I Was A Mail Order Homeowner

When I was a kid, the postman's arrival could be a big deal.

I had mailed off my three cereal box tops or twenty Bazooka bubble gum wrappers to get that special toy, and then the waiting game began.

For days, neither of my parents had to walk down the long driveway to pick up the mail, because as soon as a delivery was made, I ran to that box like a greyhound after a rabbit. If anyone in the family was watching, they knew from my body language whether my package had arrived. They either witnessed an immediate slumping of shoulders, or an excited dash back toward the house.

If a child can get that excited over the delivery of a cheap toy, I can only imagine Roy Sizer's reaction 84 years ago when a train pulled into the Milton depot with his mail order purchase.

A house.

Mr. Sizer, the previous owner of my property, ordered the dwelling in which I now reside from the pages of a catalog. We know this from wood pieces cut out of our dining room wall during remodeling. The wall boards are stamped with the equivalent of a shipping address, “From Montgomery Ward & Co., Davenport, Ia. to Roy L. Sizer, Milton, Wisconsin.” Other pieces were stamped with descriptions and part numbers for easy assembly.

This discovery sent me on a flurry of research. Kit houses or as Ward called them, “ready-cut houses,” were not uncommon. According to the book, “Houses By Mail,” over 100,000 were built in the United States between 1908 and 1940, the majority from Sears. Montgomery Ward's share, under their brand name Wardway Homes, was approximately 25,000.

So while our house is unusual, it's certainly not rare. A major selling point was the price. According to historians, Montgomery Ward advertising promised that the typical homebuyer would save about one-third the cost compared to traditional construction. And it was obvious that Mr. Sizer was cost-conscious from the first time we entered this house. Touring the basement, it was pointed out that the floor boards had been used for framing the foundation.

Another plus for buyers was the convenience. You could place one order with Ward and get everything including the kitchen sink. From screens and shades to roofing, wiring and refrigerators, you could literally get every single thing you needed except masonry materials.

Though I have viewed several Wardway Homes catalogs online, I have yet to find our exact house, possibly because it was customized. One home that does bear a resemblance, particularly in floor plan, is a 1930 catalog model called “The Maywood” - a steal at $2295 or monthly payments of $45.

But it appears that the bargain price was still too much for Mr. Sizer's successors (he sold the home later in the 1930's). The property abstract lists Montgomery Ward & Company as the owner of the house for a brief period in 1940. That entry was always a head-scratcher, but the discovery of our home's origins solved the mystery.

You see, Ward not only sold you a complete house, but offered financing as well. I dug up the abstract and sure enough, this house had a Montgomery Ward mortgage, which was apparently assumed by later owners. The probable explanation for Ward's brief ownership is a foreclosure. Regardless, Ward didn't keep the house for long and may have rid themselves of it cheaply because the couple that bought it in 1940 paid cash.

Fifty-two years later, that couple's estate sold it to us. And though this old dwelling has its quirks and non-standard oddities, I am thankful that Mr. Sizer built, and later owners maintained, a solid house that my family calls home.

And I sometimes muse about two train cars full of building materials chugging into town, and how quickly a young boy might have run from the station to announce its arrival.