A Family Rebuilds Its Home

This flow traces how displacement, a new house, and improvised domestic plans become part of the family’s search for shelter.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

The House on Wheels

A Home Taken Away A Public Loss The family watches its former house being moved down the street on a truck after Jake Von Riesen sells the property under pressure from a car dealer. The children see their home disappear in daylight. Displacement Without Consent The move is treated as business by the buyer, but the family experiences it as the loss of a place built with care. The empty site remains visible from their new home and keeps the decision present.

Camping Between Homes

An Interim Camp A Makeshift Holiday Before moving into the replacement house, the family camps in the Badlands of South Dakota. A leaking stove bursts into flame, while Elfrieda dances and the rest of the family freezes in place. A Brief Family World The disaster becomes a shared memory rather than a simple emergency. Even the trip’s long, silent drive home cannot undo the strangeness and intensity of being together in a temporary shelter.

The New House

Living With the Empty Lot A Similar Replacement The family settles into a house like the old one, but the new place cannot reproduce Jake’s investment in the home he built. He continues to see the vacant space across the highway. A Changed Household Lottie feels restless, Jake turns to work in the garage, and the girls find their own ways to respond. The house provides shelter, but it does not restore the family’s former sense of place.

A House Under Repair

The Old Toronto House A Ruined Purchase Yolandi buys a deteriorating house near a polluted lake, a funeral home, a mental hospital, and a slaughterhouse. Its damaged rooms make the family’s new beginning look anything but tidy. A Home Made Together Workers, neighbours, and relatives help make the building usable. The effort is messy and communal, turning a neglected property into a practical refuge rather than an idealized escape.

A Place for Three Generations

Living Under One Roof Shared Space Yolandi, Lottie, and Nora divide the floors of the repaired house and learn how to live together. Their arrangements are improvised, but the proximity offers companionship after successive losses. Shelter as a Practice The house remains imperfect, with weeds, repairs, and neighbourhood hazards. Its value comes less from security than from the family’s willingness to make a home within its flaws.

Late summer 1979

The days after the 1979 house move

After the family returns from the camping trip

Years after the central crisis, when Lottie moves to Toronto

After Lottie arrives in Toronto