St. Joseph, Mo. ? Catherine Balettie’s story really begins in a small village in southern Italy. It passes through Pennsylvania and New Haven, Conn., before ending up in a three-bedroom house at 22nd Street and Doniphan Avenue.

It’s a story of one of St. Joseph’s most recognized companies and an era of corporate generosity that has long passed. Most of all, Balettie’s story is about how a house is more than bricks and interest rates.

“When we were younger, we did go to look at other houses,” said Balettie, 80, who spent 52 years at the same address. “I don’t know what it was. My husband and I didn’t feel like we wanted to move. We were just satisfied.”

Balettie, who is moving to Michigan to be closer to her daughter, left her house on Doniphan Avenue for the last time this month. After more than half a century, she’s among the last of a handful of transplants from the East Coast who came to St. Joseph through the growth of Wire Rope Corporation of America and the generosity of the company’s founder, J.P. Barclay Sr.

Balettie’s husband, Natala “Nat” Balettie, started working for Wire Rope, a start-up company in Connecticut, after serving in the Army during World War II. After the war, Barclay decided to relocate the entire business to St. Joseph to take advantage of a central location and lower freight costs.

Nat Balettie, a machine operator, was one of about 35 key workers tapped to move with the company in 1950.

To ease the arrival into a new city, Barclay bought a house in St. Joseph for each of the 35 or so families who moved from Connecticut. It wasn’t a gift because the employees repaid their boss interest-free, sometimes through payroll deductions of $10 a week.

Catherine Balettie was seven months pregnant when she walked into her new home on Dec. 22, 1950. It was the first and only house that she and her husband would ever buy.

Nat Balettie died in 1995, 13 years after retiring from Wire Rope.

“We were thankful and grateful,” Catherine Balettie said of the house. “It meant an awful lot to us …”‘

The house, just off 22nd Street, was in one of the newer sections of town. The Baletties weren’t too far from corn fields to the east.

Slowly, the young couple made a life in St. Joseph around work, family and the house, which was purchased for $11,000. The Baletties had four children — Mario, Gene, Valerie and Lisa — and added on to the house.

The house was painted white and numerous improvements came over the years, including a front-porch swing and wiring for modern appliances.

Catherine Balettie tried to live alone after her husband died, but she missed her family and worried about what would happen if her health deteriorated.

Balettie made the difficult decision to move and watched earlier this month as workers packed up furniture for the trip to Birmingham, Mich., where she will live in an apartment near her daughter.

When the moving van pulled away, Balettie’s daughter, who was helping her mother, said she would lock the door for the last time.

“Let me do it,” Balettie said. She walked to the door, turned the key and held her hand on the door knob for a few extra seconds, like someone shaking hands with an old friend. “Goodbye, house,” she said. “You’ve been good to us.”