Editor's Note: The Press is running a 3-part series on former Press writer Jean Stoneback. Stoneback was a columnist with The Press for many years, writing about life on "The Patch" in Alburtis. Readers enjoyed hearing about Stoneback's family and life on the farm. In this series, we will learn about the family history, her house and the renovations to the home.

"From My Kitchen Window" has not been written since author Jean Stoneback passed away in September, 2010. Occasionally her stories are reprinted for her readers.

The house Stoneback lived in, 588 Franklin St., Alburtis, where her "kitchen window" was, has been in her family for three generations. The house was vacant, for sale and in need of repairs. The last instructions in Stoneback's will was a request for her children, Hope Stoneback DeIaco, Scott Stoneback, Faith Stoneback Andrews and Brent Stoneback, "Take care of my house, it's been in my family for generations. I will be watching you."

Hope DeIaco took her mother's wishes to heart and her words embedded themselves in her mind and mingled with her memories. She remembered the wonderful times she had growing up so close to the house, the holidays, family traditions, visiting her grandparents and living there with her husband Ron DeIaco after college. No one in the family had come forward with an offer to buy it when the house went on the market and DeIaco and her sister Faith Andrews confided in each other they actually wished someone outside of the family would not buy the house, but knew they could do nothing about it if someone did.

As these thoughts lay quietly in DeIaco's subconscious, day after day, an idea began to form in her mind and she realized there was something she could do. She talked with her husband Ron about it.

"What are we going to do?" DeIaco finally said to Ron following their discussion. There was a pause and then, looking at each other, they actually said together,

"We're going to buy the house."

They bought the house to keep it in the family, aware some repairs and work needed to be done. Because of his experience in construction, Ron figured they could do the work themselves.

The youngest DeIaco, Katey was returning home from college and when she heard about the house she said, "Mom, I would like to live in Nanna's house." DeIaco thought it was good for her youngest daughter to have a place of her own and she and Ron decided to rent it to Katey when the renovations were complete. Katey wanted it to be modern, so they decided to do what she wanted.

Katey wished for a modern house with a back porch, and the old kitchen to be a kitchen again, the way it was when her great-grandmother Caroline Butz owned it. The back porch of the old house had been enclosed and made into a kitchen, and the kitchen had been made into a dining room, because Hope and Ron DeIaco wanted it that way.

The family worked together to make Katey's wishes come true with her dad and a family friend, Billy Feather, doing most of the heavy work.

"Billy Feather was with Brent [Stoneback] all the time when they were growing up and he was at the house so much he used to call Jean [Stoneback] mother," Ron said. "Billy helped me with construction on the house, interior and exterior. We had to rebuild the doorways, front and back," Ron said. When they started fixing and repairing and tearing up floor boards, they discovered some of the floor joists were not secure or made right, or were missing bolts and they ran into more than they expected because one thing lead to another, that's how it went. But they fixed it correctly.

"It was done on a shoestring, I'm not joking," Hope said.

They made a modern kitchen out of the dining room. The kitchen cabinets are from a display of solid maple she saw on sale at a surplus store and she got all new lights for upstairs and downstairs.

Avid believers of recycling, they got a lot of things from Katey's sister Holly items left over from when Holly put a new addition on her house last spring and summer. The old posts from Holly's house will be used for the back porch and window and her doors will be used in the house wherever they fit. They were happy about recycling Holly's old materials because it saves a lot of money.

"Our daughter Kelli and her husband Creed Hyatt helped tile the kitchen floor. Katey and her friend James Shartzer helped stain the living room floors," Ron said.

"James and I stained the living room floor and painted the bedrooms and bathroom. We also laid the floor in the bathroom. We cleaned the outside as well, fenced in the yard and built a fire pit," Katey said.

Renovating the interior took more time than they thought it would but when they finished, Katey and James moved in.

Next week…the new house and plans for the exterior.