by Kathleen Ann Strach

Created on: April 02, 2008

My husband and I had two small daughters, two and seven years old. We were about to be evicted for paying the rent late, so we came up with a desperate plan. We moved all our most precious belongings into our old station wagon and planned on living in it starting the next morning. He worked on sales commission, and all his sales backed down that month for one reason or another, so he had zero income for July in 1977.

I worked as a secretary for Gulf Oil Company in Houston. I made a low salary, not enough to cover day care, food, rent, utilities and everything else that's required for a family of four. The eviction notice was given to us earlier that month, and Saturday night was our last night living indoors.

We were young and scared, but being Christians, we were determined to ride out this latest dilemma. We did a lot of praying that night and never slept, just waiting for the sun to rise so we could begin our new life as homeless people in a big city.

All of a sudden we heard a loud truck starting up outside our apartment. It was the Repo Man! He had hooked up our station wagon filled with all of our belongings and was getting ready to take off, leaving us on foot with no where to go. The first thing we did was break down and cried, sobbing uncontrollably as we pleaded with the Repo Man to just give us a couple more days to get caught up on the payment. He completely ignored our wailing and drove off before the sun rose that Sunday morning. We were in shock and that was the lowest point in our lives. Things could only go up from there. That was our only hope.

We hung out at the apartment courtyard. The door was now locked to prevent us from continuing to live there. Mom sent enough money Western Union to bail out the station wagon the same day after we called her collect from a phone booth. We were overjoyed to see our vehicle again, filled with all of our personal belongings and we headed for the nearest KOA Campground, which was about thirty miles.

There we met several couples who seemed to be camping for the weekend. But we came to find out they were just like us, living permanently in tents and old school buses at a campground that was meant for summer vacationers. At least we weren't alone. The first night we checked in, paid for a couple nights and gathered our blankets and pillows onto the floor of the recreation room, which closed at 10 PM. We explained to everyone that we could buy a tent on Friday, which we promptly did. Then we began our life outdoors.

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