Growing up in Washington State

Main Street in Bothell, Washington 1922.

It happened to me about a million, billion years after God said, "let there be light", I came to this world on October 21, 1921. It was not much of an event and I don't think anyone even toasted with a glass of wine. My mother was probably the one most relieved to be over this pregnancy. She was nineteen when I was born at her parent's house.

Being born at home has its advantages because it was very inexpensive, no hospital bills. Back then the doctor made house calls and I'm sure the bill was only between ten and twenty bucks.

Doc Lytle most likely came in a Model T Ford and waited for my arrival even though we were only four miles from the town of Bothell, Washington.

My grandparent's house left a lot to be desired, even in those dayst here was no plumbing. Water was carried from a shallow well about a hundred yards from the house in three-gallon pails, and if you felt strong you could carry two at once.

There was a wood stove in the kitchen to cook with and to take the chill off the house. It had a square water tank on the side that provided warm water. There was no electricity, light was provided by kerosene lamp. I'll never forget the odor of that lamp.

Electricity was available but my grandfather's philosophy was "If you could get by without it you didn't need it." If the outhouse worked why did anyone need a toilet with running water in the house? In fact nobody took a bath more than once a week and mostly less than that.

I was taken home after a couple weeks to a single board shack my father had built on a couple of acres of land that that were given to him by his father. It was on a hill overlooking Bothell.

We lived in Bothell until I was four and there never were any further improvements made to the house either inside or out. It was still a single board shiplap shack when we moved out. We did have running water but no bath, just an inside toilet.

Several things happened when I was four. My father's brother, my Uncle Floyd, died. I remember the people and the flowers in the church. It was only a few months latter that my brother got pneumonia and died. Pneumonia was very deadly back then because there were no antibiotics.

My father found work here and there and I often lived in Bothell with my grandparents. I lived with my parents on Hood Canal in a single board shack, in an old company mining town named Carbonnato and, when my father had a logging job in Redmond, we lived in an old store with an inside bath. My room was in the front part of the store which was a huge room and I had my little bed off in one corner.

Dad worked in the woods only a couple miles out of town probably near where Bill Gates now has his Microsoft factory. Redmond at that time in 1928 was only maybe 100 people with a store and gas station.

On the Olympic Peninsula in a small town called Beaver I started my second year of school still in the first grade.

It rained all the time in Beaver but I had a good raincoat and hat along with rubber boots. It was a great place to make sail boats out of old shingles and paper sail. All I needed was a little breeze and my boats would scoot across the mud puddle seas created by all the rain.

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