were the plumbing, electric, bathrooms, roof and appliances.

But merely being within those walls started a movie reel of memories inside her head.

"Well, dad did this, and dad did that," she thought as she moved from room to room, many of which still bore her father's touches.

She saw the slab of wood. Casson had marked the heights of her grandchildren on a piece of trim between the dining and living rooms. It was the same place the Plennert children had tracked their vertical progression.

Holeman started dreaming of bringing her 951/2-year-old mother, who moved into assisted living after her husband died in 1998, back to the house. She drew pictures of the rooms and how she would arrange her furniture in them.

Last month, Holeman and her husband purchased her childhood home.

She said the decision already has brought her family closer by giving them a project to share. They want to recapture the flavor of the house's past.

Bill Plennert, a retired Clearwater police detective, has "visions of grandeur" for the yard. Holeman will return her grandmother's dresser and her grandfather's rocker. Their sister-in-law plans to contribute May Plennert's hope chest.

"It's like now the whole family's being recreated all over again," Holeman said recently, standing outside the home.

Indiana Avenue was behind her, paved.

--Colleen Jenkins can be reached at 727 869-6236 or cjenkins@sptimes.com

[Last modified March 20, 2006, 00:36:17]