Above, Donna Deaton’s childhood house before being sold in 2019.
The memories, happy and sad, joyous and crushing, return for Donna Deaton whenever she drives by her childhood home, a small brick house on Central Avenue in West Alexandria, Ohio. Which is not infrequent, as she’s constantly traversing the area as one of its most successful real estate agents.
When the 864-square-foot dwelling comes into view, a smile reliving teenage hijinx with bestie Gail fades, remembering her beloved older brother Randy, lost to a car accident over a generation ago. Harking back to being a giddy bridesmaid nine times in two years is countered by having had to watch her parents separate and divorce.
“It’s all very emotional,” Deaton admits, but not so very long ago she experienced closure, literally and figuratively, as the house landed with a new owner that stunned and delighted her.
Currently managing vice president with RE/MAX Victory + Affiliates in Liberty Township, Ohio, Deaton, 59 and married for 37 years, became a real estate agent in 2003 when her two children left for colleges and jobs. She now has two grandchildren.
“Real estate is probably the only career that you start over every day you wake up,” she says. “Nothing is guaranteed. And although there are many ups and downs, I love it and wish I had started when I was a lot younger than 40. Helping people with what is most likely their largest financial transaction ever, is part of my ‘why.’”
With all the many hundreds of expensive and expansive houses she’s helped people buy and sell, it’s the utilitarian one on Central Avenue that has informed her life in so many ways.
“If I had a mansion, my kids and grandkids would all be living with me, although they may not want it that way,” she says with a laugh. “I drove by the old house last week with my grandson and told him this is where I grew up. He was like, ‘Wow, that’s a little house.’ I said yes, I know it is.”
A summary, then the details
“It’s funny how life works; this was my childhood home,” she says. “It was where I was caught sneaking out in the middle of the night with Gail, only to be caught every time. It’s where I fought for bathroom rights with Randy. The house is where we carried in three vans full of flower arrangements from his funeral. It’s where my parents parted ways, and I watched my mother become an independent woman. It housed my nine bridesmaid dresses, with one from Gail’s wedding 35 years ago.”
Deaton’s parents married at ages 16 and 14 in February 1959. Randy was born four months later, with Donna a few years after that.
“Getting married that young was allowed if the parents gave permission…my mother became a mother herself when she was barely 15,” says Deaton. “She had to grow up quickly and didn’t get to enjoy her own childhood because she was thrown into a family.”
They lived in Texas at the time, moving to Ohio and the house on Central Avenue when Deaton was 11. “It only had two bedrooms, so my brother had to sleep in a breezeway,” she explains. “I lived there from 1975 until 1985, when I was married. My parents were married for 27 years, separating in 1982 and finally getting divorced in 1985.”
Brother Randy had married a few years earlier and lived nearby with his wife and two small children. Donna’s dad bought out his ex and owned the house solo, though he’d built a new one not far away and was living there with a woman he’d eventually marry. The divorce became final the first week of October, 1985. One week later, Deaton’s mom moved to Florida to start a new life. A week after that Randy was killed in a car accident.
“My mother came back for the funeral and stuck around for a while,” Deaton recalls. “It was all such a mess. Randy’s wife and kids were in the car as well, but survived. There was a lot of trauma.”
Randy’s passing would become national news when his organs were donated to people in need. His heart was transplanted into Thomas Gaidosh, a 47-year-old Pennsylvania forklift operator, married with two children. It was one of the first heart transplants ever performed in the United States.
Gaidosh had survived for four days with a Jarvik-7 artificial heart, but would not have lived much longer if a human heart hadn’t come available. He would go on to live for 12 healthy years with Randy’s heart.
“Randy’s lungs, kidneys, skin and eyes were all donated, from what I recall,” says Deaton. “We never had any contact with the heart recipient, but it did give comfort to my parents knowing Randy helped so many people.”
With Deaton married and raising her own children, and her mother having returned to Florida, the house on Central Avenue would remain unoccupied for 24 years.
“It became a house of memories; that’s what we called it,” says Deaton. “It just sat there. My dad couldn’t get rid of it because of the memories he had of my brother and our childhoods. It was just too hard for him to sell. I had taken the little I wanted when I moved out, so it just sat there with the furniture and everything else from 1995 to 2019.”
It was certainly not in livable condition by then. Deaton, ever the REALTOR®, finally talked him into parting with it as he approached age 80.
“It got to the point where I told him you gotta sell, you’re doing nothing with it and I don’t need or want anything from it,” she says. “Clearly there’s nothing in it from my brother that his daughters need or could use. My nieces live in California now and I talk to them every other day, actually. So I told my dad let’s just be done with it.”
Agreeing, her father finally got around to clearing out the house. He called Donna asking if she wanted the nine bridesmaid dresses that had hung in a closet for a quarter century.
“I told him to just toss them, that they’re outdated,” she recalls. “Nobody’s gonna want to wear them. They will not be cyclical and come back around in style. No wait, I did take one dress. There was one I had to keep…the one from my brother’s wedding.”
West Alexandria is a small town, one that is actually considered a village. “Everybody knows everybody,” says Deaton. “I’ve sold a lot of houses there, and in surrounding areas. The couple who finally purchased it in January 2019 were fixing it up for their grandson. It still had a great shell because it was brick but needed everything else.
“They put in all new plumbing, electric, HVAC, flooring and windows. They replaced the siding and the garage, and busted out a wall for a big new kitchen.”
After all that, the grandson no longer wanted it, so it went up for sale. The owners had worked with Deaton when they bought it and retained her as listing agent. Almost immediately they told her that someone contacted them wanting to buy the house. A woman named Gail. Yes, that Gail.
“I said, Omigosh, I know her!” says Deaton. “I hadn’t seen her for years and years. After she and I both got married, I moved 40 miles away, and we kind of lost touch. I was her maid of honor in 1983. Now her marriage was over and this was to be her first purchase on her own at age 56.
“I called her and said I can’t believe you’re buying it, because she was in that house too as a young girl. She had memories there. She knew my family. Everybody knew my family because Randy was quite the athlete when he was in school and my mom was a local cosmetologist, so she knew everybody.”
June 14, 2019, was closing day, when Gail took ownership of the little house on Central Avenue. It provided Deaton with a personal closing of her own.
“It was a circle of life moment for me,” she reflects. “There were a lot of memories there, and now Gail would get to make new ones of her own.”
