The magnificent Hutchinson house stood where Hood's parking lot is now, at the corner of State and Wooster Streets. Picture a massive, three story mansion of a place with graceful columns and a spacious front porch. Archibald Hutchinson built the house and lived there with his family; Archie's wife, Edith Call was the daughter of Ambrose Call, founder of Algona.

In 1949, my family and I moved there. In fact we lived there when Edith Call Hutchinson was still living in a house just south of the big house. As we were moving in, we checked out each high-ceilinged room and filled the vast spaces with our family and our life. Our giddy calls to each other echoed throughout the empty house. "Look at the Fabulous Fireplace!" "There's one up here, too" came a voice from the second floor.

I remember standing in the chandeliered entry way, looking up to the second floor, admiring the winding staircase and graceful wooden banister, as the sunlight shone through the stained glass windows, sensing that we had definitely moved to a stately residence, and wondering how the house would hold-up to our full-of-life, rambunctious family. Taking the steps two-by-two, I explored the upstairs, in through one door of the master suite and out the other, then counted five more rooms plus two baths. There was a laundry chute to the basement at the top of the back stairway.

Down the stairs I went, stopping on the landing halfway down to look out the window at the tops of lilac bushes and hedges bordering the grounds that covered half a block.

"Come on Boo," I called to our dog, who was following me around to make sure he wouldn't be left behind. We checked out the kitchen and the pantry, a large room with shelves to the ceiling on both sides, and then out onto the back screened porch, and ducked to get out of the way of the movers.

We settled in, and my Mother took special effort to restore the woodwork; she stripped the paint and polished the wood so it looked rich and warm. Before each room was painted, she steamed off the wallpaper, contemplating the last life of the house as she found layer after layer of colorful patterns.

My Father replaced the coal furnace with a modern one, and remodeled the basement to accommodate the workings of the North Iowa Directory Service: a Davidson offset printing press, a hand-fed job press, type cases and equipment, a dark room for processing offset plates, a light box for opaquing and ad layout, long tables on which to collate by hand the farm directories (for "Gathering Parties" Mom called them), staplers and trimmers to finish the books.

The front room, or music room, became the main office of the budding family business. The nursery was another office, where lists of farmers' names were typed on IBM electric typewriters and ads were set on a varityper machine by employees who were like family such as Maxine Gibson Clegg.

Three of the second story bedrooms soon were occupied by full-time roomers who often joined us for supper, coffee, popcorn, conversation, laughter, and even a game of Scrabble or a birthday party.

The coffee pot was always on, and people streamed in the front and back doors and stayed to visit with my hard-working and gregarious family, talking a lot and laughing often. In the large kitchen a washer-dryer ran practically full-time to keep up with the rooming house linens, towels, and family laundry. Drinking coffee at the kitchen table was flavored with laughter as the dryer played a little tune after each cycle: "How dry I am... how dry I am... Nobody knows how dry I am!"

One of my favorite stories about our years in the Hutchinson house is when my mother encouraged me to go and visit Mrs. Hutchinson, who was quite old and growing deaf and almost blind, and would welcome a young visitor, my Mother assured me. When I arrived, the housekeeper brought Mrs. Hutchinson down the stairs and announced me.

"And where do you live?" said Mrs. Hutchinson. "I live next door," and the housekeeper repeated it so Mrs. Hutchinson could hear. "Oh, you live in the Laughing House!" said Mrs. Hutchison, astutely.

I was amazed that this aging woman, who was losing her hearing and sight, sensed the essence of our life. I couldn't wait to tell my Mother that we lived in the Laughing House!