January 1, 2001
DOWN HOME:
Home: The great place where memories live
___If you wrote a family history, you probably wouldn't spend many lines on the house.
___Most of the time, it's just a setting--the place where people sleep and eat, where they mow grass in the summer and hunker down in the winter. Especially in this era ofperpetual motion, a house may be little more than a stopover from one city or neighborhood to the next.
MARV KNOX,
Editor
___But if you wanted to tell about the Jarchows, you couldn't avoid focusing on the house at 6753 Mike Drive in North Richland Hills.
___In many ways, it's about like any other place where Baby Boomer Texans grew up: Three bedrooms, two baths, brick, central air added along the way, an attached garage and a tidy yard bound in the back by a chain-link fence.
___But for almost 45 years, Jim and Margie Jarchow made that place their home. There they raised their daughters, Julia, Janis and Joanna, my wife.
___It takes a lot of living to make a house a home. Jim did his part with his hands. Over time, he added a den, expanded the garage extended the front porch, added on to the den, built a patio, added a skylight, enclosed the patio, and carpeted and re-carpeted more times than anybody can remember. Margie, a whiz with paint and crafts, envisioned and implemented the essence of every room, both tastefully and warmly done.
___But more than paint and nails make a home. The Jarchows forged theirs with birthday parties and sleepovers and Sunday School parties. They centered their home on love for the Lord and made it a quiet, inviting haven from the storms of life that sooner or later blow into every family.
___More than two decades ago, they added me to their family, and in that home we celebrated triumphs and grieved tragedies. We cheered the arrival of children and mourned the loss of loved ones.
___Around the kitchen table, we consumed tons of "chalupa," the family favorite recipe and a must for any birthday. Around that table, we played countless hands of "May I" rummy, a family favorite game, not so much because it requires skill and strategy but because it provides time for jokes and laughter, which made our hearts glad.
___Just a few weeks ago, Jim and Margie sold the family home. Characteristically, theirs was a well-thought-out decision. They downsized into a retirement community and sold the home to a young couple perfectly capable of keeping that place warm and welcoming with love.
___And for the first time since 1956, the Jarchow clan celebrated Christmas someplace other than on Mike Drive. We weren't sure how we'd make it, but somehow we recognized what we've always known. It's love, not paint and nails, that make a home.
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