APRIL 5, 1997 Dear Bill: I wish that I was as capable as you are in writing this story. I was born 4th of March 1924 at Minor Hospital in Seattle, WA. to Paul Jarvis and Marie Williams Jarvis. My Mother was quite sick after my birth with pneumonia. The Doctor did not expect her to live. (In fact when Mother saw him some 3 or 4 weeks later he wouldn't even speak to her because she hadn't died as he had predicted.) My father nursed me (not literally but feed me) for 6 weeks after I was born. I went down to approximately 5 pounds--the lowest I have ever been. At the time of my birth Dad was working for PIONEER SAND AND GRAVEL CO. in Steilacoom. Steilacoom is located about 15 miles southeast of Tacoma on Puget Sound (Narrows). The Pit was across from McNeill Island where the Federal Penitentiary is located. At that time it was in the country. When Dad first went to work for Pioneer Sand & Gravel their home was on the Sound at the base of a long hill. There was a road from the top down to the pit but this was for the truck not the family car, so Mother had to walk to the top of the hill every time she wanted to go to the store. In those days you had to crank the car to get it started. Ours was very difficult to start but Dad couldn't spare a man to go up and start it for Mother. She had to first go up and try and get it started then if she couldn't she would have to come back down and Dad or one of the men would go up and start it for her. No woman would stand for that now. Mother also had to carry all her parcels and Paul down from the garage. The house they had on the Sound was nothing more than a tar paper shack between the railroad and the Sound. It must have been very scary for Mother with a baby. She had two miscarriages while they lived on the beach. One of them she almost bleed to death before Dad could get her to the hospital. My memories are of course sketchy; The house we lived in was moved 2 or 3 times as the Pit grew. It was a large white house with a porch all the way across the front. It faced West. On the South side was the living room which ran nearly across the whole house. The North part of the room was the dining room. There were doors out of this room to a hall. On the North side was the kitchen. It seems to me that it was fairly large. Going down the hall there were stairs that went up to the bedrooms. At the end of the hall was what would now be called the master bedroom. I can't recall a bathroom but there must have been one. Upstairs I believe there were three rooms two bedrooms and one Mother used as a sewing room. There might have been a basement but I don't recall one. There was a garage on the premises with a big water tower on the top of it. Quite a few oak trees in the yard. I remember scaring Mother once. Dad had called her from the Pit and told her to lock the doors as there had been an escape at the Penitentiary. She was in the kitchen when I came downstairs from a nap and like all children snuck up on her. She almost stabbed me with a knife she had within reach. I remember one terrible electrical storm we had. I was on the porch an a lightning strike hit right in front of me scaring me terribly. Mother used to have all the children from the Pit and Mary and the Jarvis children over for Easter and we all had Easter baskets to put the eyes in that she had placed in the garden. She was always having the family over for me and Paul to play with. There were children at the pit but they were all Paul's age or older. She insisted that the next officer Dad hired had to have a child my age. So the next one hired were Mills. They had a boy my age. His name alludes me. (Donald) I remember one time we were playing together and we saw this big animal in their backyard. Being children we thought it was a bear but it turnout to be a large black dog, I don't remember the kind. (I believe it was a black Lab. The poor animal was starving so we feed it and advertised in the paper but to no avail. He was our dog. He followed Dad everywhere. I don't think Dad liked dogs he kept trying to get rid of the dog. One time he took the dog to the golf course with him and let him out. The dog was home before Dad got home. He finally got rid of it by taking it to Culbertson, MT and dropping it off. Someone gave me a Golden Cocker that I dearly loved. I don't remember how old I was when we had a wild fire in the trees next door. It was forested then. All the men from the Pit came up to fight the fire. Mother packed our clothes and food and water in the car and was ready to flee but they managed to stop it just short of the house. It was exciting and very frighting. Poor Paul, he had a bike and I had a trike. He was supposed to watch out for me but I just couldn't keep up with him or the boys. He was always getting into trouble for leaving me behind. We didn't have a refrigerator so Mother would have to drive into So. Tacoma and get ice. She would carry a 100# block of ice on the running board. We had a wire cage that we put it in. It sometimes would slip out and poor little Mother (all 5'1" of her) would have to struggle with the cube and get it back on the running board. It always melted down to about 50# by the time we would get it home. Mother made the best fresh peach ice cream in the old ice cream maker that you had to churn. That was Paul's job, usually he didn't complain too much because he then got to clean the paddle after churning it. It would sit for 2 to 3 hours wrapped in crushed ice, salt and towels until frozen solid. No one missed that dinner. One summer Mother took Totch, Paul, Mary & me on a trip through the Olympic Peninsula. We stopped at Lake Quinault and then went on to Chevy Chase just outside of Port Townsend. It was an old farmhouse that had been converted into a Hotel. The place had a beautiful lawn. Our room must have been on the top floor. Totch who had arthritis so she had to walk with a cane couldn't go down to the beach with we young ones so Mother had to. When we came back up Totch remarked about the children who were playing around the grounds coming up to her and their mother asking how to use a fire extinguisher. Nobody paid much attention until they notice smoke coming from the garage where the cars were parked. The garage had been an old barn and still had hay in it. Well mother went for the car Totch managed to climb up to our room and got us kids into our clothes and our bags downstairs. Mother got the car out of the burning garage and we took off for the ferry and home. In those days the ferries only had a front and a back. You got on one way then they had a turn plate that turned you around so you could get off. One man got on the ferry and it pulled forward and his car got hung between the dock and the ship. For a long time I wouldn't ride the ferries after that. I don't remember much else about the Pit except that I got very sick at Christmas when I was six. Mother had all of the Jarvises and her two sisters and family over. She had to send everyone home. They took me to the hospital. I had inflamed tonsils. The Doctor told her to paint my tonsils with iodine. I persuaded her that he meant the outside of my neck not the inside--I got much worse and ended up in the hospital for approximately six weeks. The doctor had to lance my neck an put a drain in. (He was supposed to go on vacation but because I was so very sick he stayed until I was out of harms way). I got so thin Mother had to feed me malts. I was so scared and probably spoiled that she had to take a room at the hospital next to me as I screamed all the time. Finally I was allowed to go home. My neck was so crooked from holding it to one side the doctor said I need physical therapy to straighten it. I screamed so the first time then I got to liking it so much I didn't want it to stop. Because of my illness and the fact that my birthday was in March I was late starting school. I went for one year to University Place then we moved to Seattle. Dad decided to go back into contracting. He setup a company with John Ward and himself called Puget Construction Co. The first job they had was building the foundation for Diablo Powerhouse on the Skagit River. This was 1932. We had just moved to Seattle and were living in Bebe's (Bertha Williams mother's sister and Nanny's (Mary Pendergast) home on 15 NE and 52nd in the "U" district. Totch (Charlotte Garvey, Mother's other sister) lived two houses to the north of Bebe's on the same side of the street. Mother and Dad were looking for property to buy and build on. They finally bought a lot in Laurelhurst (4316 E 33rd). Dad had the house built there. It was a red brick Colonial with 4 bedrooms and a bath upstairs and living room, dining room, kitchen and nook, toilet and den on the ground floor. A typical Colonial house. It had a full daylight basement, with "I" beam supports. Our house didn't shift when we had an earthquake in the 30s. We had a large yard 200' x 200' all in plantings. The house and plantings cost $6000.00. While we were waiting for our house to be built we lived in Bebe's and Nan's house on 15th. They moved into the Devonshire apartments further south on 15th. Paul had a very bad case of ankles that turned in and feet which turned out. The doctor broke both of his ankles and reset them. He had cast on both legs but got around fairly well. One day Mother, Paul and I were sitting in the living room when the furnace blew. Mother sent Paul to turn in the alarm at the fire box out on the street and told me to get out then she ran downstairs to try and turn off the furnace. She had a lot of guts. I don't know how Paul made it to the firebox on those cast but he did and between the two of them they saved the house. September 30, 1997 This has been a Summer to forget except that Bill came to my rescue and staid with me for 20 days while I had cataract operations. Back to the beginning. The first job Dad and John Ward had was the foundation for the power plant at Diablo Dam. Mother, Paul and I stayed in Seattle and went to Diablo on weekends until school got out. We would drive up right after school on Friday. Paul would bring a friend and we would sing and play foolish games in the car. I am sure Mother must have been driven mad by all of our noise. We would return Monday morning. In those days it took 5 hours to drive to Rockport where we caught a train for Newhalem where we would get the City Light train up to Diablo.. The men stayed at Newhalem and only a small crew went on up to Diablo so they were not very cooperative about waiting for the train from Rockport. Sometimes we had to wait for hours at Newhalem for a ride. (Just outside of DIABLO there was a hobo town of down and out men--shacks--this was during the depression of 1932-36 and these poor men were hoping to get work on the dam.) We had a small cabin at Diablo. It didn't have an icebox. Paul made one for us in his wood making shop in school. I think poor Mother had a hard time up there because the women who were the wives of the City Light engineers looked down their collective noses at mere contractors wives. Mother often had her sisters and friends up especially in the summer as it was a beautiful spot and people loved to visit. To get to the top of the dam there was a large lift that could take train cars, we contractors were not supposed to use this lift only City Light workers. It was a long and hard hike to the top of the dam. Sometimes dad was able to get us special privileges to ride the lift. Paul built a row boat in his wood working shop and we took it up to Diablo and put it on the lake. One weekend we persuaded Dad to take us up the Lake to go fishing. There was a rustic resort about half way up the lake. Dad had been an oarsman at the University of Washington so he felt that he could row us up the Lake to the resort. We went up Mother and I staying at the resort berry picking and watching out for bears and Dad and Paul fishing. On Sunday as we were rowing down the lake toward the dam when a storm came up and it took both Paul and Dad rowing for all they were worth and Mother and I bailing to keep us a float. We came so close to going over the dam that we never did go out on the Lake again (not in Paul's rowboat although the boat was on the lake for 20 years). I learned how to swim in a borrow pit at Diablo. It was fine at the beginning of the summer but as the weather got hotter the water began to evaporate out of the shallow end of the pit and by the end of the summer all that was left was the 30' deep pit. My poor mother could hardly swim but she let me swim. After Diablo Dad finished our house in Laurelhurst. Puget Construction Co. got their next job at Bonners Ferry, ID. Mother, Paul and I stayed in Seattle until school was out in June then we moved over to Bonners Ferry. Our rented rooms were over the fire station. I believe Paul had a separate apartment in the same building. It was very difficult for Mother to break into the Society in these small towns they are really closed. The first time Mother and et al were asked to a picnic by the town leaders she was asked to bring the ice cream. We drove to a lovely spot on Lake Kootenay in BC. When we got there and were eating our picnic we discovered that we had forgotten to pickup the ice cream from the creamery. It was terribly embarrassing. We all drove back together and found the ice cream sitting outside the creamery. So all was forgiven. I can remember playing dolls (paper dolls I was never much for dolls) with some of the local girls who lived in the big houses on top of the hill. One night the whole family went to see "The Great Train Robbery" at the movies. I was only 9 and seldom went to movies. This one scared me. Well anyway we went home which was up above the theater and next door to the fire station. In the middle of the night there was a horrible crash from my Mother and Dad's bedroom (I slept in the living room on a hideaway bed) of course this scared me but before I could get out of bed to see what had happened the siren of the fire station went of--then I really started shrieking. Mother had to come and sleep with me which was alright with her as it was their bed that had crashed. A night to remember. Dad's partner was the man of the house so when he decided to do something there never were any questions. That summer on the spur of the moment he told his wife and daughter they were going for a drive to Glacier Park which was about 200 or 300 miles (of course in those days that was an overnight trip.) Well the next time we heard from them, they had driven to Chicago, the ladies with just overnight clothes. Dad thought he should do that but Mother persuaded him that wasn't a go idea. We did see Glacier Park. Puget Construction won some kind of award for having built the false work on the ice. Everybody had bets on whether they would be able to get the girders up before the ice went out. They just made it. 1934 We got the Deception Pass job. I remember going with Dad to look at the job site. We had to walk down a road that the CCC had built to where we could look over Canoe and Deception Pass. Dad sat there smoking his cigar and figuring how it could be done. We then went to the ferry and ferried across to Whidbey Island to look at the other side of the Passes. We got the job. This meant Mother had to drive Paul and I back an forth each weekend. The only compensation was that early Monday moring we would drive east across the Skagit Flats and Mount Baker would sit in the gap like a huge ice cream cone. I still love that sight. We first had a small house at Smilik Beach, then we got a larger house around the beach. I got sick from the drinking water. I remember the engineers children (we were about 10) decided to walk from our house to the job. I don't know how many miles it was but fortunately Mr. Ward came along and picked us up--poor mother. I also remember doing the stupid thing of putting one foot on the dock and another on the railing of a rowboat and ending in the drink. I used to go rowing there allot. One time I met a whole Pod of whales. It scared me half to death. We had a severe windstorm that year. Everyone taped their windows and prayed. I hadn't gone up that weekend I was bored with the trip and stayed home in Seattle with Mary. (I was so mad that I had missed all the excitement up at Smilik) The wind was so severe it blew the roof of the gas station across the street from the school on "U" way. Deception Pass was a beautiful spot. We had people visiting us all the time and we would go on picnics at Rosario and Bowman Island. I can remember one of the house on Similk Bay had sweetpeas growing in their yard and how lovely and how the perfume was everywhere. There was a golf course in the little valley that ran from one side of Fidalgo Island to the other. One evening the boys and the families went crabbing and we had a huge fire on the beach and sat around eating freshly caught crabs. One of the farmers had a mule he would let us ride. This was fun until we got too many people on its back and he would throw us off. This was one of the best jobs we ever had. 1935 We got the job of building the Spokane Dam. This time Mother moved to Spokane. We lived on the South hill on Wall street. The house had a coal furnace which you approached through the backyard and practically had to crawl to. It was sunk in the floor and you had to throw the coal down into the hopper. In the winter it got so cold that you would raise 2" long sparks off the turn on switch for the furnace. I don't remember why we moved but we moved to Shoshoni Street. I took piano lesson there because it had a piano but I was never any good and didn't want to practice. The piano was also a roller piano and I would always play the paper rolls when I should have been practicing. This was the year that my menstrual cycles started I was in such pain. I would come home from school at lunch and lay on the couch with my feet over the arm rest and hope I could get the pain to go away so I could go back to school. I remember it must have been at least 12 to 14 blocks to school -- no school buses in those days. Mother would always try and get us to go to the Cathedral on Sunday but Dad never wanted to go so he would insist that I go. I never have enjoyed church services since. Mother made some good friends in Spokane one in particular Margaret Davenport. Margaret used to give book reports all over town. She was very good at it. People don't do that any more. One of Mother's friends from Olympia had a son who needed help. Dad had given him a job at the Pit and he had worked for us ever since. His name was Harrington. He had a wife and child then he divorced her and had an affair with another woman. In this day and age we would have called her his "common law" wife. At that time it was very frowned upon. Harrington was a big joker. Thanksgiving he decided to see if he could get Mother, Mrs. Ward and me drunk so he spiked our wine. I never had such a funny sensation. I thought the gravy was going to fly right out of my hand, but I didn't say anything. Mother had a similar experience and so did Mrs. Ward but no one let on was he ever disappointed. Things got so bad for Harrington. He wanted to ditch the woman but she wouldn't let go. One day Harrington and one of the men were going across the river in a rowboat which was tied to shore. The boat began to drift down river and Harrington and the other man panic. Harrington jumped overboard and the other fellow stayed with the boat and was pulled to shore. Harrington drowned. It was a very sad affair as Mother had known the family for a long time. By then we were staying in an apartment, Mary was with us. Mother was making arrangements for the funeral and was very tired. Mary and I were playing old maid in the living room of this apartment and Mother was sleeping in the bedroom. She had just gotten false teeth and they were troubling her so she had taken them out and placed them in a glass of water in the kitchen which was on the other side of the living room from the bedroom. There came a knock on the door and there stood the minister from the cathedral wanting to talk to mother. Poor Mary and I didn't know what too do. I woke mother and she asked me to get her teeth that were in the kitchen and get them to her while she got dressed. When she came out both Mary and I could hardly keep from laughing and all through the Ministers stay we squirmed. After he left we burst out laughing like a bunch of idiots, Mother not only had trouble with her teeth she had trouble with her eyes and hadn't noticed that she had her dress inside out all the seams were showing. I don't know what the minister must have thought when we burst out laughing as soon as he left. October 1, 1997 I have been trying to figure out my school years. I think they went like this. We had midyear entrances. If you turn 6 in March you started that Jan. So I must have started Jan. 1930 at University Place out of Tacoma 1st grade Sep.. 1930 at University Place 1st grade/2nd At Christmas I became very ill and missed the rest of the year. Sep.. 1931 At University Heights in "U" district 1st grade over Sep 1932 At Laurelhurst 2rd grade Sep 1933 At Laurelhurst 3th grade Sep 1934 At Laurelhurst 4th grade Sep 1935 At Roosevelt in Spokane 5th Grade Sep 1936 At Roosevelt in Spokane 6th Grade Jan. 1937 At Laurelhurst 7th Grade Sep 1937 At :Laurelhurst 8th Grade Sep 1938 At Roosevelt in Clarkston, WA 9th Grade Jan. 1939 At Roosevelt in Seattle 9th Grade Sep 1939 At Roosevelt in Seattle 10th Grade Sep 1940 At Catlin Gable Portland, OR 11th Grade Sep 1941 At Catlin Gable 12th Grade Sep 1942 University of Washington freshman Sep 1943 UW sophomore Sep 1944 UW Junior/Senior Nov. 1945 UW graduated Jan. 1946 Katherine Gibbs in NYC secretarial school 1936 Dad had an REA job out of Spokane so we kept going back and forth to Spokane. Dad would always tease mom by selecting one of the abandon houses that dotted Eastern Washington at that time as a place where they were going to retire. The backroads of Washington were full of these abandon houses. After World War 1 the government gave the soldiers script to land I have forgotten how many acres. The only trouble was that there wasn't any water and they couldn't make a go of it. That was one of the reason that Roosevelt built Grand Coulee Dam to put water on the arid land of Eastern Washington and make good on these scripts. The REA was to join the Dam with the small PUDs and give power to E. Wash. 1938 Dad got a job on the Snake River at Clarkston/Lewiston building a bridge across the mighty Snake. I graduated from Laurelhurst that year. As they were settling in that summer mother sent me to Camp Tappawingo out of Sequim. It was run by friends of hers the Gates who lived in Laurelhurst. It was a horseback riding camp. Mother had given me riding lessons so I could ride. All the riding fouled up my menstrual cycle and I bled all the time. I was a smelly mess the kids didn't like this but there was no help for it. Towards the end of my stay there was a great forest fire in and around Forks. The sky was black and full of cinders. Everyone was worried that it would get us. In those years we used to have tremendous fires that blacken hundreds of miles. Mother and Dad came over towards the end of my stay and we drove down the Oregon Coast. Dad wanted to see the new bridges that had been built on the Oregon Coast. They were quite a construction fete. They still are amazing, except they are now very narrow for the traffic they carry. I start High School in Clarkston. It was a rural town mostly farmers and people connected to the river. It was a long trip from Seattle 10 to 12 hours. It still is along trip. The Lewiston Hill on the road to Spokane was very steep and a challenge to those old cars. They boiled over on the way up and on the way down the brakes would give out. We bought a new car just before we moved to Clarkston. It was one of the first cars with a stick shift. Dad had to teach Mother how to drive the car. He took her down in front of the office and made her practice. Poor mother was so embarrassed. Mother and I would take trips around the area just to kill time. (I was learning how to drive even though I was only 14.) It is pretty countryside. One time Mother, Dad and Paul went on a drive up White Bird Pass (I don't know why I didn't go) and on the way back down this very steep one way road the brakes gave out. They had an extremely hair raising ride. I did allot of the driving over there as the roads were not crowded and mother needed help. When I got my license in 1940 I had been driving for 6 years. I didn't take the driving part of the test because the test driver was too lazy and I had been driving so long he didn't think it was necessary. Couldn't get away with that now. I remember hearing Kate Smith sign "God Bless America" for the first time and in person in Lewiston. I was greatly impressed. The circus came to town while we there. Of course it was an major event and all the Construction men turnout as well as the local farmers. The circus people (roustabouts were pretty tough people) had a ride that turned you upside down and left you hanging upside down for awhile then they would swing you back down. While you were upside down money would fall out of the fellows pockets. When the fellows got back to earth they wanted to get their change but the circus people wouldn't let them. They did this to everyone who rode that particular ride. So the construction crew got together and took on the circus people. There was one hell of a fight. The police stood on the sidelines and watched. That afternoon the circus pulled up stakes and left town. That day there were allot of black eyes in town and allot of beers bought for the boys. 1939 San Francisco had a World's Fair and Mother told Dad that she and we kids were going. He didn't believe her and wanted to know where she was going so she told him. He was so upset that he didn't write the whole time we were gone. Paul had graduated from UW that year and received a scholarship to MIT but he had gone to the Rose Bowl when the UW play in 1936 and had met Ethelin and nothing would do but he must go to UCLA for an extra year. The professor was so angry and tried to get Dad to stop him but to no success. Paul was helping Dad out that summer when Mom and I went South. We saw Lin and her Mother and brother Frank in LA. Then Mother and I and Lin drove up to San Francisco and met Paul and Mary to see the Fair. I don't remember how we got a room because everything was so crowded. We also saw Uncle Art and Aunt Alva, Willette and Eilleen. Paul stayed South and went to school at UCLA and Mother, Mary & I drove home. I remember we came up old 97 which wasn't paved at the time. We got into a dust storm and past a car on right . It scared me. 1939 We got the Lake Washington Bridge job. In fact we got 3 of the 11 units. We had to release one as it was too long a drive for Dad around the Lake. We had the Eastside approach to the floating bridge and the bridge from the mainland to Mercer Island. Then they gave us another little bridge over the Mercer Island slough. When the bridge was almost finished but not ready to open and there still was a gap between our approach and the floating part a man came around the barricades and drove down the approach with everybody yelling at him and he thumbing his nose at them and drove right into the water. I don't think they got him out. I think that this was one of the happiest times for Mother. She was in Seattle for a stay and could play with her sisters. She loved to play bridge. Mother, Dad and Bebe & George would play duplicate. Whoever lost a certain number of times used to have to take the other couple and me out to dinner. The winners got to choose the place. We went to all sorts of restaurants (of course there weren't as many selections then as now) My favorite place was Blanc a French restaurant located on Columbia between 2nd and 3rd downtown. They had a surprise 7 course dinner for a reasonable price. I learned allot about French cooking from them. Dad was a meat and potato man and didn't enjoy all of their sauces so we didn't get to go their very often. One time we went to the Georgian Room in the Olympic Hotel. I loved crab and never had had cracked crab served before, so I ordered that everyone else ordered crab cocktails. Well you can imagine it took me 45 minutes to eat the cracked crab and everybody had to wait for me. I got quite a lecture on that one. The next summer Mother said she was going to the New York Fair and Dad could come or not as he pleased. Dad came. We drove across Montana and the northern states to Chicago. Saw the Rushmore Memorial in SD. We were in Rapid City the same day Lin and some friends were there only staying at opposite sides of town. We visited Northwestern in Evanston (Had my first taste of honey butter & baking powder biscuits at a chicken place) We drove to Detroit and Greenfield Park. One of Dad's fraternity brothers was the manager of the park so we got VIP treatment. It was my first experience with a Park dedicated to history. We made New York City and of course Dad called home and learned that the Bonneville Dam Job was coming up for bids. Dad got the next plane out for Seattle and told us to take our time but get home soon. He hadn't even been to the Fair. It was an exciting fair. We didn't stay long, drove to Washington, Williamsburg then headed home as fast as we could go. We got the job.. 1940-4 We got the job of building the foundation for the Bonneville Dam powerhouses. At first it was only 2 parts, then along came the war and we got another 2 foundations. They wanted everything done yesterday and promised Dad (I am not sure of the figures) about $1000 a day to finish the foundations early. We ran the crews 24 hours a day 7 days a week and got through I believe 6 weeks early. Then the Government claimed that was too much money to pay out and refused to pay. Dad never forgave the government for that. When we got the job we hadn't returned from New York so it was a big job for Mother when she got home. She had to get a house and see about my schooling. The school I would have gone to was in Stevenson and was close to a one room school house. This wouldn't do, so we went to Portland to see what they had to offer. There were two private school - one a Episcopal and one a secular. The Church school required uniforms and church attendance so I chose Catlin Gable. I arrived late because we hadn't yet moved . I apparently didn't have the right moves--not social enough - too shy. I was accepted but not into the inner circle and of course I weighed a ton. That is where I learned how to play tennis and meet the Dennis twins from Illinois. We also had 2 or 3 girls from England who were sent over to their aunts to keep them save from the war which was raging in Europe. When we suddenly got into the War and there were rumors about the Japanese were bombing the Oregon coast they were frantic and wanted to move their daughters. Back to Mother. She looked at all of the houses in N. Bonneville and Stevenson and couldn't find a suitable place. She did find a house on the Columbia River. I suppose it had been a ranch at one time. Built my a remittance man from England a sort of Toppies house. We rented this one. It sat on a nicely lawned yard. It had an apartment with a bedroom sitting room and bath, then at right angels from the back of this suite and around a tree was another bedroom and bath both of these rooms had outside entrances. Next was another bedroom, living room (outside doors). Towards the backyard behind the living room and next to the dining room was the kitchen. The dining room sat out over a little stream. The floors were covered with oriental rugs and the cupboards full of Spode china. There was a hill behind the house you could climb and upon the hill was an orchard. Across the road they owned an inlet from the Columbia River. One weekend I had one of the girls home from Catlin's and Paul said he would go out and get us a duck for dinner. We went down to the island with him and watched while he shot a duck. He got the duck but I don't know where because it landed behind the blind and as Paul went to get it it managed to go the other direction. It must have taken Paul 30 minutes to wear that poor duck down. We girls were just howling. It was so funny to see them running around the duck blind. This house was allot of fun but the owners lived on the property and the owner thought of it as his property and you would find him in the house somewhere fixing something at any hour. This was not Dad's idea of a rental. I think Dad might have accepted this but they had an eligible daughter who took a shine to Paul and Dad didn't want any one from that loose family marrying his boy. So we moved to the only house Mother could find in Stevenson. These little towns usually don't have much in the way of rentals. The house was on Whiskey Road between the railroad track and the Columbia River. It was an old farm house. You walked in threw a summer kitchen into another kitchen then the dining room with the bath off the dining room then into the living room. The heat came up through a round grill in the middle of the floor between the living room and dining room. That was all there was for heat. It had an upstairs but I don't remember the arrangements except that I slept in sort of a sleeping porch awfully cold in winter and very hot in summer. The trains going by would shake the house. In those War days the trains were 100 to 150 cars long. If the train didn't go by it got so that it would wake you up. 1941 This was the year that Paul got married to Ethelin Bell June 14th in LA. I got out of school early so I could drive down with Mother and Totch. School wasn't out for Mary so she and Bebe didn't get there. The day of the wedding (I was a brides maid) I got my hair done in Westwood Village and Mother went to get Dad who flew down. He didn't want to stay at the sorority house where we were staying instead insisted on staying in a motel, well on the return trip to get Dad Mother couldn't find the motel and spent 3 hours looking for him. I was standing on the corner wondering what too do. I had know money and didn't know how to get to the sorority house. It was awful. The wedding was grand and the kids took off for Santa Barbara Hilton and home to Stevenson. Mother and I visited with Ethelin Senior and her mother Mrs. Coffman. I believe it was either 1940 or 41 that the State of Connecticut passed a law that required all legatees to a will to be notified of the will even if they were not the primary legatee. The Williams family had some very wealthy family members one of which was Marion Weeds Stearn the girls Aunt. She had died in 1929 leaving her estate to her husband in trust to the three girls. They were notified of this . Storrier Stearns lived in Huntington, Calif. with his 2nd wife. So Mother and Totch called them up and we were invited to their home. It was a grand estate with servants, nurses etc. Storries wife was ill with some kind of debilitating disease. She was in a wheel chair. We had tea with them and were then invited to see their famous Japanese Garden. Mrs. Stearns offered Totch one of her wheel chairs. This was the first time Totch had ever used a chair and was highly insulted anyone would suggest it. But it proved to be such a help that she got one soon after. The house in Stevenson had many cherry trees and other fruit trees. I was not a tree climber but for some reason I climbed up into the cherry tree. I got stuck and asked Dad to get me down and he told me to get myself down. I was shocked because whenever I got myself into trouble I felt I could always count on Dad to get me out. I was terribly hurt my his refusal not that I couldn't get out but because he refused to help when I thought I needed it. One year while we were there the area had a silver thaw everything was frozen solid. All the grass had ice on each blade . The school closed because they couldn't keep it warm. All of the students had to go home. Neither Mother or Dad could get into pick me up so I had to slide down the hill and take the streetcar to the train station and take the train home. The train stopped just about 200 feet from the house so that should have been no problem but it was. It had snowed with a layer of ice on top. I had to walk threw this to the house. I would go through the ice layer into the snow cutting my legs on the ice. It was a very painful bloody 200 feet. It got so cold that year that the Columbia froze over behind the dam up to our house. Cars were driving across the River on the ice. I don't know when the last time that had happened. October 3, 1997 The summer of 1941 I worked in the office at Puget Construction I probably was more of a nuisance than help but it kept me busy. I got my SS card that summer. I kept the payroll.(Of course with the help of the accountant) We must have had approximately 500 people working for us. I can remember some of the unusual names Ocean Beach Patton lots of Theodores, Lincoln and Grant. They were from all over the country. I also did a walk that summer from our house in Stevenson to the Bridge of the Gods. Dad drove right by me even though I waved frantically at him. Got a ride from Mr. Ward. Dad was a good father. He was strict but he never looked at another woman than Mother. He came home every evening after work, none of the stopping off for a beer with the boys. I heard from the men that he really could swear but he never did so at home and certainly not before Mother. They were truly in love. They respected each other and I don't ever remember there fighting. They had disagreements but no harsh words. I am not sure that wasn't Mothers doing but Dad loved her so I don't think he ever would have spoken to her in anything but gentle voice. Dad was old fashion in many ways. He was an early to bed and early to raise person. He wouldn't let me wear pants until the 1940's when I insisted. As I didn't have any boy friends that was never a problem. You never spoke back to Dad you did what he told you to do. You might grumble but you did it, never any physical abuse or any suggestion of it. Dad never seemed to be particularly interested in my school work. I don't remember his ever asking me how I was doing. He was much more interested in how Paul was doing in school. One day Mother was having a party and she had made a date torte which was a lot of work in those days as you had to pit the dates, cut them up--it was all hand work. She had set the torte out to cool as she was having a bridge party the next day and needed the torte to setup. I believe she probably had laid down for a rest, when she came back into the kitchen she discovered a huge piece of the torte was missing. My brother had gotten home from school and she tore into him and said he had to shell the nuts and cut up the dates. He claimed he was innocence but he got to work. After a while Mother returned to the kitchen to find Dad and Paul chopping and shelling nuts. It had been Dad all along who ate the torte and Paul hadn't told on him. I believe it was 1941 or 42 when Mother became so ill with varicose veins and phlgosis of her legs. She had to come up to Seattle and stay with Bebe. Dad couldn't leave the job. Mother had her veins stripped, they were awful ulcers. All that summer she was incapacitated. Kaiser was building ships in Portland and we were invited to one of the launches. I think Dad was up with Mother or for some reason couldn't go. I decided to make ginger snap cookies that day. The dough keep increasing as I worked with it. I had flour all over the house and never could get to the bottom of the dough. We finally had to leave so we could get to the launch. I went with Paul and Lin. I don't remember anything about it only those awful cookies. Mother usually would drive into Portland and pick me up from school. This weekend she brought Lin, the bankers wife and 3 other women down with her and their golf clubs. We played golf then packed the back of the car with our clubs and all the groceries and my overnight bag. As I was driving North in Portland there was a big left hand turn and the car suddenly crashed and we went straight ahead instead of turning, even the brakes didn't work. Finally the car ran out of seam. Mother and I both jump out of the car and race over to a garage on the opposite corner across 4 lanes of traffic. They said they had heard the crash but they could not help, it was a broken axle. So Mother called AAA and had the car towed to Vancouver and we all got in the taxi a headed for Stevenson some 60 miles east of Portland. We were all singing "Home on the Range" and "Deep in the Heart of Texas" I think that poor taxi man must have been driven wild. When we pulled up at the Bankers house to let his wife off I thought he was going to have a stroke. You could just see the dollar signs whirling in his mind. But actually it only cost us about $1 more than the bus. Mother and Dad liked to play bridge but most of the people in Stevenson didn't know how. They were invited to play with the Engineers at Bonneville. At that time the Engineers lived on the Dam property and they had a nice Club house. They played duplicate. Dad wouldn't always be able to make it so Mother would drag me along. I was an awful player but I filled the seat so they didn't much care and beside Mother was so good this gave them a chance to win. Mother was a good socializer she got along with almost anyone. 1942 I graduated from High School. We had a graduation dance I remember my dress was beautiful brocade on top with a skirt of three different colors of toile. Very elegant. I think that this was my first real date and it was a blind date. In the Fall of 1942 I entered U of W. I went through Rush. No one wanted me but AOPi Mary's sorority and that was because they had only 6 members and desperately needed warm bodies. I had to live at the house because my folks were still down at Bonneville. It was not a wonderful experience even though I had been living for the last 2 years in dorms. My education at Catlin was good although I really needed to have gone there for 4 years instead of 2. My math courses were all fouled up. I had had algebra from a woman who had taught my father some 40 years earlier and more interested in form than content. I had geometry the lst half of my sophomore year and the second half the 2nd half of my senior year. I hadn't the foggiest idea what I was doing. None of this helped when I took a math course at the U that I had to eventually drop. No one gave me any help in those days. I was on my own and I sort of sank. I never did understand why neither Bebe or Totch paid any attention to me. Mary was real snotty. She wouldn't have anything to so with me if she could help it. She was always going out with army boys but would never introduce me to any of her friends. She left the UW in her Junior year and went to work for Uncle Emil Dad's brother. He was an accountant. When the folks came home I moved home. this must have been 1943. Paul had tried to enlist in the Navy and every time he drove up to The Dalles to take his physical he would have such high blood pressure that they wouldn't pass him. He finally got drafted into the army in 1943. He had to report to Fort Lewis and then was sent down to a Fort out of Medford. Lin couldn't go with him as she was 8 months pregnant with Ann. Paul was being shipped out of Medford and Lin had gone down to see him. Mother, Dad & I drove down to Portland then took the train down to see him off and help Lin home. Dad said it was too hard on Lin so we flew from Medford to Portland to pick up the car. It was my first airplane ride. Mother, Lin and I were so thrilled with the ride we persuaded dad to drive home alone from Portland to Seattle and we would take the plane. Paul was sent back to Blackstone, VA for further training and Lin and Ann went along. They stayed in a College in Blackstone (dorms in which everybody was cooking). We got a call that October that Paul wanted to see us but Dad said he couldn't possible fly back to VA. I told him he had to go Paul was trying to tell us he was going over seas. Well Dad wouldn't go so Mother and I flew back. We got as far as Cleveland and got bounced then got to Washington DC and had to take a train from there with all the troops. We got in at about midnight and by the time Mother & I got sorted out everybody had disappeared and we were on the rail track and no sign of a town or station. Finally way off in the distance I could see a light so I left mother with the luggage and walked up to the station and persuaded the man to get us a taxi to take us to the College. We were so tired that all we could do was crawl into bed. As we turned off the lights the whole wall seemed to move. We flipped on the lights and it moved the other way--cockroaches. Neither one of us had ever seen them before. We moved our beds out into the middle of the room and went to sleep. Ethelin Sr. had wanted to come but she had the flu. I had come in her place. I had a bad cold and the night we arrived I went to sleep and didn't move when I finally woke the next day my pillow was wet from the drainage from my ear. I believe we stayed at least 3 days before Paul was shipped to a holding station, family couldn't go they had to wait 10 days to see if they had gone overseas. During this time Mother and I took a train up to Hartford, Connecticut, to see the attorney who had written them about the estate of Marion Sterns. That was when we found out that the estate amount to quite a bite I believe $100,000+ per sister which in those days was a fortune. We then took the train to Newburgh to see the area where Mother's father had been born. None of the family were still there. We then went to New York and on to Blackstone where we picked up Lin. One of Lin's friends and wife of a soldier from Portland had her car and needed help getting home. She was 9 months pregnant and the doctor told her she couldn't drive home. Lin told her we would drive her car home for her. In those days you had to get written orders for tires and gas, as the girl had almost bald tires we had a tire order. We started out together I was driving one car and Mother was with Lin and Ann in the other car. We said we would meet at the entrance of any city. I was driving in front and I came to the city we were supposed to met in but it had a different name and I drove all the way through before I realized that this was the city we were to met in, oh what to do gas was rationed so you couldn't go too far out of your way. Finally I had to turn around and go back it took us about 2 hours to find each other. I was so scared as I didn't have the coupons for the gas or any money. When we got to Wichita Lin wanted to see some friends. She stayed with them. It was getting late in the year and I had to get back for school, we told Lin we had to move along and she said her Mother was coming and we could go on. They would go to California. Well here we were stuck with this unknown girls car in KS and had to deliver it in Portland. I have never seen Mother so upset. We wouldn't have gone if we had known she wasn't coming home. We then drove to Salt Lake City . Just outside the city we blew a tire. Of course it wasn't the one we had the order for but we were able to get a new tire. We finally got to Portland and pulled up to the Multinomah Hotel and the car died, real dead. Mother had had it she call the girl and told her where her car was to come and get it. The girl wanted Mother to get the battery fixed for her and drive it to her house. Mother in one of her rare explosions told her she would have to get it herself the keys would be at the desk and we took the train to Seattle. That was some awful trip. 1944-45 Dad worried about Paul he sort of pulled himself into a shell. He only took small jobs to keep the company going. He was so upset about Paul. School was a mess it had gone from 15,000 students down to 5,000 most of the boys were in the Army or Navy on campus. Classes were year around by the end of my Junior year in 1945 I discovered I only needed one course to graduate so I did. Mother told Dad as he had given Paul and extra year of school I should also have one and especially as I had finished in only 3 years. So I went to Katherine Gibbs in New York. What a spree. It was January 1946 and the boys were coming home and New York was alive with all kinds of shows and adventures I didn't learn very much at Gibbs but I sure had a wonderful time. The last month I was there I went to a show a night. Oklahoma Carousel, Ethel Barrymore, Gertrude Lawrence, the Met the zoo, Coney Island it was all so much fun. One of my sorority sisters came back and we planned to drive back together the only catch was that the car we had ordered hadn't come, it was terribly hard to get cars at that time unless you were willing to shove some money under the table. That wasn't dad's style. So we planned to return by bus. I worked out the route and took it down to the bus station , the man took one look and slammed the gate. He wanted 200+ . I thought that was too much so took my list down to another ticket agent and got it for approximately $100 less. October 4, 1946, Doris Korpi and I left New York by bus in October 1946 and reached home 2 days before Christmas. We had the time of our lives. We left for Washington DC and spent 4 or 5 days touring the Capital. We stayed at the YWCA. From Washington we went to Richmond and Williamsburg. Then on to Chattanooga. Our Housemother from the UW lived there then and we visited her. Called home to wish Mother happy birthday, reversing the charges of course, Dad answered and said that he didn't know anyone in Chattanooga and hung up. I had a hard time getting the telephone to try again. We then went on down through the South to Miami. We flew to Cuba and stayed at the Naccional Hotel. It was the most impressive Hotel I had ever seen. When we arrived at the airport everybody grabbed their bags and ran for the bus. Doris and I had to take a taxi in with about 6 other people. We were taken to the Hotel and the driver said how much and I couldn't understand him and kept saying what until he got down to $2.00 then I understood. We met some of the other people later and they told us they paid $8.00-10.00. So it paid not to understand. The taxis would take you downtown to the various shops for nothing so we said why not we wanted to shop anyway. Of course we couldn't afford anything but the taxi driver didn't know that. Every shop would offer you rum daiquiri? by the time we got back to the hotel some 4 hours later we were slouched and hadn't paid a thing for our day. We took a night club tour and Doris met a fellow and they went out. I didn't get invited. We then picked up the bus and went up the west side of Florida to New Orleans where we stayed at our sorority house. Our sisters took us all over New Orleans and to Antonio's. From New Orleans we went to San Antonio where we visited the Almo and were greatly impressed. From there we drove across the panhandle of TX a long dry unoccupied area. It was night and dark out when the bus driver stopped and started backing up He had missed the stop for one of his passengers who was asleep. We all asked him how he knew where to let him off as it all looked the same and he said there was a telephone pole at his stop and not another one for miles. Besides the man always gave him a turkey for Thanksgiving. We stopped at Carlsbad Caverns and went down into the caves very impressive. You walked down and rode back up. When we left Carlsbad the bus left at about 3 or 4 AM. As we were struggling with our bags walking to the bus station along came the police and asked us where we going and we told him and he said get in and drove us to the bus depot. That was the first time I had ever gotten the bums rush out of town. As you can guess by now we were on very short rations. From Carlsbad we went to Santa Fe that is a lovely Mexican town, especially then. Then through Albuquerque. We were looking for the little town of Gilda Bend AZ. We went right through it because I pronounced it wrong and we missed the stop. Next stop LA and Ethelin, SR. We stay with her for a few days but it was so smoggy it burnt our eyes and throat. We had never experienced this before and couldn't figure it out. You couldn't see the mountains or even the ocean. Ethelin was at that time making hard candy suckers to supplement her income. They were quite fancy. We went on up the coast to Uncle Art's in Almedia, CA. They took us in and we had a marvelous time seeing San Francisco and Oakland. We went to "Trader Vic" and had their spareribs. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Uncle Art called my Father and told him we were their and Dad told him to put us on a plane and send us home. So ended our journey around the perimeter of the USA. We got home about 2 days before Christmas. 1947 I went to work for Balfour and Guthrie in the Dexter Horton Building. They were in the Import and Export business. I was a secretary for Mr. Guthrie but I was never particularly good at the shorthand part of the job. Mr. Guthrie was a strict non alcoholist or smoker. Thought I believe he did smoke a pipe. He used to get upset if we had a party and we drank. Dad had gotten Paul a car when he graduated from High School but couldn't get me one because of the War. Still in 1947 they were hard to get. One of the boys at Balfour & Guthrie had a friend who was driving a Mercury coupe out from Detroit and had it for sale. I persuaded Dad that he owed me a car so he bargained with the fellow and I got my first car. The fellow said dad was a real sharp negotiator-he was. Some of the girls and I used to go horse back riding every Saturday. The weekend I got my car I drove the kids out to the arena and we went horseback riding. It had been raining but not that day. There were puddles every where so we rode on a dirt road. My horse was feeling no pain and was cantering down the road. There was a large puddle and he stepped into it but there was no bottom and he fell. I went flying over his head on to the road. Knocked the wind out of me. A man came running out to help me up and to see if I was hurt. At that time I had a wen on my left wrist that stuckout. He thought I had broken my arm and wouldn't let go. Finally I told him I had it before the accident so he let go. He drove us back to the stable and they went out to get the horse. The man said that the road should have been blocked off as a car had gotten stuck in the hole the day before. I was able to drive the kids to our house. Mother took a look at my face and had to clean out my lips and mouth. By the next days I had a moon face and couldn't go to the office. Finally I went an Mr. Guthrie insisted I go to his orthopedic doctor and get an x-ray. I had bent a vertebra between my shoulder blades. I had to wear a Thompson Brace for 6 months. I wore it next to my skin and a maternity dress that Lin had given me on the outside. I only wore it during the day the doctor hadn't told me to wear it at night. He was furious when he discovered I had only worn it during the day. At B&G an opening came up in the records department of the office and I changed from a secretary to record keeper. This was better but not much. 1948 Dad got a job at Solduc on the Olympic Peninsula. I wanted to go because it was such a lovely place. I quit B&G and went with Dad. It was a mistake. When we first moved there we had a log cabin right on the lake at the end call Fairholme. It was just a summer cottage the owner lived in a big house behind. Everything went smoothly until one day when we had 5 cars on the lawn and only 3 people that could drive them.. He told us to move. Mother found us a house in the park at Storm King near Rosemary's and Crescent Lake Lodge. It too was a summer cottage but bigger than the log cabin. It didn't have any electricity or telephone. It did have a gas generator which was too hard for mother to crank up so she had to use oil lanterns until dad got home and he could crane the generator. It would then go for 3 hours and you would either have to go to bed or refill it. We went to bed. My poor mother had to cook on a wood stove, use a wood stove iron for her clothes, hair and waffles. It was really a trial. There were no close neighbors so she must of sat an read all day. The weather around Lake Crescent was typical mountain weather. The first winter we were there it snowed very hard and the hill out of the Lake was covered. Dad always left about 6 AM and I left at 7 AM no sense in getting there any earlier as it was cold. JANUARY 12, 1998 It is snowing out and I am housebound frustated, lonesome, and a little blue. I can't get the scanner to work it isn't there or it doesn't have enough ram. I'm just not smart enough to run this damn thing. Anyway I guess I can write this letter to you. Back to Lake Crescent. The road to the job left Lake Crescent and ascend a hill, fairly steep. Dad went out at his usual time . When I came along an hour later I couldn't make the hill and was side ways When I looked up and there was Dad sliding back into me. Wanting to know why I was blocking the road. We went back to the cabin and started out again. With the two of us in the car it had enough weight to make the hill. I had gotten this car second hand from a young man in Balfour and Guthrie. It was a Mercury coupe (two door) but it got me where I wanted to go and it was my first car. I put at least 1000 miles on it every 10 days. I would drive into Port Angeles see a movie and get my car lubed. That was the excitement for the week. We were building two bridges at Sol Duc with about 2 miles between them. The current road went around them. Our office was on the new road with a barricade to keep cars from going down it to discover there wasn't a bridge as yet. From the office I could see the barricade. One day I saw Dad's car come around the barricade then Dad didn't show and I got worried. The car had seen horrendous wear and tear all thru the War and Dad's driving. I finally got up and looked for Dad. As the car had come around the barricade it acted like "The One Horse Shay" and fell apart. Both front wheels fell off. We had told Dad not to hit those bumps so fast. One day Dad got hurt on the job. A shoot of the concrete mixer fell on him and knocked him down . He didn't want to tell me so he got one of the boys to drive him home. The accident raised a hugh blood blister on his leg. Mother had to drive him into Seattle to the doctor. On their way they passed one of the log trucks and there was a terrible noise. Both stopped but could find nothing wrong. When Mother got home in Seattle she went around to Dad's side to help him out and discovered that both door handles on the passengerside had been stripped off. They had come that close to the truck. At that time 1947 I was extremely difficult to get new door handles and you can imagine how inconvenient it was with out handles. The State Highway Dept was working on rebuilding Highway 101 and had let a contract for work on Lake Crescent to straighten out Storm King. The contract called for controlled blasting so that the road would not be closed. We didn't get the job. The Contractor who got the job blasted from the top of the cut and closed the road in fact he blasted the road into the lake. That meant that our boys had to either drive approximately 60 miles around via Joyce or we had to ferry them around the slide. We rented a bus and using a rowboat took them around the slide. Dad and I would drive to the slide and pick up the fellows and take them to work. One day Dad had gone into town for something or other and I was waiting for him. I was sitting in the car reading the mail. I looked up and saw Dad coming--rowing. I then waited and waited and no boat not Dad. I was getting paniced when I heard his very load whistle from the top of the slide. He had given one to powerful pull on the oar and broken it in two. He had to climb over the slide. Another time I don't know where Dad was but it had been snowing hard and they finally shut down and Paul and I had to drive the men to the slide. There was no traffic around the lake since the road was closed. Paul insisted that I got first. You know how I hate snow. I not only had to drive in it but I had to cut trail. I didn't know where the road was. The boys helped but it was mighty scary. If you go into the Lake it is goodbye as it is deep and fridge. After I left the boys off then I had to drive back to the house. Poor Mother was fit to be tied because I was late. Do you remember Hurrican Ridge. In 1047 the only way up was over a one way road out of the Elwha. I had heard such glowing reports about its beauty that I told Dad I was going up there on the 4th of July. Well he hemmed and haughed about going. I told him I was going and taking Mother well he finally said he would drive us up. All the way up he kept commenting on how glad he had driven us women up as it was so narrow and dangerous. All the cars we passed going down were driven by women. But it was worth every turn in the road. The wild flowers were like a Persian Carpet and Mt Olympus was breath taking. I don't know of a more fabulous view then from the Ridge at Hurrican Ridge. Paul & Lin had Ann and Peter was 2 and not well. They lived on the North end of the Lake on the water but down a very long hill. You parked at the top and carried everything down to the house. They had power where we didn't and they also had a telephone. They carried down a propane refrigerator. Lin wasn't too happy here as there weren't any neighbors. When Christmas came around I knew I had made a mistake working for Dad. I wasn't particularly good and it was lonesome. I hadn't spent any of my wages so I planed a trip with Bebe who had lost her husband not long before to go around South America. We left Sol Doc on a cold rainy day. We got to the slide (they had reopened the road barely) and Mother was in the lead. She got her car hung up on rocks. Up until then there had been nobody around when she got hungup there were all kinds of people to lift the car over the rocks -- no one could get by her so everyone helped. They were afraid that there would be a slide and the road would be closed again. But my car was soaked . When we got to Sequim I had to stop for gas and Mother and Dad drove on. I drove as fast as I could to catch the ferry at Port Ludlow. I hadn't discovered until I paid for the gas I didn't have any money (change). The Ludlow ferry only ran every 2 or 3 hours. There was Mother standing on the skirt holding up the ferry as I came racing around the curve. I just flew on and we took off. Bless her heart as it would have been a 4 to 5 hour tour around via Olympia.

 

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