Texas State Historical Association - My Texas

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House Keeps on Ticking

This is the story of a special house on a special hill.

In 1942, with World War II in full swing, my mother Hertha Kendall Israel's brothers were called to duty. Only one brother, Alger Kendall, was allowed to remain home. When my daddy, Eric Israel, was called to serve in the Army, Mother moved us from Beeville to Karnes City, where we completed the family enclave on "Kendall Hill."

My Uncle Alger quickly built a small frame home, nestled between my grandparents' house and Uncle Clyde's, for Mother, my brother, my sister, and me. Uncle Alger was still living in a big army tent behind Papa and Big Mama's house when we moved in. His family had camped there since he began building our grandparents' house. Only when the rest of us had roofs over our heads did he begin his own home.

Over the years his house became the family gathering place, where we all felt at home. His and Aunt Irene's generosity and hospitality brought them joy. Their house was both simple and complicated, an ever-changing house, one I came to think of as kinetic. Over the years, Uncle Alger made additions in stages. Outside walls became inside walls, living room became bedroom, kitchen became pantry, a larger kitchen was added along with a dining room. Then Uncle Alger wrapped a wall back around toward the front and created a large living room with a rock fireplace. It faced what had been the outside back and side stone walls of the house. Through careful planning of additions, most windows and interior light were preserved. The rustic, rock ranch became a house of which, though I visited there many times over fifty years, I cannot draw the floor plan. I'm told others have the same problem. The past and present house spin crazily together in our minds.

There certainly was no architect involved, just Uncle Alger's vision as he periodically altered or expanded the house to fit his family's needs at the time. However, an architect friend visited him once after the transformation had been completed and grew more and more fascinated, finally asking permission to use the plan for a wealthy client. The house has that kind of effect.

I doubt, though, that he duplicated the exterior exactly. The rock Uncle Alger laboriously loaded into truckload after truckload was now being mined for another purpose.

In the mid-fifties, uranium was discovered in Falls City, the area of Karnes County from which the beautiful, fieldstone-like rocks had come. Uncle Alger took a lot of razzing about his house when the news got out. "Hey, y'all, Alger doesn't need electric lights; he can see by the glow from his walls." "Hey, y'all, don't forget your sunglasses when you visit Irene." Finally, after good-natured prodding, Uncle Alger borrowed a Geiger counter and waved the apparatus near the house. It made a sound like castanets. I can still see his "I'll-be-danged" smile. The jokes died down after a time, and no unusual spike in ill health can be attributed to the beautiful stone, so my aunt and uncle's decision to ignore alarmists was apparently not foolhardy. To abandon that special house would have been unthinkable. My ninety-year-old Aunt Irene still lives there, and the rock home still beats with the heart of our family. Or is that ticking we hear?

Beda (Israel) Kantarjian
Longwood, Florida
Published: September 01, 2006