From Illinois to Seattle

Back at the computer. As I promised the next part will be what I remember and some stories I was told regarding our trip from Illinois to Seattle.

I'm not sure when we left Illinoisbut I think it was in the spring of 1940. There were seven of us packed into a 1936 Chevrolet four-door sedan with everything we owned. In those days the running boards were exposed and ran from the front fender to the rear fender. There was a device that could be attached to the running board that would allow luggage to be placed on the running board. Of course when this was done you could only enter and exit from one side. In our case the device was on the driver's side, which meant Dad would have to climb over the floor-mounted gear shift every time we stopped. It was an interesting trip.

Of course Mom and Dad pushed to go as far each day as possible, and one of my memories was all of the kids pointing out motels that we could stop at, but we just kept on going. When we did stop, not all of us would get to stay in the motel room. Generally, Marie the eldest and Bill who was next would end up sleeping in the car, leaving Mom, Dad, Eileen, Bob and myself in the room.

We, the kids, were allowed to take turns riding in the front. I didn't get too many turns up front. On one of my turns, I was playing with the gear shift and managed to take it out of gear. Apparently Dad didn't realize what had happened when the car lost all power and we coasted to the side of the road. When he finally figured out what had happened that ended my turns up front.

Another event, and I think this one was told to me, but I do seem to have some memories of it. We were visiting a National Park or some other type of place and it was called Hell's Canyon, and as we were leaving Dad backed very close to the edge of the Canyon and everyone was freaking as we all thought we would end up at the bottom of the canyon.

Arrival in Seattle was interesting. We stopped on the west side of the original Lake Washington floating bridge; Mom and Dad got out of the car and spent a long time looking back at the lake and talking. As I was told later Dad was promising Mom that he would quit drinking and other things. That lasted for a while.

When we arrived at Dad's brother's house, Charlie Dale, Dad made Marie go and knock on the door to make sure it was in fact his brother. Of course Marie did not want to be the one to have to do that but Dad was very persuasive. We stayed with the Dales for some period of time, it was a very small house, I think there were two bedrooms upstairs, one down stairs, a very small living room, kitchen and dining room.

The Dale family was Charley, Clara and four daughters, so with our seven and their six it had to have been quite crowded. Just for clarification, Charley was adopted at a young age thus the difference in his and Dad's last name. As I said, we stayed there for some period of time, the Dales eventually moved out to a house on Alaska street in Seattle. An interesting note about the Dales, eventually the Howes' house on Hudson street. I met Rae in that house in the spring of 1953. Her brother lived across the street from that house, and one of my best friend's girlfriend lived there.

More to follow.