Given August and September 1996 at the age of 97. Recorded and transcribed by a volunteer. Converted to HTML by Michael G. Gordon (grandson).
There are genealogical records of my maternal grandparents through DAR information.
Family members on my maternal grandmother's side first came to the U.S. before the Revolution, (in the 1700's from Switzerland). They settled in Bucks County. My maternal grandmother, Marcella Cornick, was Pennsylvania Dutch [Michael inserts a comment here: "Dutch" in this case is "Deutsch" or German; Johannes Mossinger was a German that emigrated from Basle, Switzerland, in 1732 but I have been having difficulty confirming this.]
My first memories of my maternal grandparents were when they were living on a little farm in Bowbells, North Dakota. Grandfather, Sylvester Messinger, was a grain buyer and didn't have a lot of farm animals. There were just chickens and buggy horses. When I was around six years old, Mother took me for a summer-long visit. At that time, she had a good school friend living in Minot, (a half-hour train ride from Bowbells.) For some reason, I got mad at Grandfather, and stalked down to the railroad station and got on the train going to Minot. When the conductor put me off in Minot the only name I could think of that I knew was mother's friend.
At the first house I came to, I boldly knocked on the door. When a lady answered I said, "I've come to see if my mother is here."
"Who is your mother?" the lady asked.
"Mrs. Burnham."
The name was the only clue she needed to point me in the right direction. I imagine Mother was mortified to death. How I had nerve enough to get on that train, I'll never know. But I did. I never got mad at Grandfather Sylvester again - this was the one and only time.
During this summer visit, I remember a storm where there were hailstones as big as golf balls. The horses were out in the yard and the stones pelted them so they just ran back and forth. They could have taken cover in the barn but they didn't see the open door. These horses were cut quite badly, plus a lot of little chickens were killed by the bombardment. After the storm stopped, we went out and gathered up what was left of these hailstones and made lemonade.
My relationship with Grandmother Messinger was very good. After I married Ken, she stayed in a little cabin we owned on Bainbridge Island (which was quite close to the house we were living in). I can remember her coming down and saying, "Guess what I had for breakfast?"
After Grandfather's death, Grandmother had been pushed around from daughter to daughter. That's why she was having such a ball having her own little place to do just what she pleased. But my aunt came and got her and took her back to North Dakota. She did get to live in the cabin for about three or four months. I was working for the Community Chest and knew how to go about getting allotments for people. I found out that the county would increase her allotment from fifteen dollars per month to fifty dollars. But my aunt decided it shouldn't be up to the granddaughter to watch out after her and Grandmother moved away.
She enjoyed going out to eat restaurants. "I've cooked so many dinners in my life, I love being waited on," she'd told me.
After her return to North Dakota she didn't live very long. She hated the weather plus the little farm her daughter and son-in-law owned was quite isolated. In the spring, workers would come to the farm and reap the grain, etc. Grandmother would help with the cooking for all of them. The water there was awful - very hard. They may not have even had inside plumbing. I know they didn't in Bowbells. They had this thing (that worked as a canopy) in the winter time that stretched from the house out to the outhouse.
The Messinger's built a house in Tacoma right near the College of Puget Sound. (Years later, when the college enlarged their property, they took in this land.) I stayed with them all summer long when I was ten years old. At this time Mother had divorced ( 1908) and had remarried. When school started Mother and her husband, Lou, came and took me back to Bremerton to live with them.
From Tacoma, my grandparents moved to Puyallup. This is where Grandfather died and this was where Grandmother was until she got pushed from one daughter's home to the next.
Before my grandparents moved to the Pacific Northwest, they took up a homestead in Idaho. After graduating from high school in 1917, Mother and I visited them in their little three-room cabin. Grandfather's brother, Martin, had also moved to this area and had taken up a homestead (about five miles apart). Mother and I stayed for about a month. Somebody had bought up a lot of horses and put them on my grandparents' land. Uncle Mart, and his son Jay Messinger, took the horses back east and while they were there, Jay joined the marines.
During our visit at the Idaho homestead, Grandfather sold the farm and bought an old touring car. Six of us went in that car across the desert into Yellowstone Park and camped out all the way. We'd put up a tarp and sleep beneath it. The group consisted of me, my grandparents, Mother, Uncle Neil and Uncle Floyd. So the car was quite loaded down. At that time I weighed what I do now, and so did Mother (about 140 lb.), plus my grandparents were thick, heavy people. I can remember taking some pictures of Grandmother when she was sitting in the front seat of the car. This bear came along and got right up on the running board and helped himself to some cookies in the back seat. Grandmother yelled and I was able to snap a picture before the bear ran away. Coming down into Gardiner our group split up. My grandparents planned on going to Canada to visit another son. Mother and I took the train at Gardiner and came home.
There's an amusing story Grandmother used to tell me about her mother-in-law, Katherine, who lived in the days of the Wigs and Tories. Katherine had married against her father's wishes. One day the newly married couple decided to go visit her people and see if they could patch things. Enroute to see them, her husband asked her to "turn his socks" but Katherine refused.
Then her husband said, "You either turn my socks or you'll walk to your father's house." So, Katherine walked. When the couple got inside her father's farm, the young husband became scared and then begged her to join him and stop walking but she wouldn't do it. From that day forward Katherine ruled the roost. She had three sons and one daughter (who she had to lived with during the last few years of her life). They fought bitterly. Grandmother said that Katherine got so mad at her daughter one time, she went into her daughter's closet, took some sheers and took little snips out of every one of her dresses. Evidently no one liked Katherine including Grandmother.
As a child, I remember Grandmother wearing long skirts, shirt waists, and funny little hats. One she especially found intriguing had a bird on it. She was a nice looking woman, very gracious in personality - and a person who wanted things done right. She was quite religious (Protestant possibly Presbyterian) - and was a reader of the Bible. The one she read (I don't know what became of it) had the dates of birth of children and deaths of relatives in the back.) Her home remedy for wounds was Pitch Plaster which was made from the pitch on wood. One time I cut myself quite badly, and she applied some of this plaster to the wound. It was quite warm and malleable.
She excelled at homemaking and was a first rate cook. She told that she'd cooked so many chickens (from scratch meaning she caught them, chopped their heads off, plucked their feathers off and cleaned them) they must have numbered in the thousands. When her seven children were growing up, she did have a hired girl to help her. This girl boarded with the family and helped out wherever she was needed.
My grandparents were a devoted couple with Grandmother always referring to him as "Dear Poppa." Grandfather was close to ninety years of age when he died in Puyallup.
I was the first of the grandchildren to be born and may be the last of the grandchildren living today. I seem to go. forever. There is a possibility that some of Mildred's children (the daughter that lived in North Dakota) may be living. I never did contact them after I was grown. I was quite close to Aunt Phoe who lived in Tacoma and to her daughter, Gladie. Herbert was Phoe's first born. He was ten years younger than me. Gladie was twelve years younger.
My paternal grandmother was the second wife of Grandfather Dr. Burnham, and must have been at least twenty-five years younger than him. She never referred to him as Dr. Burnham. It was always just Burnham - like "Burnham did this or Burnham did that. "
Grandfather Burnham is known as the Father of Gig Harbor. He came out to Gig Harbor from Albert Lea, Minnesota and thought it a wonderful place. So he wrote glowing letters back to all of his friends in Albert Lea and invited them to join him. He was willing to give everyone who came a lot if they'd build a little white house and put a little white picket fence around it. A lot of people did move to Gig Harbor at his urging.
My maternal grandparents were among the ones who moved. They came in a box car (it was like a freight car that was sided up all around). There were bunks built in it where all seven of their children slept. Uncle Neil was the baby and was having problems with his ears. There was a little stove as well. Grandmother Marcella did the cooking and taking care of her children all the way from Minnesota out to the Pacific Northwest. When the train came into Tacoma it was considered the end of the line - only it wasn't for Grandmother because her family was enroute to Gig Harbor. So they came across to Gig Harbor in a little steamer. Grandmother had never seen anything any bigger than Albert Lea lake and was most likely quite frightened. She was let off on a float with her children and the wake of the boat caused the float to circle slowly around and around. (Recalling this experience, she'd remarked to me once, "To this day I still think about it and tremble.") Finally someone came in a little row boat to take each family member, one at a time to shore.
Without a doubt, Grandmother was a woman of rare courage. When Grandfather took up the homestead in Idaho it was just a little shack. Grandmother must have been in her sixties, then, grubbing sagebrush to clear enough for a little garden. Grandfather Sylvester tended this garden and used water from a little stream about a mile from their property. They also had a dug well that I can remember putting milk down into to keep cold the summer Mother and I visited.
Grandfather was a good natured, jovial fellow. He liked to read and was a good business man. He must have had a fairly good education to be able to become a grain buyer. In this occupation, he visited different farms, and purchased grain from them and must have had a main outlet where he sold it. This is what he did all the time he lived in North Dakota. He never served in the military. One of the things he taught me was how to play poker, and pinochle. I'm sure he cheated me to death but he got a lot of fun of playing these games with me.
I was born July 11, 1899. My full name is Ethel Margaret but I've never been called Ethel as I hate the name. Mother named me after one of her sisters. Aunt Ethel lived with me for a while during the war years. She'd been living with cousin Gladie, but got mad at her and all of a sudden was on my door step. I had charge of the Office of Price Administration, then, and needed a price clerk. Upon recommending Ethel the board accepted and gave her the job. Husband Ken and I offered her our little cabin to stay in and I took her to work and brought her home. After she quit this job, she stayed with Aunt Phoe and from there she went to California. She had quite a lot of money and had Marcy and me in her will. Later, I found out that Aunt Ethel was miffed because I'd been in Los Angeles and had never looked her up. Since she'd never contacted me after her move, I didn't know her whereabouts. We evidently were cut out of the will due to this misunderstanding .
TAPE ONE (taped 8-29-96) SIDE TWO
I don't remember Grandfather Sylvester ever working after he and Grandmother moved to Tacoma and don't know where he got his money. The place they bought in Puyallup was much smaller and less expensive to maintain, so perhaps the sale of the house in Tacoma helped with living expenses. Grandfather's two brothers (who moved to the Pacific Northwest around the same time he did) were still working. Uncle Floyd had a furniture store in Tacoma. Uncle Mark had a big grocery store on the way out to Point Defiance. It was a long store that had living quarters upstairs. Cousin Jay and I played together and became good friends. When we were kids we used to run the length of that grocery store and down the back stairs, and through the store again and up the front stairs (would have been around seven or eight).
As mentioned earlier, Jay was in World War I in the Marines. We saw a moving picture of him one time with his whole unit. After he was grown, he developed Diabetes. Insulin hadn't been discovered, yet - and he finally died with it. There's a Post named for him out in South Tacoma. It's call The Jay Messinger Post.
I never knew my paternal grandfather as he died before I was born. He'd been a doctor in the Civil War. I don't believe there were any children from the marriage to his first wife. When my family visited Albert Lea one time, the homestead was still standing. Mother told me that the couple had their own little graveyard out in back of the house. The tombstone of the first wife was there with a little notch in it that had her picture. Later, when my daughter, Marcella, was about four years old, we visited the old homestead and asked the people living there if we could see the graveyard. The tombstone was still there but the picture was gone.
Rachel Jane was my paternal grandmother's name. Everyone called her Mammie. She had three boys and one girl (Louella) through her marriage to Dr. Burnham. During the summer months I would stay at her place in Gig Harbor. I remember Mammie as an old lady who wore a black satin blouse, a long skirt clear down to the ground and an apron over it. Her hands were always folded under the apron. She had two sisters (that apparently came west with her) that I knew. Mammie and I would walk all around the head of the bay to visit one of them..
Mammie didn't have much of a pension and relied on receiving monetary help from her two sons and daughter in her later years. Daughter Louella had one son, Donald. Mammie brought him up because Louella had to work. She had a lot of elaborate costumes up in her attic that my cousins and I used to get into. In the early days, my grandparents put on plays.
Grandfather had a lot of money. He gave my father, Alfred Bismarck, (born in 1870) a steamboat. It was the first steamboat that ran between Tacoma and Gig Harbor. He gave Nick, the next son, the store and dock which was located along the waterfront in Gig Harbor. There was a building nearby that had a stage where the plays were put on. Mammie participated in all of them and this is where my father must have caught the acting bug. He always thought he was a pretty good actor.
In Gig Harbor, the Burnhams have a big burial plot where many of my relatives on my paternal side are buried - including Dad. I've given the Gig Harbor Historical Society all the historical information I can about Grandfather Burnham.
Aunt Lou, Mammie's daughter, bought a little house next to the one Mammie was living in. It had running water and bathroom. In her last years, she lived with this daughter. During the day, when Aunt Lou was away at work, she had someone to come in to take care of her. I don't recall how old she was when she passed away but think she was way up in her eighties. Grandfather Burnham died in 1898, the year before I was born.
Father was around seventeen when Grandfather brought his family to Gig Harbor. When he gave him the steamship, he didn't have a captain's papers and had to hire a captain. This captain wasn't much good and bumped the dock several times. Then the three Hunts came along, Artie, Arthur and Lloyd. One was a captain, one was an engineer, and the other was a mate. They built a boat and ran Father out of business. Along came a big ship builder (well known in Gig Harbor) who became so successful that the Hunts and Father started working for this builder on the ferries. Dad was captain of the Defiance.
In the early years of her marriage, Mother lived with the Burnhams. She remembered the doctor as being a man who peppered his conversation with cuss words. Besides being a doctor, he taught school. The old original homestead was there when I was a girl. There was a big old oak tree and a creek that ran through the property. Grandfather used to teach Sunday School and school part of the time under that tree. There was what was known as an Indian Long House right in front of the little peninsula where the stream ran out. Lots of Indian's lived in Gig Harbor, then.
Grandfather was probably a "gay blade" in his younger years. This theatrical company came to town and I think he fell in love with one of the actresses. Her name was Phosa and that's what he named one of his daughters.
As mentioned earlier, Mabel had three sisters - Ethel, Mildred (the North Dakota one) and Phosa who lived in Tacoma. I knew Phoe (nickname) better than anyone. She had a summer home at Long Branch that I spent some time at every summer. In appearance, Mildred was tall and skinny and very severe looking. She lived on a bleak North Dakota wheat ranch without running water or inside plumbing. Anything she did socially would have been Ladies Aide and the Order of the Eastern Star. They lived about two miles out of town. I can remember visiting one time and riding an old blind horse back and forth from the ranch into town. Uncle Gillis was Mildred's husband. He was always tossing me up and turning me over as I enjoyed doing acrobatic stunts. "Uncle Gillis, let's Acro," I'd say.
I was around seven years old when I visited Uncle Gillis and Aunt Mildred and never saw him after that. Mildred did visit Mother and their parents, so she did get to see her but not much. Mabel Althea was Mother's name (everyone called her Mab). She was always close to her mother and even went to see her one winter in North Dakota because the debts had piled up. Dad would send her to N.D. for a visit so he could catch up on the bills. But when we returned, the debts were still there. Eventually, Mother had all she could take since Dad just wasn't supporting his family - and she divorced him in 1908. He always made good money - and he didn't drink - but he was a soft touch and would loan money to anyone who needed it.
Mother belonged to the Ladies' Musical Club in Tacoma because she was a very beautiful pianist. She had studied music when she was young and she could transpose any key. She played in the Christian Science Church in Bremerton for years - and I played for the Sunday School. She was a staunch Christian Scientist and could have been a practitioner. She studied under a Christian Science teacher when she was living in New Jersey. She was Housemother in a school there for about ten to twelve years. The children were retarded and all girls. At the cottage she lived in she was responsible for thirty.
I attended the Christian Science Church until I was married and I'm sad to say that I am not particularly religious.
When I was a young child, I would have tonsillitis every year. One of my first memories of Mother was of her putting this stiff collar around my neck when my throat was sore. A flannel scarf held it snug against my neck. It felt like cement. Another early memory is the Christmas morning I found a porcelain-faced doll in a little rocking chair under the tree. She had eyes that opened and closed. (I had this doll until I was grown and left it with Aunt Phoe when John and I moved to New York. After we came back, I found out that my doll had a different face because the other had been broke and could not be mended.)
When we moved to Bremerton, one of the first things Mother did was have my tonsils taken out. It was the young doctor's first tonsillectomy. I had so much ether that I smelled of it for a whole week. It was awful!
Physically, Mother was about 5 ft. 4 in. She was a pretty woman with beautiful brown eyes and hair. She grew a little plump in her later years but never fat. Getting a divorce in 1908 was a hard thing to do not only from the stand point of a social stigma but also because she'd been married to Dad for thirteen years. I was eight when they divorced and ten when Mother married Lou McGrath. From the start I disliked him very much because Father was still alive and I thought everything of my father until I discovered he had feet of clay. This was an awful awakening for me.
Lou did take care of me and paid for my going to Normal School in Bellingham. When I came back, I was going to teach school. I went to the County Superintendent and he sent me out to a place called Lone Rock. It looked like it sounded. I didn't know the first thing about taking on a one room school house. I had all eight grades and about two students in each grade. They didn't teach you how to handle a situation like this at Bellingham in those days. I was scared to death. Before I signed the contract, the Navy Yard opened up in Bremerton for the first time in its history. So I took the Civil Service exam and went into the Radio Lab. I was going to get $60 a month out at Lone Rock. The Navy Yard job allowed me to live at home and paid $125 a month. I worked there for three years.
TAPE TWO (taped 9-05-96) SIDE ONE
One of the nicest memories I have of Mother when I was a small child, (around eight years old) is when she was working at Taylor's Music Store in Tacoma as a pianist. She had to work Saturday nights, so she would bring me to the store and we'd have dinner together. Then she would put me into the theater and after the play was over, she'd pick me up on her way home from work. There was a very good company called Grey Stock Company - and they would put on different shows every week.
One of the worse memories I have of Mother is the time I did something to displease her - and she asked me to go outside and get my own switch so she could switch my legs. I was never going to forgive her as long as I lived for doing this. Marcy says I did the same thing to her and I said, "No way. You know me and you know how that affected me - no way would I have done such a thing to you." This is the only time I can remember Mother taking a switch to me. She may have spanked me with her hand every-so-often but nothing beyond that.
In her teen years, Mother attended a private school called Albert Lea College which was more of a glorified high school than a college. She went there due to an injury to her spine where she couldn't sit on a hard seat. She probably didn't finish her schooling because her family moved west at the late 1880's.
I recall her being a reader and she got me into the way of reading. She was musical - loved opera, singing, and playing the piano.
When we moved to Bremerton the population numbered around 6,000 people - many of them Navy Yard workers. One of our neighbors was a deaf couple. I learned to use my hands when conversing with them. They had three children with their daughter being around my age. Later on, they had a baby boy. It was always a mystery to me how they were able to care for their children but they managed. The dad owned a bowling alley and managed to provide for his family quite adequately.
I don't remember my early years with my dad because he was gone so much due to his job. He was on tug boats then, mostly - where the tug towed logs. I got to go with him on the boats quite often. The tugboat was called the Zephyr (Foss Tug boat Company). My big highlight was eating in the Galley with the crew. At one time, Dad was Captain of two boats that went around the island - Anderson Island - McNeil Island. This was the only way the people living on the islands had of getting groceries, mail and other supplies. One of the boats was called the Tyrus and one was called the Tyconda.
Dad used to buy me things at a department store in Tacoma where his sister worked. He would send me to her whenever I needed a coat or something special. When I was eight, he bought me a bicycle. On one of my first rides I got lost in Hyde Park and thought I'd never find my way home.
During my growing up years, I was around my step-dad more than my own dad. I disliked him intensely because Father was still alive and I sort of figured, as kids do, that he was trying to take my father's place. Lou got started drinking when he was in Alaska. He and his dad went there in 1898 and became Blacksmiths. There was good liquor there so people had plenty to drink. When Lou moved to the states, prohibition was on and I think that he started to drink anything he could get his hands on. While he never abused Mother, he did throw things when he was drunk. For example, there was a big book case with a long glass that he broke once. He was a smart man and made good money working under the Master Blacksmith in the Navy Yard.
Mother insisted that I take piano lesson. For several years I had to practice an hour in the morning and hour in the afternoon. It never did me a bit of good because I could not memorize music. I could memorize poetry and plays and operettas but could not memorize the keyboard. If I had the music I played the piano fine, but couldn't otherwise.
The Christian Science Religion helped Mother through the rough periods in her life. It kept her placid as if to say - "This is my lot and I'll stay with it. " She wasn't into social life in Bremerton at all. One reason may have been her fear of how Lou would behave and what people might say. I was always worried about this in high school. I was sure that everybody knew he was an alcoholic since he was brought home almost every pay day night in a drunken condition. I told a close friend once, "I always felt that everybody in school knew." And she said, "No body ever knew anything about it. We never even paid a bit of attention to it." But I was quite conscious of it.
I had to excel. I didn't have clothes because we didn't have the money for them. So I had to excel in plays and operettas. Then I took up tennis. I had to be something that was a little outstanding because I always felt I did not belong with this clique of girls I did things with. They all had nice, proper families and mine wasn't I didn't think. I longed to be one of them but I always felt I was on the outside looking in until I grew up.
Of an evening, Mother used to play the piano a lot. She'd sit in the living room in the dark and play one old song after another. Little Thelma, who lived next door, loved to lie in her bed and listen to her play. Lou was appreciative of this music, as well.
After Lou died, he only left $2,000 in life insurance and the house was not paid for. So Mother needed to go to work. This is when she started working at the Naval Yard as General Helper doing things such as counting nails, and bolts, etc. (in good and bad weather conditions). And she stayed with it until the Master Blacksmith was able to use his influence in getting her a job in the Administration Department.
Mother was in New York the same time I was (in 1927) and found a job working in Macy's Department Store. We used to meet in the old Waldorf Hotel in the lobby and have lunch or dinner.
She got to go Europe by answering an ad for "Student Travel Club." When she applied for this job, she was told that they usually took teachers. Mother told him that she was completing a course at Columbia - and this impressed him so that he hired her on the spot.
In 1930 she took the job at the girls school, and as previously mentioned, was there around twelve years. She had a cottage with about thirty girls in the cottage. Most of them couldn't even learn how to spell their names. Mother used to just get violent about the Catholics. They would not allow these girls to be sterilized. They would run away at thirteen and fourteen and almost always came back pregnant. No one wanted their babies, so they were put in state orphanages. The school tried to get legislation passed so that they could sterilize the girls and not have this problem but the Catholics were so strong against it that they voted it down.
When my second husband Kenny got to be Postmaster, he thought Mother might work out in the Clerk Department. She quit her job working at the girl's school in New Jersey and moved to Bainbridge Island. Unfortunately, the job consisted of doing things she really didn't know how to do. So she took a job as a Practical Nurse at the Moran School (where Messenger House is now). She worked there for around a year and a half until the end of the war (1945). When she left this job she took a position some place out on Federal Way and worked there for a little while. And then started working at a Christian Science Nursing home. She was still employed at this nursing home when she passed away at age seventy-two. She was born in 1875 and died in 1947 - and is buried at the Arcadia Cemetery in Seattle.
Mother wanted me to be a teacher and this is why she sent me to Normal School in Bellingham. (I was there for a year.) She and Lou couldn't afford to send me to the university. What they should have done is sent me to Business College because that was where I belonged. But teaching is the thing you did.
One of the chores I had to do around the house was dishes. Mother's good friend had a daughter (Marian) just a year older than me. If they were over visiting, I would wash the dishes and Marian would dry them. The reason I preferred washing them is because I'd be the first one done. I hating to iron and don't recall ever having that as a chore.
Mother was more of a friend to me than an authority figure. When she disciplined me, it was normally something like sending me to my room and a little tongue lashing. I don't remember her ever striking me after I got older.
Lou never took a hand to me in any way. He did black my eye one time but that was accidental. He was in one of his drunken rages and I got in the way. Normally when he was in this condition, I would go to my room and stay. But if he acted as if he were going to hurt Mother, then I'd be ready to crawl all over him.
TAPE TWO (taped 9-05-96) SIDE TWO
Mother never learned how to drive but probably would have had it been necessary. She was always close to jobs plus the public transportation system was good.
She was always close to her sister Phoe who lived in Tacoma. The rest of her sibling were scattered. She was friendly with them and corresponded. Phoe started what she called "The Family Letter" and kept it up until she died. She would start the letter and then send it to a relative. That relative would say something and send it to another relative, etc. The letter would go to all of the nieces.
Dad was born in Fort Fred Steele, Wyoming. Although his name was Alfred Bismarck everyone called his Biz (He was named for the great Bismarck of Germany.). He was a steam boat captain all of his adult life. One of the things he loved to do was act. They use to put on plays in Gig Harbor - and once I got to see him in a production over there. He smoked a pipe a good deal but never smoked cigarettes. And he didn't drink. Being such a soft touch he was always popular since everybody knew they could get anything out of him if they gave him a little sad story. So he had lots of friends.
When I was around twelve years old, I knew all of the whistles on the boats. I knew the Kennedy whistle between Bremerton and Seattle. I knew the Nisqually whistle between Tacoma and Olympia. They used to bring baseball teams to Bremerton on Sundays - and I heard the boat whistle. I said to Lou, "That's my dad. He's bringing the baseball team over." And I was going to get on my bicycle and go right down to the dock. But Lou wouldn't let me go. This made me furious. "You wait until your dad phones," Lou kept insisting. Well I waited...and waited...and waited but he didn't phone. So, I got on my bike and went anyway. When I got to the ferry and the deck hand brought me to his living quarters and knocked on the door, I discovered my dad had a woman on board - which was perfectly natural. He'd been divorced for several years and he liked the ladies. But this was an awakening for me because I realized he hadn't intended on calling me. After I walked into his state room, I remember his saying, "Muggins, what are you doing here?" I do believe he'd forgotten I lived in Bremerton. After this experience, I don't think I ever felt the same about him. He cared about me enough, I'm sure and would have done anything for me. He did buy me things occasionally. But it just was never the same relationship.
Because I was a favorite of my high-school music teacher, she didn't want me to attend Normal School after graduation. She wanted me to go to a school that she had gone to in Detroit. "It's a two-year college," she told me. "And when you come out I will be ready for an assistant music teacher and this high school will be ready for an athletic director." So I proceeded to apply for the college and was accepted. I would be working in the school office to help pay my expenses plus Dad had agreed to send $50 a month. Everything was all setup and looked so promising I had bought my train fare to get me to Detroit. A couple of weeks before I was to go, Dad wrote and said he didn't think he could tie himself up for $50 a month for two years. At that time he was living on the boat, had his meals and state room as part of his salary. The only expenses he really had were laundry and personal items such as grooming supplies. He wasn't doing much in a monetary way to support Grandmother. His not being able to send the money just threw a monkey wrench in my educational plans. After I was grown, I didn't see Dad too much. He worked on the ferries the last twenty years of his life. The ferry ran between Point Defiance and Tacoma until the bridge went in.
In 1922 we all got together for Christmas. We had a friend that loaned us a car and we drove to Gig Harbor and my mother went with us. Mammie had her house open but I didn't know she was going to put up with all of us. There were Nick and his son Harry and his wife and their baby, and Donald and my dad and probably Aunt Lou. She had a little house next door so I suppose we spilled over there. I can remember it took us all day long to get from Bremerton to Gig Harbor. The roads were terrible but we made it. Mother and Dad were always friendly and got along fine when they saw each other.
Dad died in 1953. (Ken's mother also died that year.) Dad had been ill for a long, long time. He lived in a little one-room house on his sister Lou's property. He had a bedroom but not a bathroom. I suppose he had running water. Uncle Nick lived close by in the old brown house where they had grown up. He would look in on dad and fix meals for him. At the time, I was living on Bainbridge Island with Ken. (Dad had even visited the island once and couldn't understand what had happened to the mill at Port Madison nor to the one at Port Blakely.) After he got so sick, I would visit every other week and would take him into Tacoma to see his doctor. One of our last visits he said he couldn't take it any longer. He thought he had to go to the hospital. His doctor put him in the county hospital and that's the last I saw him. He only lasted about two or three days after being hospitalized. He said he didn't have cancer but I think that's what he had. He's buried in the old cemetery in Gig Harbor where there's a big six-sided burial plot. My grandfather, my grandmother and the younger son and a number of other relatives on Dad's side are buried there. I've been over there a couple of times. In fact we took Dad's ashes over there. Kenny fixed a little cement apparatus to hold the urn and we went over. It's kind of hard to find as its way up in the woods. A lot of old timers are there.
When Mother's husband, Lou, committed suicide in 1918, I was working at the Navy Yard. In our house there was a big bay window. There was a young man that boarded and roomed with us, then. He had brought home some ice cream and he and my mother were sitting at the table when it happened. Lou had been walking back and forth...back and forth...This rot-gut he was drinking must have been preying on his brain. It's a wonder he didn't shoot Mother. But he went to his bedroom and shot himself with a sawed-off shot gun. When I heard the news, I ran straight for home. While this was a terrible shock to Mother, she was able to snap out of it pretty quickly. As soon as she could get in at the Navy Yard she started working.
After Lou died, we took in two boarders and the two young men slept in the same bed as that's all we had to offer them. The front room of our house was their sleeping quarters. An old friend of my parents slept in the middle room (he worked in the Navy Yard). Mom and I had the big room off of the back porch. Mother would get breakfast for the boarders and dinners and put up lunches. She did have a woman to come in and to the washing of clothes. I can remember to this day that we didn't have sanitary napkins in those days - we just had rags. This woman would boil them and spread them out on the grass and this used to just slay me. Soon as I'd get home, I'd get them off the grass knowing I'd be embarrassed to death if the boarders saw them. Anytime Mother wasn't feeling good and I had to get their breakfast, I'd die a thousand deaths because I didn't cook very well. I'd been fine with old Barney the other boarder.
Mother married Billie Anderson, one of Dad's best friends, March, 1922. He was a steamboat captain, too. I think he felt sorry for her. They just drifted apart and never got a divorce. I liked him a lot but don't know whatever happen to him.
The Bremerton of today looks about the same as it did when we moved there. A lot of the houses are the same. The schools are the same with the addition of Olympic College. The only difference was at the beginning of the war they had a housing project but there was not enough housing and a lot of little houses were built. The down town part looks the same. Where my Park Avenue tennis courts were there is a big apartment house. Our house on Highland Avenue looks exactly the same - and the other one we lived in looks the same. The old Kitsap Inn is still there and that was probably the first apartment house in Bremerton.
The worse snow storm we ever had in Bremerton left three feet of snow. I have a picture of Lou up on the roof shoveling it off. It was the one year that Kitsap Lake froze over. We had ice skating and bon fires out there. Somebody drummed up a sleigh and a horse and we went sleigh
I can remember when President Taft visited in 1912, we school kids were herded to the entrance of the ship yard to hear him speak. During his speech he paused for a few minutes because he couldn't remember the name of the town he was in. I was right up close to him and he turned to one of his aids and said, "Where am I?" I thought, oh you great big old fat tub - don't even know where you are!
There was an English family that lived about a block and a half from us who had a stable with a little mare and a little stallion. They would not let kids ride the stallion but we could ride the mare. What became later the baseball field was their pasture. I would take a bridle and an apple and go down to that pasture all by myself, get the horse put the bridle on her, bring her back up and saddle her - and go riding. I did this quite a lot. I loved the horses!
In 1915 we got one of the first cars in Bremerton. I don't know what kind it was - Maxwell probably. One of our boarders had a racer car that didn't have any top. I use to ride in it ever once in awhile. And the two Douglas girls - (Neola was my age and her sister two years older) got a racer car in 1919 that didn't have a top or running board. They drove this to California and clear down to San Pedro - through all kinds of weather and all manner of road.
Tape Three (taped 9-12-96) SIDE ONE
Dad had been a Third Degree Mason, so when he passed away members came from Tacoma to Gig Harbor to help with the funeral service. He had paid for everything ahead of time, even for the singer who wasn't all that good. He was an old friend of his who probably had been a good singer in his day.
At our Bremerton house we had a wood and coal burner in the dining room that heated the whole house. Mother cooked on a wood burning stove. There was no refrigerator because we had a cooler which was quite efficient. This cooler was usually installed on the side of the house that didn't get the sun and positioned in a corner. There were shelves in it for anything that needed to be cooled, and a ventilator above it and a ventilator below it. Air from outside would circulate inside it and keep food cold.
There was a table in our big kitchen and a pantry I in from the kitchen where Mother would mix bread and other things that she was getting ready for meal preparation or baking. We had a dining room table with a cloth tablecloth. A lace cloth would be used for special occasions. Mother used Roger's Silverware (I still have a piece or two). There was a sideboard in the dining room with about eight pieces of beautiful cut glass. The house had lots of windows. There was a big bay window in the dining room. The big woodstove was in the corner. Mother's piano took up one whole side of our living room.
As far back as I can remember we spent every Christmas at Aunt Phoes. She and her husband had money and were able to purchase a big house. They always had a tree that went clear to the ceiling and presents you wouldn't believe because they had lots of friends. This was quite a gathering of relatives.
When we had the boarders Mother used to buy about four to five dozen eggs (at eighteen cents a dozen). She'd put them into some kind of a liquid in a crock and this kept the eggs fresh until they were all used.
I was born July 11, 1899 at home with a midwife assisting. Mom and Dad had trouble deciding what to name me. Even though my name with Ethel Margaret, I was always called Margaret. Mother thought Ethel Margaret looked better than Margaret Ethel because there's a little more flow to it.
My earliest memory was finding a doll in my rocking chair when I was around five. Ruth, as I named this doll, became my favorite toy -- It was life size with a china face with eyes that closed. Another early memory is when I went to Grant's school in Tacoma. We had to cross an open ditch to get to this school and this could be precarious whenever some of the bigger kids teased us. One day my friend and I were wearing a red rain cape with a hood. Cousin Harry and his friends started chasing us. We slipped and fell into the ditch. As we climbed out, the red dye from the raincoats was dripping down our faces. I was so mad at Harry, I stomped over to his mother house and let her know what I thought about her son. A girl named Gladys was my first playmate. Her dad was a popular photographer in Tacoma. She lived about three blocks from me and we used to meet and walk to Grant's school together. After I left Tacoma we lost touch.
Esther Blackburn, who lived in Bremerton, became a good friend. She lived down the block from me. Her family was "Scotch, Canadian, Blue-belly Yankee." She didn't go to high school but did graduate from grammar school. Her mother took care of a home in Seattle on Highland Drive whenever the people who owned it were gone. Whenever I visited Esther at that house, I would feel like the Queen of Sheba getting off the bus at Highland Drive and walking down the street. I hoped that people would think I belonged there. This was quite a section of Seattle at that time. When the war came along Esther and I lost track of each other.
My dream at ten years old was to be a stage actress - no doubt about it. And I might have been. During one of the high school operettas that I had the lead in, Mother and one of the school board members were at the back of the auditorium at the old Elks Hall in Bremerton. He said, "You should send your daughter to an acting school. I think she would be a very good actress." Mother was quite flattered with this compliment about my acting ability but that's as far as it went. I would have liked to have attended the acting school in the mid-west where Maud Adams (played Peter Pan) was teaching.
My favorite reading materials as a youngster, as well as now, are historical novels. Growing up, I liked any book I could get my hands on and was a regular client of the library - and was there all the time. We had a funny little library up over the fire station. The librarian, Miss Phillips, was especially nice. I still have a little red leather book that John gave me when we were dating. It's a one-act play called CHITRA by Rabindra Nath Tagore and was the first gift John ever gave me. It was published by the India Society in 1913 and is a lyrical drama and love story. Mother had it in her hand when she was coming home on the ferry one day - and told her librarian friend that he'd given it to me. "My goodness, does he read that kind of literature?" she'd asked.
Today I especially like reading the Catfield Series - The Benedictine Monk in the Eleventh Century. The author, Ellis Peters, has a whole series of these books and they all feature this monk. They are mostly mystery stories but they give you an idea of the history of the eleventh century when Queen Maud and King Stephen were fighting for England. They just kept England in a turmoil for ten years. And this is all historically correct.
When our family would get together for picnics, we took in half of Point Defiance Park. We'd have the three Messinger brothers, seven from Grandmother's side. Uncle Mart had six and Uncle Floyd had three. And their children had children. We'd get the biggest, longest table and sit at it. Grandmother always fried chicken (she said she thought she'd fried enough to go around the world) and there would be plenty of potluck dishes. As long as we lived in Tacoma we got to enjoy these picnics.
My first job was babysitting a baby when I was twelve years old. There was one family that had me quite often. They paid me a dollar for an evening's work which was big money. If I stayed a couple of hours in the afternoon I'd get twenty-five cents. The were a couple of nice theaters in Bremerton. On many a Saturday I would see a Silent Movie while Mother would be hard at work playing music. The piano was situated where she could watch the screen and see the action. She'd play sad music for melodramatic scenes and intense fast music for the suspenseful ones. There was always an intermission when they changed reels. There was a little balcony where the owner's wife and her sister would come out and sing and Mother would accompany them on the piano. I kept up with the lives of these actors and actresses I saw by reading the Photoplay Movie magazine.
On Sundays I attended the Christian Science Sunday school and usually stayed for church. I played the organ at my Sunday School. Later when I was older I sang solo's in my Sunday School class and Mother played piano. It wasn't a church then. It was a society as it wasn't big enough for a church. They called it the Christian Science Society.
TAPE THREE - SIDE TWO
When I was growing up, Tuberculosis was a prevalent disease among families. Father's younger brother, Frank, died of it. I was around six years old and recall him being in a tent on Grandmother's property. He had contracted it in Alaska and was brought home to die. His was the first funeral I can remember. It was at a little funeral parlor in Gig Harbor. I sat in the front pews in direct view of the casket. I was petrified to sit there because the casket was open and I can remember just having a horror of death. I didn't know this uncle much until he came back from Alaska. When he was in the tent family members would go out and talk to him. I never knew what to say to him but he would always get me talking by asking about school and other things I was involved in.
There has been cancer in my family. Herbert and Gladys, Aunt Phoe's two children, died of cancer in their retirement years. I was the first grandchild and Herbert, the second. He was about ten years younger and Gladie twelve years younger. They lived in Tacoma all their young lives. Herbert married a Hawaiian Princess whose family owned half of Hawaii at one time. Gladie's cancer was in her throat and she had a terrible time. Another relative to die of cancer was Uncle Glen's oldest boy.
I had a really unpleasant dental experience when I was around twelve years old. Our dentist discovered that my big front tooth was decayed underneath. He had to kill the nerve and take it out. They didn't have Novocaine in those days. So the dentist could only work on me for short periods of time and I would get out of the chair and go up Pacific Avenue bawling my head off. It was an awful ordeal that I didn't know how I ever got through. After this, I didn't want to go to a dentist and that's how I lost my upper teeth!
At Christmas time we always had a fresh tree. Father even sent one to us from New York one time. It was about four or five ft. high and was wrapped in a gunny sack with string around it. When the mailman delivered it, he kind of treated it like a body. I have a picture of this tree with Marcella seated under it. ( She was a year old at the time) My uncle had made a little wooden cradle (with wooden pegs) that she could sit in.
On our yearly Christmas tree we strung popcorn for a garland. We put tinsel on it and candles with little candle holders that snapped on. The candles (no bigger than little birthday candles) set in them. They had to be put on a good steady branch because Mother would light them in the evening when everyone was gathered around the tree.
At Aunt Phoe's house there was always a Santa Claus who had presents for everybody. The turkey she prepared for Christmas dinner was so large that it had to be cooked in the church oven.
In the 5th grade at Grants School we had a fair and I was chosen to be an Indian. Mother braided my hair and I wore a headband. I even had my own little Teepee but I spent more time running around between the other fair activities until my teacher finally caught up with me and told me to get back to my tent. I wore a real Indian costume but I don't know where it came from. The biggest parade we had in Bremerton was at the start of the football season. One time Neola and I dressed up as YAMA YAMA girls (where we wore big pajamas - on the order of a clown) and we made up a song that we sang during the parade. Our friend, Oswald Sanford was dressed as a sheriff. Some of the football players were wearing stripped uniforms with a ball and chain around their ankle. They were in a little cart - and Oswald was guarding them.
My most memorable July 4ths were when I was married to Ken. The house we lived in was close to the beach and we had a fire place built in our bulkhead. It was all carved out and we were able to position the rockets in the fire place to set them off. They would go out over the water. It was beautiful. Kenny was always fishing at Lake Chelan on the 4th because this is when the lakes opened. This friend of mine would come over (she had a boy the same age as Marcella), and all four of us would enjoy our own fireworks show.
When I was around sixteen one of the Stewart boys took me to a circus in Seattle. I wasn't use to going out with boys, so when I needed to go to the bathroom I didn't know what to do about it. It was very embarrassing.
Grants School in Tacoma is still there and was an established school when I was going there. Marcella attended the same first grade that I had attended. The teacher that I had when I attended had just retired. In Bremerton there were two grammar schools. The first five grades were down by the park with a water view. The 7th and 8th grades were at the central school on Warren Avenue. We graduated from the grade school in 8th grade. Then the high school was on High Street which was between 4th and 5th. It took students from Port Orchard, Silverdale, Chico and maybe even some from B.I. There were about two hundred and fifty students all total with thirty students in my graduating class. Years later, they took this high school down but a replica of it is in the museum in Silverdale.
Throughout school, math was a subject that gave me cold chills. Algebra was a total loss to me. Spelling could be troublesome as I never knew whether it was double S or a double C - and to this day still don't. I loved history and language. And don't remember having much homework because we were expected to complete our assignments during school hours.
One time I had an unforgettable argument with Mr. Wolfly, the principal of our high school. Oh, I was mad at him. I'd had known him for a couple of years before our encounter, so I was probably a Junior in high school. And he knew I was a good student. That day I had got up a six o'clock and played tennis before going to school. Eleven o'clock came, it was study period and I was hungry. There was a bay window down one of our hall corridors that I hoisted myself up and sat on while eating my lunch. Mr. Wolfly, who had a habit of slinking around, saw me sitting up there and wanted to know what I was doing. "I'm eating my lunch," I told him. So he told me to come down and follow him to his office. He wanted to know why I wasn't at my study period class. I told him I was all through and I was hungry because I had got up early and hadn't had any breakfast. After this explanation, he turned around and called Mother and had her verify what I'd just said. When he turned around he was all smiles but I was glaring at him. I thought of all the awful things to do! I don't remember what I said but I do recall stomping out of his office. I passed him in the hall many times after this and wouldn't look at him at all. Later, he apologized but I could never forgive him.
My classmates were well mannered and were not into acting up or disobeying the rules. Kids just didn't in those days. As for myself, if they'd had an honor roll, I wouldn't have made it for my grades but would have for deportment.
Mr. Cox, my history teacher, was an excellent instructor. I thought a great deal of him and could ask him things dating way back to antiquity and he'd know the answer. I also admired my German teacher who was also the geometry teacher. Except for Mr. Cox and the manual training teacher and science teacher, the rest of our teachers were women.
There was another incident involving Mr. Wolfly that I still remember. There was a party where half of the girls were dressed as boys. We borrowed clothes from the boys and I went as a boy. The party was at the Odd Fellows Hall and during it some of the boys would come around and start chanting, "We've nothing on but our BVD's, we want our pants!" But the thing that got us in trouble was their hanging a red lantern upstairs in plain sight of everyone who passed. When Mr. Wolfly saw it, he was furious. The next day I went over to the hall with him and saw cigarette butts everywhere. (None of us had ever smoked until that evening.)
**I had two years of German and two years of Latin but the German has stayed with me the longest. I can still remember it enough to tell the story about an absent-minded professor. He came home late at night and discovered he didn't have a house key. So he rang the door bell. The servant raised his bedroom window but he didn't recognize his master. So the servant said, "The professor is not at home." And the absent-minded professor answers, "Thank you. I'll come again in the morning." [**Please note - On Tape Margaret recites this story in German]
When World War II broke out, the German classes were dropped from the high school curriculum. At the time people didn't even say hamburger. It was called Liberty Steak.
Some girls would attend two years of high school and then go to business school for two years in Seattle. This trained them to be secretaries and they were able to find a job after graduation. I feel this is what I should have done as I was more suited for business than I was for teaching.
TAPE FOUR - SIDE ONE
I had school clothes and Sunday clothes. Most of my high school clothes were donated by the lady who owned and ran the Golden Cafe in Bremerton on Pacific Avenue. All of my nice clothes came from her, probably during my Junior and Senior years of high school. Many of them were woolen dresses and were taken to the cleaners rather than hand washed.
I attended my Junior and Senior prom but I don't recall having a partner that took me. There were programs where each boy would sign his name whenever he danced with you. I had a party dress Mother made that I used for these occasions.
Few of my classmates went on to college after graduation. Two of the boys in my graduating class were not there due to serving in World War I. Their chairs were draped with the American flag. Two other boys in my class went on to dental college. A female classmate attended the University of Washington.
The first year of high school, I was in the Operetta (in the chorus). It was called the Feast of the Little Lanterns. During my high school days I was to have the lead in two Operetta and appeared in three plays.
On an earlier tape, I mentioned having plans of becoming actress when I was a youngster. Upon thinking about this, I think I wanted to be a writer even more. When I was about ten years old, one of the Newspapers in Tacoma had a Sunday Sheet for children. They would ask for short story submissions and would supply the title. The young writer would be asked to write a story around it. I was visiting Aunt Phose when I submitted my story - and Aunt Phose's maid copied the story, as her penmanship was much better than mine. I was awarded First Prize but they put my age down as sixteen and I was annoyed because they didn't get it right. After learning I was a winner, I went to the paper to get my dollar prize. Since then, I've had a whole basketful of things I've started but never finished. If I have something to follow-through with, such as keeping a journal when I'm on a trip, I finish it.
I wrote the class prophecy for the eighth grade and also the high school graduating class. Part of this was published in the school's graduating annual. There were thirty-two people to account for and I had to makeup a prophecy for each one. What I would do now is go to the people and find out what they thought they would like to be and really make it a class prophecy.
To pick up spending money, I worked in the kitchen of the Domestic Science Class during my senior year. This class made lunches for the teachers every day. The teachers would go to the building this class took place in to eat. After they left, I would clean up.
Some of my classmates would go steady in high school but I seldom dated and don't remember ever going on a double date until the war came along. I first started noticing boys as soon as I could sit-up - meaning I was always very conscious of boys but I was shy around them to some extent, because of my circumstances. Oswald Stanford, who later became Vice President of First National Bank in Seattle, was a special friend. He was president of our Freshman class while I was president of the Sophomore class. We did things like this, back and forth during our school years. He was a little bit of a guy and didn't interest me physically at all - we just sparred. He was our valedictorian. Throughout his adult years he never married. After Kenny died, he squired me around. He didn't like to drive, so I drove to such places as Kingston, Poulsbo and Silverdale to take in the sights and go out to eat. Oswald lived with his sister in Seattle - but had a small house on Sunrise Drive on B.I.- about 300 ft of high bank property. In later life, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and spent his last days in a nursing home.
Basketball was played in the school basement after school let out. I played the guard position on a basketball team my Junior and Senior year. This team played against a Bainbridge Island team one time at the Central School (used to be located where the Winslow Green is, now).
Since there was a war on my class graduated in uniforms. All the girls wore white skirts and white middies and middy ties - and the boys wore white pants and blue jackets. So nobody had a graduation dress as such as they had the year before. I have a picture of this graduating class with my high-school material. To celebrate, our class had a boat trip. A little steamer took us around a place on the west passage toward Gig Harbor where we had a picnic. Our first graduation reunion took place in 1957. There were only 32 in this class and fifteen were able to make it. There's a picture of the graduates, then a picture of the graduates and their husbands.
After the World War I started there were many job openings that paid fairly good wages. This is when the Navy Yard opened up to women. There were as many at 15,000 men in Bremerton at this time. The Navy opened up the Chester Field and made a gate at Chester Street that hadn't been there before. Then a long runway down to the Navy yard. It was all down hill. Under this runway were barracks where the servicemen could be heard singing whenever you passed by.
Dances were held every night of the week given by organizations such as The Knights of Columbus, the Salvation Army and the YWCA. The big Navy Yard dance was always held on Friday night. You needed a badge to get in there. You were either a Yeoman, or a nurse, or a civilian worker. The dances were held in a big auditorium on the Charleston side with live bands.
Even though friends were taking up smoking at this time, I never smoked until I married Ken because John, my first husband, was very much against it. However, I can remember trying them when I was in Normal School. My roommate and I used to hang out the window and smoke a cigarette just for fun. But it never amounted to anything. We were just doing it to be smart.
John enlisted in the navy when the war first broke out. He had been working in the radio lab as a Radio Electrician. (As a boy of twelve he had the first Electrical shop in Yakima, along with 3 or 4 other boys. It was called Yakima Valley Electrical Station. These talented boys built a station that they could talk to the ships at sea.) During the war, John never carried a gun, but carried phone back equipment to let his superiors know what was happening. When he returned from duty he was able to count this as continuous service in the Radio Lab.
His first day back, he phoned the radio aid to let him know he was at the gate. Along with the aide, the four women working in the lab (including me) went to the gate to meet him. Since there were no girls working in the yard when he left, he was quite surprised. My first impression of him was "that he was an awful funny looking guy." He was still in uniform (the kind that had the wrapped leggings). Physically he was about 5 ft. 9 in. and mentally he was brilliant.
He came back to work in the lab just where he'd left off. The year was 1919. We dated for about a year before we were married June 26, 1920. We rented an apartment in Seattle and then rented a little summer cottage on Mercer Island. Part of it was built up and then the top part was a tent. We had the cottage all summer and if we wanted to stay through the winter, we were told we could stay rent free. We tried boarding it up to keep the wind out but were not able to use the tent very long after cold weather set in.
John was given a posthumous award from the National Institution of Radio Engineers. The plaque was beautiful. When it was awarded, I was married to Ken, and thought my grandsons would like it. So I had the plaque sent to them, but they didn't take care of it. I'm very sorry about it, now, because I don't know what's happened to it. I do have a picture of it as Lloyd, Marcella's husband, took it. The award was in appreciation for what John had done for Aerial Navigation. He was the engineer in charge of the Bell Laboratories that had the first conversation with a plane. He flew quite a lot when he worked for them as they were doing a lot of experimenting.
Due to his flying, John had examinations every six months and the doctor never detected any problems with his heart. At the end of the Great Depression in 1932, he was let out of the Bell Labs in New York. So he came west and put a radio shop on its feet - he and another man who now owns it. Then in 1935, he received a call with a job offer from Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio. Directly afterwards, he moved us there. (This job consisted of aerial navigation and was funded by a grant.) We moved in July and it was so hot that John said, "For one cent I'd turn around and go back home." On November 14 of the next year I found him dead in bed. This was a complete and total surprise because he'd never been ill for a day. The night he died, it had snowed. It was also the night of Roosevelt being reelected. Before going to bed, he said to me, "Well it looks like Roosevelt is going to get in again and we are going to be here four more years.
My mother, Ken's mother, Kenny, and John - all of them have gone, just like that.
TAPE FOUR - SIDE TWO
I worked in the Radio Lab until I got laid off in 1922. After the war, the Naval Yard didn't need as many employees and had to lay people off little by little. I got a part time job working for Fraser Paterson and worked there until John and I moved to New York. At Fraser Paterson I helped out in the sewing machine department and wherever they needed me. But I mainly was in the Leather Goods Department where trunks and suitcases were sold. I liked selling and was a good sales person. I couldn't go from door-to-door and try to sell things but when someone came in and wanted something, I could give a good sales pitch on the merchandise in my department.
John's full name was John Whittier Greig. All during his childhood he was called Whittier. But when he got to college he asked to be called John. His aunt brought him up. She lived in Yakima and then moved to Seattle where my mother took care of her at the end of her life. John's mother died when a younger son was born. This son died, too. His father was a doctor. When he contacted tuberculosis, he moved to North Dakota where John was born. After his father died, his sister brought him to her home in Yakima. I know very little about John's family I'm sorry to say.
We were married at Mother's home. Most of my relatives were there including Dad, Grandmother and a lot of the Messingers. There was a bedroom off the living room. Mother played the wedding march and I came out of the bedroom to the living room and was married there. There was a big arch between the living room and dining room. I have some pictures. Dad took of us in his car all around Bremerton, honking the horn and hollering. He gave us International Silverware for a wedding gift. It was the Adams pattern and I still have a few pieces left. Mammie gave me some sherbet cups. For our honeymoon we borrowed a car and went to Aunt Phoe's summer place in Long Branch (halfway between Tacoma and Olympia on the main land). The road didn't go clear up to Aunt Phoe's house. It went behind a couple of farm houses and we had to walk a little trail up to her place. I remember leaving the lights on in the car so we had a very dead battery when we got back in it.
John was a genius in his line of work. For a while, before we married, he had an apartment in Seattle because he was going to the University of Washington. He kept it after we were wed because he hadn't finished his schooling. He didn't completely finish because he wouldn't take hydraulics as it had absolutely nothing to do with Radio Electronics and he considered it a waste of his time. After the job with Bell Telephone Laboratories, he decided he should have his degree. So the Professor of Engineering at the UW told John to write a thesis and he would see that he got his B.A.
We spent four terrible months out at Aunt Phoe's cottage. It was bitter cold. John worked on the thesis and I kept house and gathered driftwood in a little row boat to keep the fire places going. Upon finishing the thesis, John was awarded his diploma. At the Bell Labs, John had quite a few patents to his credit. When he no longer worked for them, he had to sign them over to the Bell Labs. And I had to resign them after he died.
After I married John, Mother sold her property and lived in a rooming house for women where you had to be in by a certain time. I think it was run by the YWCA. A couple of times Mother missed her curfew and had to go in the back way and up the back steps. She lived there for almost a year before moving to Seattle. Then she married Billie Anderson, an old friend of her dads - and an old sea captain. They were both in their 50's and he'd never been married. Over the years they drifted apart but never divorced. I don't know whatever happened to him.
John was not a very easy person to live with. I admired him so much because of his ability that I was able to put up with this. You'd pick up papers and there would be little equations and things that he'd been writing on. I think this is what killed him. He just worked all of the time - mainly at night. He didn't like Dayton, calling it nothing but prairie with nothing to see - no water - no mountains.
kept a journal about our move to New York in 1927 and have it with other journals of trips I've taken. We lived in New York until 1932.
TAPE FIVE - SIDE ONE (taped September 26, 1996)
Ken and I were married February 25, 1938 at the Unitarian Church in the University District. A good friend of Ken's and his friend's girlfriend were our witnesses. I had asked Mother Mannen but she didn't want to come. There was a nice little Episcopal Church at the foot of Queen Ann Hill that we wanted to be married in. But the minister wouldn't marry us because Ken had been married for about three months at one time and was divorced.
Ken was working for The Times, then, in the Advertising Department. This was on a Saturday and The Times was throwing a big dance at one of the large down town clubs. We attended this party and then got up early the next morning and caught the early boat to Victoria. We stayed at the Empress Hotel and at that time the Empress had a hostess. She greeted us and showed us our room. (The Canadian Pacific was one of Ken's accounts, so they rolled out the red carpet for us.) It was a two-room suite with a fireplace and a front room that looked out on the harbor. We were given a bottle of wine and flowers.
We lived in Seattle that winter. I was working part time at Frederick and Nelsons. Then we both decided that we'd like to live on Bainbridge Island, so we built a house on Ken's property near Battle Point. We went around looking at different houses being constructed to get ideas on what we like to put into it. I drew the plans to scale, and feel it was a well-designed house. Most of the houses on the island at that time were summer homes. On most of them you entered the kitchen rather than the living room. I wanted a furnace and house with an entry into the living room area. We moved into this house around 1940 and lived in it for about fifteen years. Then the hill got pretty steep as it went right down the hill to the beach. So we sold this house and built a house on the water front.
On this property, we had a little 20 x 20 cabin. We lived in it while our house was being built. Ken partitioned it down the middle and made three small bedrooms. We had a lot of over night company in it. We used to draw lots to see who had the back bedroom, who had the bunks, and who had the front bedroom. There was a folding bed in the living room. The bedroom with the bunks is the only one that had a window.
Once, when they were teaching about hygiene and the importance of opened windows at Marcella's school, she said, "My bed room doesn't have any windows." And I expected to see the teacher come out and talk to me but she never did. During the war Mother lived in this cabin, and her sister, Ethel, lived with her part time. Then we sold it to a couple who also sold it after living in it for awhile.
Ours was an idea marriage. Ken was agreeable to everything. He was fun to be with. We played golf, fished and loved to camp. We bought property up on Vancouver Island and went there in September every year. Ken was an ardent fisherman. I don't think he ever dropped a line in the water without getting a bite. During World War II I was head of the O.P.A. (The Office of Price Administration). Ray Williamson had a garage at the head of the ferry dock and he gave us office space in there. Walt Woodward was Chairman of the Board and he hired me. We had a pretty good board with the exception of John Graham. He was a very wealthy man - Scotch to the bone. He and I didn't click at all. In fact he didn't want to hire me, for some reason or other. And Walt said, "I've known Mrs. Mannen for a long time. She's been President of the PTA and she's been active in the community. I think she'll do very nicely. "
They were rationing sugar before we ever had a board. Whatever you had used the year before you got a portion of it. Then they set up the office and the next thing to be rationed was gasoline. We gave everybody an "A" Form for this. This was good for three months but it just gave you enough gasoline for emergencies. If you had to go to work, you were given a "C" Form. This was good for three months, as well, but it was dependent on the miles you had to drive to get to and from work. The ladies that worked with me would go every place that was on these forms so we could determine if the mileage people had filled in was accurate. We went to Battle Point and checked. We went to Crystal Springs and checked, etc. So we could tell you the mileage to nearly every address of commuters on the island. If someone was trying to pad their mileage needs I cut them right down to size and became known as "that woman down at the O.P.A. Office."
After the war years, I closed the office up and burned all the stuff that was not needed anymore. Kenny was Postmaster at this time and you couldn't get a safe. They weren't available. Every time the postal inspectors from Seattle would come over they would take points off because he didn't have a safe. While we didn't have a safe at the O.P.A., there was a metal chest of drawers that could be locked. I was able to get this for the post office and this solved the safe problem.
While the war was going on they built Sub Chasers at Eagle Harbor. They had ship building down there. There were fifty to fifty-five balloons that covered the sky over Keyport. These were Barrage Balloons (gray in color) and they were anchored to the ground by long ropes or attached to barges in the bay. I used to think that if I had been a Japanese I'd want to know what all these balloons were protecting and would send an exploratory bomb to check it out.
The submarines would come in to Keyport, load their torpedoes, turn around and we'd watch them going down the bay. They were practicing and occasionally the torpedoes got away from them. I saw this happen once and started racing down the beach to show the sub where they were- and when a sub got in shouting distance of me a man shouted, "Get the hell out of there, lady!"
We had blackouts and couldn't have a beach fire. Once we had a tiny fire in the fire place that was in our bulkhead and we were told to put it out. Our windows were blacked and I walked our terrace from twelve o'clock until two every morning for a number of weeks because I was on alert. I bundled up in my fur coat and watched for planes. They could have come but thank goodness they didn't. I was given a five-hundred hour pen for doing this.
Mrs. Skinner had the main telephone and they built her a little tower with the telephone equipment stored in it. There was someone always on duty there. After the war, Mrs. Edna Olson started The Bainbridge Committee because so many people were still coming from the east to work in the ship yards. So we had a lot of unemployed, poor people living here. (The Olson family built Lynwood Center. The restaurant used to be her home.) I was the first secretary of this committee and I helped Mrs. Olson organize it. When the committee grew there was an election and I was the first elected secretary. I served under Edna Olson, Genevieve Williams, and Claire Peters.
From 1947 to 1948, I worked on the paper under Walt Woodward. One of the people I interviewed was the first English War bride on the island. There was a 60th wedding anniversary I covered. And quite a nice article on how Indians build canoes. The Indians use to come down from Canada with their big war canoes - and they had races during Sea Fair. They would have a big encampment at the head of the bay. Marcella went with me the first time I visited their campsite for an interview and we found that the Indians that spoke English didn't know a darn thing about the canoes. They said the "old people know". Trouble was the old people couldn't speak English. So, the second time I went to their encampment I brought an interpreter and was much better equipped to follow through on the interview. I learned how a tree was selected and how they aged it and let it weather. They'd chisel it out, burn a little bit, then chisel some more.
After the job on the paper, I was also involved in the Community Chest in Bremerton until they closed the office up. They had an organizer who would come in and organized their yearly drives which took place in the fall. I was sent down to help in the Traveler's Aid. We never did actual travelers' aid work like finding lost people and sending them home. But we did the same kind of thing Edna was doing over on the island - and that's help people who didn't have any money.
It seems I've worked most of my life but just at things I wanted to do and nothing I really sought all that much.
The relationship I had with Ken was one of friendship and really liking each other as friends more than the romantic side. I was 38 and Kenny was 44 when we married, so it wasn't like the ecstatic romance of 18-20 year olds. We had mutual likings for things to do and this helps a whole lot. He taught me how to play golf. At that time I think it costs something like $5 a year to belong to the golf club. When they built the big building at Wing Point, I only paid $250 for a single golfing membership. The social memberships were only $200.
There are some things I would have done differently in my marriage to John. I probably wouldn't have been as critical. I took everything to heart a lot more than I should have, would feel sorry for myself and take things the way they weren't meant.
When I was pregnant with Marcy I had to get off my feet because I was working, and I started to bleed. I quit my job just like that and stayed home. Other than this, I was never sick and had a normal delivery. I was admitted to the hospital at six in the evening and Marcella was born at noon the next day. I can remember watching the neon sign going up and down, wondering how in the hell I got into this mess. I was in the hospital ten days. John was very happy with his new daughter. They got along fine from the start. Once she was old enough to listen to stories, he would tell her about the Big Rock Candy Mountain. The story was ongoing - and one he made up as he was telling it.
To wash diapers I had a funny little washing machine that just took diapers. It stood on the counter and was loaned to me by an engineering friend of John's. It was a round thing that stood about 2 ft. high and I've never seen one like it since then. I would rinse the diapers in the toilet and put them right in the machine.
Mother was working at the State School for the retarded children at the time of Marcella's birth and didn't live far from us. So she would come over and babysit. She took Marcella when John's friend came from Detroit. He was a pilot for L.P. Fisher of Fisher Bodies. He brought his ten-passenger plane into a field in New Jersey for repairs and came to see us. When the plane was repaired, he took Mother and me up to some place in Connecticut and we took the train back. It was the first plane ride I ever had and was it ever bumpy and exciting. The seat just went out from under you the entire trip. He took John, Mom and some friends of ours over to New York. And then when he went back to Detroit, he took John and me with him to Detroit and this is when Mom kept two-year-old Marcella.
TAPE FIVE - SIDE TWO
Marcella attended Pleasant Beach Grammar School in the building that is now known as Serenity House. She started in 3rd grade there. One of the teachers, Mrs. Flora Hopkins, was a wonderful teacher. Marcella was very fond of her. I didn't care for the principal of the island high school, so I sent her to the Annie Wright Seminary in Tacoma her freshman year. It was quite advanced and was and still is known all up and down the coast. There was religious training as it was an Episcopal school. She came back to the island for her sophomore year but had already learned the lessons that were being taught, the school system was so far behind here. She returned to the seminary her Junior and Senior year and she graduated from there in 1948.
I was in the PTA during Marcella's grammar school years and enjoyed attending two of their annual meetings. I was President the year I attended the one that was held in Spokane. And I was amazed at the caliber of women in that organization that could get up and speak. They looked like they came off the farm and should be carrying milk buckets - but they could sure make good speeches. This was something I couldn't help but appreciate since I was never that good at public speaking. The second meeting I attending was in Bellingham. I was able to look up some of my old teachers who were still teaching there.
The first and only birthday party I threw for Marcella was when she was four years old We were living in Seattle then having returned from living in New York. A long time friend of mine had two boys - one a babe in arms and one the same age as Marcella. Three little kids from around the neighborhood were invited.
When we were out at Long Branch trying to get by and John was writing a thesis, Marcella started having problems with her eyes. She would have been around three and half years old. Sometimes I would look at her and she'd be cross-eyed. Other times one eye would be normal and the other almost out of sight. I took her to the Children's Orthopedic Hospital on Queen Ann Hill and they sent me to a doctor who fitted her with two different corrective glasses but this didn't help. He said the condition she had was due to an eye muscle that needed to have more elasticity. When he was ready for the surgery they gave Marcella a private room for $5 and I had to have a nurse come in early in the morning so she wouldn't be alone when she woke up. He didn't charge much for the operation or his services - and the operation was a complete success. I was so grateful that I've always supported the Orthopedic Guild since then.
The Sunday the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Mother Mannen was over for dinner. We'd had a nice afternoon and we were taking her to the five o'clock boat when we saw crowds of people acting agitated and a little crazy. We hadn't had the radio on so we didn't have a clue as to what was going on. This was the evening of the morning of the bombing. Not many days after this, the Japanese living on the island were evacuated. Many only received a day's notice to settle their affairs and pick up what they could to take with them. We all felt very bad. Marcella had a number of friends who were among those being evacuated. When Ken first applied for the Postmaster's job, Senator Magnuson was Representative then and this was his post office (located at Port Blakely) He lived down at Pleasant Beach. And he wanted a man postmaster. There was a grocery store on one side and a tavern on the other with the tiny post office being sandwiched between them. The ferries came in at Port Blakely, then. The former postmaster, Mrs. Seward, didn't even have a table to sort mail, so she had to sort it on the floor. Kenny wanted the job because he was growing weary of his display advertising position at the Seattle Times. Mainly he was tired of commuting and driving up and down Seattle (to talk to clients) as they were changing the streets every day. The salary for the postmaster depended on the sale of stamps and was $1,800 a year. It was a 3rd class post office. Kenny's goal was to bring it up to a 2nd class post office - one that would bring him a better salary. Ken had never finished high school so I was concerned about him passing the postal exam but he did and was appointed to that postmaster position. He served in that capacity for eighteen years.
Eventually, the post office was moved to Lynwood but was still called the Port Blakely Post Office. After the postmaster in Winslow retired, the Port Blakely Post Office was closed and Kenny started working at the Winslow office as the manager. He served there for two years and then retired.
An example of the displays Kenny set up at his Seattle Times job was the one at a room in Frederick and Nelsons where he had each travel agency set up their displays and give talks. At the time there was a Major Hopkins and his wife living on the island. They were well-traveled people who'd been all over the world. Kenny called him up and asked if he'd give a talk about his travels and how he'd used travel agencies. Hopkins said, "Yes. When do you want me to talk?"
"At your convenience," Kenny answered.
At this Mr. Hopkins paused and asked his wife how many engagements they had and when. Then Kenny said you have a nice a boat. And Hopkins said, "I have more than one." He paused again, and said to his wife, "Exactly how many boats do I have?"
Later, when Kenny was telling me about his conversation with Mr. Hopkins, he said, "You know, I will have arrived when I don't know how much money I have or what my engagements are or how many boats I have."
Some of my closest friends on the island in the 40's and 50's were Vera Cave and Bea Swenson. Vera's daughter, Virginia Cave Wilson, was the librarian on the island for a number of years. In her later years, Vera had Alzheimer's and passed away at a nursing home. Bea's daughter is Marcia Tarabocha. Bea was in Martha and Mary's Nursing Home for about ten years and passed away last year. Another real good friend was Viola Hudson. The Paynes were good friends and traveled with us a lot - the four of us in a car. I stayed in touch with Nyta Brace, my Seattle friend until she passed away. And I had a few high school friends that lived around in Bremerton that I would see ever-so-often.
I belonged to a bridge foursome. We'd meet for lunches on our birthday. Then I belonged to the Music and Art organization and the Orthopedic Guild. We had an all-island Orthopedic Guild. They didn't have units then like they have now. Each unit earns it own money to send to the hospital in Seattle. I never got involved in The Bainbridge Performing Arts. They used to put on plays at what is Messenger House, now. Then it was a boy's school. My friends, Walt Woodward and his wife, put on a play in their small theater one time.
Unlike me, Marcella is not athletic and never could stand a ball coming at her. Rather than catch it, she wanted to jump aside. She told me that "She was the best player that the other side had."
She excelled at Dramatics. At the seminary she was in plays and was a member of the Masque Club. She also had a natural writing talent and used to write wonderful letters home describing all the funny things that happened. Kenny would call from the post office and say "We just got a letter from Marcella and I had to open it and read it." These letters were priceless!
There was plenty of tension between us when she was growing up mostly over things I thought she should do and things she didn't think she should do. I would say she was rather difficult and I think she would admit it.
She never learned how to drive until she was married and living in Utah. One time we drove my aunt to New Orleans because she wanted to fly from there to Guatemala. On our way home, I let Marcella drive. It was a two-lane highway and there was a car ahead of us that Marcella wanted to pass. Trouble was there was a little bridge coming up and this made her hesitant.
"Go ahead. Go! " I urged. Well, she went around the car lickety-split and just barely made it back to her lane without being hit. The truck driver, who was coming in the other direction, must have almost had heart failure. I think she gave me heart failure, too. After this experience, she never asked to drive again.
As a parent I did the best I could. I knew that I had a very intelligent child. And I think sending her to the best schools that we could was all we could do for her. She was always a good student. If something bored her she'd find something that would interest her.
I don't think she ever resented my working because I always took care of food shopping, meal preparation, the laundry and other homemaking duties. When we first moved to the island, the bus stopped at the south end of Battle Point Park. So it was necessary to walk up the hill to the highway. I walked up with Marcella pert near every morning when she was in the 3rd grade. Then the next year, the bus stopped much closer to our house.
TAPE SIX - SIDE ONE (taped October 10, 1996)
Marcella married Lloyd Chester Gordon Jr. December 29, 1950. The ceremony was held at the little Episcopal Church close to the Reed College campus. Since it took place between Christmas and New Years a lot of their friends had gone home for the holidays. So there was just a small gathering of her friends (around 12). Lloyd's father came from the east. His stepfather and his mother were there, as well as his sister and brother. Ken gave her away. Afterwards there was a reception. I furnished everything but it was held at Lloyd's mother's house in Portland.
Both Marcella and Lloyd continued to go to college after they were married. Neither got degrees from Reed. Marcy passed her Junior Quals on the sixth of June and her daughter, Katie, was born June 26, 1952. Lloyd did not pass and he was upset about it. The college offered to give the test over to him again with another instructor but he got his back up and wouldn't take it. As soon as Katie was born I went down to Portland, and he took off for Utah. Then Kenny came down later and after his visit, we took Marcy and Katie to the airport as they were headed for Utah to join Lloyd.
Marcy got her teaching degree at the College of Southern Utah (CSU). Years later, after she'd separated from Lloyd, she got her Masters Degree at San Francisco State University in Theater.
Marcy and Lloyd had two more children Michael born in January 14, 1954 and Wyatt, born August 13, 1956.
Marcella had lived in our cabin when she was pregnant with Michael. Lloyd couldn't find a job and Kenny was able to get him a job at Boeing as a Draftsman. The man who was head of the personnel at Boeing had been with the Times and Kenny knew him really well. After Michael's birth, they moved into a housing project in Seattle. Later, they bought a house near Greenlake and lived there for two or three years. From there, they moved to Hanksville in southern Utah, and then to Cedar City.
When their children were small, I had them every summer for two or three weeks. Whenever we went to the San Juan Islands, I might have them a couple of months. I just loved having them. We had a boat with a motor and all kinds of equipment to play with in the water. We took Mike and Katie to the island the year Ken built the fireplace and the kids put their hand prints on the wet cement. Kenny said, "I'm going to bring these cement blocks up, the bigger ones and the smaller ones. And I'm going to put this line down and I want you to watch that line, Michael. It has to be straight." Michael never moved he watched that line so intently. After Ken had finished, it was straight up and down.
One time, when Michael was visiting, some friends came over to take us to a restaurant to eat. We were all ready to go and I noticed Michael was wearing his special red plaid shirt. Trouble was the whole elbow was out. Wyatt and Katie were all dressed up, so I told him, "You are going to have to change that shirt." And he told me he didn't want to.
"Mike you don't want people thinking your grandmother is not treating you right," I reasoned, "by letting you go around in ragged shirts." This didn't bother him a tad. He was going to wear his shirt and that was that.
"If you don't change your shirt, you tell me what you want us to bring you from the restaurant," I said. This ended the matter. He marched into his bedroom and changed it.
(Michael married a lady with two children and they are expecting my first great-grandchild!)
We all agreed that Katie was quite a remarkable child. All her life, she just seemed to know what to do and what to say. After Lloyd remarried, she'd have nothing to do with her stepmother and ran away her during her last year of high school. (Her stepmother had three small children of her own.) She went to Denver and got a good job with the Denver Post under an assumed name as she didn't want her dad to find her. She met this good friend of Marcella's and she made Katie finish her high school by correspondence. I attended her graduation ceremony and brought a lot of things to give her like dishes and things she could use. Katie had a boyfriend in the Coastguard in Connecticut. So she made her way there and was able to get an apartment and a job. Her young life ended when a car she was driving was run into by another car. The driver of that car was hurt quite badly with her neck being in a brace for months. Katie wasn't hurt very bad but she had an embolism that went all through her body. There was no way the doctor could save her.
Wyatt was the best little kid and would do anything you told him to do. We did have a hard time getting Katie and Michael to let him speak his piece. He was kind of slow and hesitant and they'd get impatient and finish his sentences. "He's going to tell his story," I said to them, "in his own way." When he grew older, he got over his hesitancy. He's still a very lovable person. Currently he's an administrator in the air force and is married to a lovely Korean girl.
When Wyatt was in his mid-teens, I tried to gain his custody. "If I have to keep living with Daddy, I'll run away like Katie did," he told me. I contacted the social worker who did what she could to help us out. When we appeared before the judge, Michael had been able to join us, and did what he could to help. But the judge put him in a foster home rather than release him to my care. I don't think Lloyd has ever forgiven me for this because he had to pay about $75 a month for Wyatt's care in the foster home. He even tried to sue me for alienation of affection. He didn't win the suit but it cost me a little money to defend myself.
During the Christmas Holiday season, the Bainbridge Committee members were in charge of getting names of all the children and the families that needed help and what they would like to have in the way of Christmas presents. Then presents were purchased for them by committee members. There was a room in back of the big hardware store in Winslow that we used for all of the presents. One year, the Rotary Club wrapped them for us. We had all the names and the ages for each present. I picked up one present that was marked for a 14-year-old and shook it.
This doesn't sound like a present for a teenager, I thought, so I opened it and it was a rattle. And I was just furious. I said, "These darn Rotarians, they have a little too much to drink and they have a lot of fun wrapping the presents but they don't pay attention. What could be more heart breaking than a 14-year-old boy getting a present and finding a baby's rattle?" I'm not sure but I think that was the last year the Rotary members wrapped them.
In the 1950's we took lots of car trips with our neighbors, Elmer and Lucille Payne - usually in our car with Kenny doing the driving. We went all over this side of the Mississippi. We went into Utah, to the Grand Canyon, into San Francisco and came up the coast. Around this time we bought the property on Vancouver Island. Kenny's cousin, who had a power saw with a generator, came up and helped build a little cabin. It was 8 ft. x 16 ft. with a door, a window and a great big overhand roof. We would bring our beds out under the roof in the evening. There was a big table we ate at where we could look out over the water. I cooked on a fireplace.
There was hot water going all the time because we had a big copper-bottomed (old fashioned) boiler. We also had a very remarkable shower that Kenny built. This area was a wonderful fishing place where Kenny caught fish all the time.
We bought the Vancouver property in 1952 and I sold it in 1972. The first couple of years we took tents but it always rained, so Kenny said, "Nuts to this. We're getting something with a roof over our head." The people I sold the property tore down the cabin and built a big house.
Kenny had an enlarged heart. I didn't think he'd ever died from it because he couldn't exercise strongly or physically exert himself doing something like chopping wood. When he suffered his first heart attack, he was at home. I was getting breakfast and didn't hear any activity in the bedroom. When I went in to check on him he was on lying on the bed. "Get me those pills in the drawer," he'd asked. After I gave them to him, I called the doctor and he came right out. Kenny spent a week in the hospital and resumed working at the post office shortly after he was released.
The cruise that we went on in 1960 was his idea. It was a twelve-passenger Norwegian Freighter. He didn't actually retire until this trip. We put on a little party on the after deck the day his retirement came final. We embarked on our three-month journey around the 20th of September and the 14th of October he was gone. The day of his heart attack we'd gotten off the boat at Chimbote, about two hundred and fifty miles north of Lima, Peru. It was a poor little town with people owning shops that had dirt floors. There was a nice hotel. We had Pisco Sours, the first of our South American drinks. Then we came back to the boat and found the dock dirty and oily. There wasn't anyplace for us to sit. Complicating matters, the ship was out in the stream and the launch had to come in to get us - and it didn't come...and it didn't come. This was quite wearing on us all, especially Kenny. This is what I think took him, and having to walk up steps to get back on board. I'd asked him how he was doing as he headed to our state room.
I'm awfully tired," he'd answered.
The next time I saw him, he was gone. He had taken his camera from around his neck but his cap was still on. I rushed into the dining room to see if anyone had heart pills as I couldn't find any on him. The Captain blew a whistle for the doctor in town to come on board. After he came out, he pronounced Kenny dead, and said his body would be taken into Lima the next day. Arrangements were made with a couple of young men who were on the boat to take me in but they never showed up. The other lady passenger who was on board by herself insisted on getting off with me and stayed by my side. When we got into Lima, we took an old banged up taxi on the old Inca highway from Chimbode to Lima. At Lima there were agents who take care of freight of every kind. This agent had been alerted and he had made reservations for us at a nice hotel. The next morning, a US diplomat from the embassy saw me. I learned I had to get a "Port of Entry" certificate for Kenny's body and myself before I could get an exit visa. While I was a week in Lima it was a profitable one. Since there was nothing I could do but wait, we saw all the points of interest we could and found it to be a most interesting city.
I wanted to call Kenny's cousins in Los Angeles but was advised to send a telegram instead. So I did and let them know I had to fly to Mexico, wait there, and then fly from Mexico to Los Angeles. When I went up the steps of the plane I was taking, a man asked me, "Do you have any good bodies today?" And I thought, I won't say anything because he'd be so embarrassed.
When I got to the Los Angeles airport, I saw no sign of Kenny's cousins. By this time the whole ordeal was commencing to hit me. After I'd waiting for about ten minutes, they appeared. And I just broke down and sobbed my eyes out. I stayed with them for several days. While there, Kenny's cousin wrote out a check for $1,200 to the Counsel to take care of the expenses involved in getting Kenny's body to Los Angeles. Then we couldn't find out where Kenny's body was. After not getting any word in November, I got hold of our representative in Congress (a B.I. resident). His daughter was in his Seattle office and she told me she would notify her father. Then she called me back and said that he'd gotten in touch with the Counsel and the body has been sent. No reason was given for the delay. The memorial for him finally took place the first part of December.
TAPE SIX - SIDE TWO
In 1961 I had two friends on the island that wanted to go to Mexico. I told them I would drive as far as Texas but I wouldn't drive in Mexico. The three of us took off in my small station wagon, stopped in Phoenix and met a tour guide there. He told us to go to El Paso where his office was and he would fix us up with a tour of Mexico. When we got to his office, the travel agent suggested we take a circle tour where we'd be seeing the "sacred well."
"That sounds great," I said, and my companions were in agreement.
We visited several cities in Mexico. Then flew to Guatemala and had a private car there that took us to Chichicastenango - which is the top of the world. From Guatemala we flew to Chichen Itza, saw the sacred well and spent about three days there. From Mexico City we flew to Texas and drove home.
In 1962, I wanted to go to Europe. One of the cruise lines had a ship in Seattle we could board and look over. I went over with some friends and saw it. From there, I went to their office and asked for an outside state room with a port hole. They didn't have anything then, but in about three days a sales rep called me and said there was a cancellation. Could I be ready to go in a couple of days?
"I'm ready now," I said. " I have all my wardrobe, my passport and my health certificate."
Since Vancouver was the departure point, my two friends and I caught a train, stayed at a nice hotel and had a big evening. It was bitter cold with the temperature being around 19 degrees. The train ride was gorgeous as everything was frozen. The next day these friends put me aboard the ship and I sailed that night for a two-month trip.
In my state room there were bunks with one lower and upper berth. When I walked in, I saw my room mate's mother, father, aunt and uncle (they were also taking the trip). My room mate was unconscious and laying on the upper bunk. That I didn't need. I tried my best to get her mother to let the two men stay together and I would stay with her sister if she would stay in my place and look after her daughter. I didn't want to be in there with her because the doctor didn't know what was the matter with her. "Oh, she'll be all right," her mother said. "The doctors given her medication." To my relief the medication worked, and Betty turned out to be the most wonderful of room mates during this trip.
All the places that we were to stop at had British connections and freight for there. Our first stop was in San Francisco. I had a friend that came down to meet me and I stayed all night with her. The next stop was Los Angeles. This friend that had stayed with me in Lima met me at the boat with her husband and they had dinner with me. From there we cruised to Honolulu where I had some friends. They were children of one of my oldest friends. He was an army man stationed there. They met the boat at eight o'clock in the morning and we didn't stop all day. They just took me every place and then put me on the boat at 9 o'clock that night. It was a delightful day! Our next destination was the Fiji Islands and this was most interesting. The men wore skirts. Everyplace we went the band played "Waltzing Matilda". The boat was there all day so we had time to do some exploring. We had a little book that we used when we bought things from the purser. It explained what tours were available, how long they lasted and there cost. Then you purchased the ticket from the purser. I headed for him immediately because I wanted all the big trips and didn't want them to be all sold out. Betty, my room mate, and her folks went with me, too. My first experience with driving on the left-hand side of the road was on Fiji. Every time we came to a curve, I just shivered. That evening we had what is the equivalent of a Luau in Hawaii. It's called a Lobel. They had roast pig and other native fare. The dancers were all men and we were told not to laugh because they took their dancing very seriously. There was a grandstand that was set up for us and they put on this dance and it was most entertaining. After the feast, we boarded our boat and sailed away to the refrains of "Waltzing Matilda".
On board, we'd entertain ourselves sometimes by playing cards. Hearts was a favorite of most of the passengers. I had a lady come over and say to me, "Do you play Wist?" I shook my head, "No...I don't, I'm sorry." As she walked away, she kept saying, "Pity...pity..." And I felt like I'd let her down.
Our next stop was Auckland, New Zealand. A lady that belonged to the B.I. Country Club had been on tour with this gentleman from Auckland and she'd told me he was a widower and quite nice. She said she'd write him and tell him I would be stopping in Auckland on my cruise. All my mail was normally delivered in the morning, so when we got to Auckland, I checked to see if there was a letter from this man and there wasn't. I didn't think anything more about this and wandered around the gift shop on deck and bought a few things. Then had lunch in town, walked around and returned to the ship. The letter from this gentleman was awaiting me and I was so annoyed that it hadn't been delivered earlier as he'd been at the dock waiting to meet me.
Next, I got off at Sidney and was there a week. At their restaurants they don't give you a separate table but seat you with other people. At one eatery, I asked for a fruit salad and was given a little dish of ice cream with canned fruit cocktail on it. I think I looked kind of surprised and the waitress said, "That isn't what you wanted?"
"No," I said, "but it'll do."
The nice lady (her name was Effie Worrell) sitting across from me said, "I know what you want. Down here we call it a vegetable salad with fruit." We got to talking and she said she'd never been on a big ship. I told her that I would be delighted to have her come to the ship, give her a tour and have her stay for dinner. "I've a better idea," she said. "You're a guess of Australia. I will entertain you." She took me to have high tea at the Hotel Australia, a gorgeous hotel. Then she got a taxi and told him to take us to one interesting place after another. That evening she took me to dinner at a hotel that'd just opened up. We ended the day by seeing the film, "The Sundowners" that had been made in Australia. At the end of the picture everyone in the audience stood up and sang "God Save the Queen." I corresponded with Effie for ten years. And all of a sudden the letters stopped and in the last one I said "Whoever gets this, please tell me what has happened to Effie. " But neither one of her two daughters ever bothered to answer.
The next stop on that 1962 trip was a three-day stay in Melbourne. I caught a severe cold and was quite sick enroute to our next stop in Adelaide. I didn't get off the ship when we were in port there. From Adelaide we went across what they call the bite - and across this bite is the roughest water in the world. I think almost everyone, including the crew got sick. I was not only seasick but I had the flu and was in bed all week as we crossed the bite on our way to Perth. I managed to get off there. Many homes would go right down to the waterfront. They were surrounded by trees, flowers and beautifully kept grounds. Streets were lined with Peppermint trees very much like our Weeping Willows. There were lots of native trees and the "Black Boys' with thick black trunks. They were all about 4 ft or 5 ft high with cactus like fronds on top.
I loved Australia. Everybody was so nice. All in all, this was a trip that was out of this world.
(Please note: Margaret has kept detailed journals of all of her trips including this one.)
Being considerate of other people and trying to do the best you can. I've had a few adversities. You take it in stride, I guess.
My mother was a hard worker and she was a good Christian Scientist. Her religion helped her throughout her life. I attended Christian Science Sunday Schools from the age of ten until I was twenty but the religion never took with me like it did with her. If I have a religion, it is her religion but I cannot believe in all of it. And yet, Mary Baker Eddy's philosophy would be mine.
It's probably long over due. I think it's coming to a head, now, for Black Americans. When you see how unfairly they were treated in the Civil War times, you just wonder how people could have been so unjust and unkind.
When I came along, women got the vote - and I can remember how we all thought this was really something. I would never run for political office as I'm not that much interested in politics. But I do think that women should get fair pay. And yet, I have always felt that men were the boss, even in my personal relations. My husband was the boss. We never went head-on over anything. Things were decided between the two of us, and yet, my husband had the deciding vote. I guess, I like men and think they've always been the wage earner and the command of the house.
1. Proliferation of Consumer Goods Such As Freezers, Dishwashers, Etc?
I think it's wonderful because I did without them for such a long time!
2. The Revolution in Transportation And Communication?
It's fantastic. When you stop and think about what they've done it boggles the mind, it really does. I don't understand a bit of this computer stuff but I often wonder what Marcella's father would have done with it because he was a genius.
We had airplanes in World War I, but we didn't have passenger planes. The first time I ever was on one is in 1960 when I flew from Lima to Los Angeles. Air flight wasn't common, even then, for most people.
3. The Changes In Men's And Women's Fashions?
They are much better and more convenient, now.
4. What Do You Think About Space Exploration?
I don't understand exactly why we are up there. There must be a good reason for spending all this money but I don't know what we intend to accomplish. Do we intend to establish a space station permanently? Does anybody know?
This is awfully hard to say because practically all of the big things happened in my lifetime. The invention of the telephone would be my answer in picking just one.
Money - the lack of it, probably. Also, my daughter's future and my own. But not worry to the extent of gray hair or anything.
Most of the things I liked as a child I could not do, now, such as playing tennis and basketball. Reading is something I still do. I remember practically living at the library when I was growing up. Mother instilled this love in me - and music. She could sit down and play in any key she'd be asked to play in. And she tried hard to make a musician out of me. I had a piano until I moved from our beach home. At that time I sold it to the people who bought the house because it was a big, heavy upright and I couldn't take it into the apartment I was moving to. I played sheet music and songs but I never could play for the public or anything special. This piano was the one that belonged to Mother before I was born. Presently I have a pretty good library - although I had to get rid of a lot of books because of not having a place to put all of them.
I wish we could do something about the drugs. I think they are what is going to take this country down, if anything does. It's horrible when you think we didn't even know what "taking drugs" meant when I was a kid. Most of us, when we were in our teens, didn't even smoke. And then to think of these kids of today sitting around puffing on Marijuana is very discouraging.
1. Marriage And The Home?
Marriage, before you live together seems to have fallen by the wayside. Couples often are pretty well acquainted by the time they get married, so it would appear they should stay married. But this doesn't always happen. As an example, one of my best friend's daughter went to Africa when she was in the Peace Corp. She got together with a young man who was teaching over there and they lived together for three years. Then they got married and had a big wedding with all the trappings but they didn't live together for six months.
Living together might work for some people but I still think marriage is the answer.
2. Obligations to Country and Society
To do the best you can and protect the environment. No matter where we've lived, including rentals, we've always tried to leave things a little better than we've found them.
1. Answers To Prayers
Marcella believes completely. I always feel like if I'm asking for something why should it be given to me? I haven't done anything beforehand - why should I be singled out? And yet, there's been a few times in my life when I really prayed, not thinking of being rewarded. I can remember when I got on the plane in Lima I was talking to myself and I said, "Kenny, you've got to get me home because I have to get you home." Then I just felt completely relaxed (even though I knew I was going over miles of ocean water) and fell sound asleep. But there's not been many times that I have really thought to pray for something because as I've said, I don't like to feel as if I'm asking for something that, at the moment, I want to happen. It's not fair.
2. The Power Of Love In One's Marriage
It's very definitely quite powerful and showed itself so much more with my second husband, Ken, that it did with John. Of course I had a good education during my marriage to him. I think my maternal grandparents were a devoted couple. Mother, of course, was not in her marriages. Sometimes they don't work out.
I don't really think I achieved anything very important. I raised a daughter but I didn't do a very good job. My feeling this way would be getting into personal things that I cannot relate. We have not been close until the last couple of years - maybe the last year. And that has made a big difference. But I can't think of anything I've really achieved except to keep going and keep the finances in order. In my childhood I wanted security which I didn't have - it was just indelible I can't get away from it. I have to have security. Up to a certain point, as far as taking care of myself, I would have been able to until the end of my days. And I like to be liked and have friends- we all do. I've had at least four good old friends from my childhood that I was close to until their deaths. Then I had four good ones I made here on the island. But they've all left me.
I don't know. Why are we here? People are to help one another, I guess, besides helping themselves. I think most people try to be friends and be helpful. But I don't know why we are here. I don't how we got here.
That sounds very nice and this is the way it should be. I don't know that it is. Seems to me that the really honest men that we had that started this country would be amazed and appalled, I think, to see what's going on now. I didn't listen to either presidential hopeful, Bob Dole, or President Clinton last night when they were debating. I tried watching the first debate and had to turn the television off. It seems you cannot believe either politician. One will tell you one thing and the other will turn around and tell you something else. You get so you don't believe either one, and you don't feel they are trying to help the country when it appears they are just trying to help themselves.
My Uncle Tom was going to be a knight in shining armor one year by serving in the State Legislature. He grew so disgusted he said, "You don't know what they are doing down there. They'll come and say, 'I don't know what your specialty is but I'll vote for your agenda, if you'll vote for mine'. If they have a real project you get no place with them." After this experience, Uncle Tom refused to run for another term.
I was reading in today's paper about Congressman Rick White and his voting for a repeal of the gun law. I'm very much against hand guns. If you have a small revolver that might be permissible if you are in a bad neighborhood.
I've never had to use it but I know it did help Marcella one time when she was living in California. I don't know what would happen to a lot of low income people over the years if they hadn't had help. There are a lot of loopholes, I suppose, and a lot of dishonesty in the way some people take advantage of the system. But if the Welfare Program helps even a few, I suppose it's a good program. I do feel that women should be given more information about family planning so they stop having so many children. This would stop a lot of problems - not only in the US but all over the world. There's just too many people.
Do we actually get it? The lawyers are such high-priced talkers they can talk a guilty man into an acquittal.
Having youngsters to care for and hoping they'll take an interest in you. Mine were a delight when they were little. When they grow up and have their own families and their own way of going - you can't expect a lot from them. And I don't.
Humor has been very important. You couldn't get along without laughter and pleasure. We have to have that. It would be a sad world without them.
At the moment it feels like ninety-seven. But up until the last couple of years, I enjoyed every minute of each day. I couldn't play golf any more but I love getting out - and I loved driving. I was able to keep driving until I was ninety-two and would have driven longer if my license had lasted until 1995. With a car, I could visit my friends and be out-and-about. Things haven't been so pleasant ever since the arthritis struck. When I think of all the people that are much worse off than I am, I realize my problems are small by comparison. The hip replacement surgery that I'll soon be undergoing should help me get around better without having the pain in my legs that I'm currently experiencing.
The heart attack I had in 1980 didn't keep me down at all. I was able to bounce right back. In 1992, I had open heart surgery. I was living at Madison Avenue Retirement Center at the time. My heart had been bothering me to the point I had been taking tiny heart pills to help alleviate the pain. On Christmas Eve, the pains really struck me and I struggled with them all night long. At six o'clock I called my friend Jean, who has a lot of physical problems herself, and told her how I was feeling. She called Dr. Peterson for me and 911. They were down right away and took me to Seattle. After my surgery I was in Intensive Care for a few days. This is when I hallucinated and felt as if I were down in the basement of Swedish Hospital where I was watching cars go by from a big window. In my hallucinating mind I kept thinking what a nice view this was. I was at Swedish Hospital for a week, then I was transferred to Winslow Convalescent and stayed there until I was well enough to return home.
Nothing is quite as important. When you are younger, everything is important. How you dress, how you look, what you do, the events you go to. As you age all of these things become irrelevant and don't have the meaning they once did.
I think I've changed - everybody does. From every experience you learn a little something and this helps you.
I didn't have any particular dreams except to stay as healthy and happy as I could - and have enough money so I'd have security.
We have to accept it, that's about all I can say. I don't share the same views as Marcella regarding it. I have to have a little more proof of what goes on beyond the grave in order to believe completely. And I don't think anyone knows or can know. I just sort of push it aside. I know I'm near it but I don't want to even think about it. I'm enjoying life while I'm here.
Wouldn't everybody?