To get the house ready Ray and Tommy went every Saturday the first summer and fall to build into the old white farm house a bathroom and modern kitchen. An electric water pump replaced the pitch hand pump on the back porch. The porch was enclosed and became the kitchen. They built a new room on the back of the house to serve as utility room to hold the washer, dryer and deep freezer.
Ray told the story several times that Dorothy agreed to move to the farm once there was a kitchen and most importantly a bathroom. Tommy does not recall tearing down the two-hole outhouse but expect it was gone before the family moved there. Perhaps that was an implied condition that Ray fulfilled and surely they laughed about reaching that milestone. [By the way, that outhouse was under the oak tree now lying fully down on the ground next to the driveway.]
The target was to have the house ready before the school year began but they did not quite make it. As Peggy was starting the first grade they did not want her to change schools several months after starting. So Tommy and Peggy enrolled in Mobile County High School and Dorothy drove them to Grand Bay every morning and drove back in the afternoon to pick them up for the month and a half.
Finally everything was ready, the big yellow Mayflower truck arrived and the men loaded everything. All their possessions were unloaded at the farm and into the house with the new utility room, family room and kitchen. The City girl that took the city bus to school and worked downtown in the prestigious law firm was now living where there were no neighbors for ¾ mile, occasionally someone drove by and a cloud of dust blew across the yard.
While Ray was at work in town she was there during the day with Mary (age four) until Tommy (age 9) and Peggy (age 6) arrived on the bus ¾ mile away.