Rick and Dana Bierman (Enquirer photo/ERNEST COLEMAN)

By then, the post-World War II baby boom had almost run its course. Ed and Joann Stacey, though, were still going strong. The last of their 11 children, Dana, wasn't born until 1969.

She is Dana Bierman now, married with a 6-year-old daughter. She and her husband, Rick Bierman, are sitting in the living room of the Junefield house. On the wall behind them are the Greenhills High senior photos of all the Stacey siblings: Ed, Bruce, Linda, Mark, Dennis, Sue, Steve, Tracey, Jill, Darren and Dana, who wore her hair longer and curlier back then.

Large family. Small house.

"We always lived in such small quarters, we had to learn to get along with each other," Dana says.

Her mother had a lot to do with that. In a house with only one toilet, she made sure civility reigned.

"It was never a real issue," Dana says. "My mom wouldn't let that happen." Indeed, she told her kids: The best friends you'll have in life are here.

Dana says her mother, who was a homemaker all her life, didn't participate much in outside activities, like PTA.

"Her priority was our family and this house."

DART

Everybody has a story worth telling. That's the theory, anyway. To test it, Tempo is throwing darts at the phone book. When a dart hits a name, a reporter dials the phone number and asks if someone in the home will be interviewed. Stories appear weekly.

Although not all the Stacey children lived under the same roof at the same time - a span of 20 years separates Dana from her oldest sibling - the Junefield house always was a center of activity.

It was where Mark Stacey's band - dubbed the Family Burden - practiced. It was a hangout for the Greenhills High football team. It was where aunts and uncles came to play cards.

"I remember coming to pick (Dana) up (for dates) and this place always being packed," Rick Bierman says. "When I'd drop her off at night, there were people sleeping everywhere."

In the years before Dana was born, the big boys shared one bedroom, the little boys had another and the girls got the third.

Ed and Joann Stacey slept on a pull-out couch.

Dana's father died of lung cancer when she was 13. Her mother continued living on Junefield, even after her last child moved out.

The home remained a family gathering spot. Each Thanksgiving Joann made turkey and stuffing and asked others to bring dessert, a two-liter bottle of pop and a roll of Viva, her favorite paper towels.

For birthdays, Joann always made the cake; guests were expected to bring ice cream.

Joann Stacey's children often stopped by to visit.

The visits and calls increased when she became sick about four years ago. Within a year, she died of a brain tumor.

The 11 siblings then had to decide what to do with the house.

"Nobody was ready to let it go," Dana says. "None of us could imagine driving by and not being able to stop in if we felt like it."

So they kept it. They all have keys.

And even though many of them have more spacious homes, they all return to the house on Junefield - with children and grandchildren in tow - for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and other occasions.

It gets crowded. But that's nothing new.

Today the house is much as it was when Joann lived there. Her coffee cup collection remains intact.

Her bingo bag hangs in a hallway. Family photos decorate the refrigerator. Viva paper towels are ready for the next spill.

How would Ed and Joann Stacey feel about their children keeping the place?

"I think they would love it, as long as it never created tension among us, which it doesn't," Dana says.

Her mother, she notes, "worked so hard at showing us how to get along. She called her family her life's work."

And she made the house on Junefield into a home.

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E-mail jjohnston@enquirer.com