The trip to Solomon Mtn. Lookout (or, "We Miss the Lake Turnoff")

Solomon lake is hidden away in between the mountains north of Bonners Ferry Idaho.   Now, it has a nice campground area, which you will see in the accompanying  video.

However, back in the early 1950's; it had none of that.

The road leading to Solomon Lake back then was little more than a trail, and parts of it could be so muddy, we had to drive the old Buick clear off of the road and through the brush to get to the lake, especially early in the summer before things had dried out.

Not only that, but there were all sorts of interconnecting Forest Service roads on the way to Solomon Lake, and there were absolutely NO markers to tell you which was the right road to take at an intersection.

One fine Saturday morning,  we were headed up to Solomon Lake for a weekend of camping and fishing. Our Buick was loaded down with camping equipment, food, picnic plates, and the cast iron skillet that mom always used to cook over the campfire.

Behind us, was Grandpa Bailey in his 1950 Ford wiith the old wooden boat on top, and behind him was his daughter and son-in-law, Adeline and Jim King,  and their family, driving their snazzy little Nash.

Somehow, we missed a turn, and since it was impossible to stop or turn around, we just kept driving and finally ended up on top of one of the mountains surrounding Solomon Lake.

At the top, we were able to turn around and head back down again, although it was fast getting towards dark.

In the dark; it was even harder to find the right turns, and we missed the turnoff for the lake yet again.

A couple of hours later (traveling at about 5 mph the whole time) we reached the top again, this time at Solomon Lookout, on the top of Solomon Mountain.

Since it was so late, and no one wanted to chance missing the turn-off for the third time; we made a hasty camp that night at the lookout-----with no water source, naturally.

The next morning, we woke early to discover a big black bear investigating our camp; so we quickly decided to forgo any kind of breakfast and headed back down the mountain.

I guess the third time was the charm because this time, we happily ended up at the lake, and enjoyed the rest of the weekend camping there.

The lake is actually longer than it looks in this video because it is kind of like an hourglass shape; so it seems to end, goes through the narrow part, and then widens out into the second part of the lake .

(the video is one I found on Youtube)

http://youtu.be/bze0NafsavQ

Christmas Shopping in Spokane With my Mother.

  My  mother loved Christmas shopping ! !

 I think that she would buy things during the year when she found something on sale, but when the Christmas season came, then we spent days in the stores, finding just the perfect presents for everyone. 

We lived in Sandpoint, a small town of about 5.000 people, so there was not a lot to be found there; but a 2 hour drive away was Spokane, WA, a much larger city. 

I don't know if they still do it; but back in the Fifties, every window in every store had some sort of a Christmas scene, or at least whatever was in the store windows was "Christmas-ified". Many of the Christmas scenes were animated, and had some sort of sound or music as well. 

We spent many hours just wandering around the blocks and looking at the wonderful Christmas displays. 
My mother went to stores like "The Crescent" and "Bon Marche", and they also had Christmas decorations and scenes all through the stores, plus a whole "Santa's Workshop" with elves and toys and all sort of wonderous things for a child to look at and thrill over. 

Lunch was the Newberry's special: turkey, dressing, and cranberry sauce; which we ate sitting at their lunch counter.

 I think it cost about $2 for the special. 

The stores had giftwrappers, so sometimes my mom had the presents wrapped at the store; others we took home and she wrapped hersilf. 

She had one of those little fancy bowmakers, so we had lots of colored ribbon and made pretty bows for all of the presents. 
Before we came back home, we usually drove through some of the streets that had special Christmas decorations on their houses. 

It was (of course) always very dark before we even came close to heading back home, and probably midnight when we actually got back home again. 

Such wonderful times we had at Christmas, and I am so thankful to have those wonderful memories of my Mother and going Christmas shopping together.

 

Christmas at the house on Ella Street.....

From as early as I can remember, I have loved Christmas Trees !  My dad worked for the power company, so he was out in his big line truck every day. Throughout the year, he would spot what he deemed a perfect Christmas tree, and when it was time for us to put up our tree; he would cut it down (with his hand saw, of course) and bring it home tied on top of the line truck. 

My mother had old ornaments that they had saved for years, and some that my grandparents had put on their Christmas tree. One was a parrot made out of a piece of construction paper and colored by hand, and my dad had made it back when he was in First Grade.  That parrot always had a special place on every Christmas Tree. The ornaments were very delicate, and carefully packed away every year and put in large boxes on the top shelf of the bedroom closet. 
The garlands were next, and then the tinsel (actually made of tin back then, and very breakable) went on top. 
On the top of the tree was a very old ceramic-type of Christmas Angel, and she also had a little golden light  that illuminated her. 

The only kind of lights that we ever had on our Christmas tree were Bubble Lights. How I loved those Bubble Lights ! In the evenings, we turned off all of the lights in the front room, and just enjoyed the lights from the Christmas tree reflecting in the shining ornaments.  
Mom would put on the Bing Crosby Christmas Carols record on the little phonograph, and as we listened to White Christmas, and watched the flickering Bubble Lights; the world was perfect.

Of course, underneath the tree were the boxes of presents , all carefully wrapped by my mother, some to be opened on Christmas Eve, and some not until Christmas Morning.  
On the old buffet (that had belonged to my Grandmother) was usually a plate of homemade fudge, and a very, very old wooden church that my German grandmother had brought over when she came to America in 1901. 
I have no idea how long it had been in her family before that; but it had a music box inside that we could wind up and it played "Silent Night".   
The little church was painted white and sparkled with something that looked like snow. Inside was a little red Christmas light that made the cellophane windows of the church light up.  

Even though our house was nothing special, when Christmas came; it was a Magic World all of its own.....

Grandma Compton goes to the Johnny Cash concert.

It was probably in 1966. I am not sure of the exact year, but her son (Uncle John to my kids), had joined the Marines, and was sent overseas to fight iin Viet Nam.

Johnny Cash was John's favorite singer, although he also did a darn good job of singing us some of Johnny Horton's best hits, accompanying himself on his guitar. 

Johnny Cash had come to Seattle for a concert that year, and Grandma Compton  had determined to go and meet him, and have him autograph the concert program for her  son in the military. 

She had ordered tickets to go, and also decided that she needed someone with experience to accompany her to the concert, and then help her find her way around the backstage area, get through the crowds, and make sure that she got that much-desired  autograph from Johnny Cash. 

That person was me. 

The big day came, and we prepared to go to the concert. Grandma Compton had never been to a concert like this before, but she was a very proper English Lady; and she DID know how to dress up ! 

We walked out the door with Grandma in her finest dress, dainty shoes, hair all curled and fluffy (it was naturally curly anyway, but this was special)., and her makeup was flawless. 

She had a beautiful Blue Fox full-length  fur coat, and she was also wearing that. 

We enjoyed the concert, and at the last song, I started hurrying her out of our seats, and off for the back stage, hoping to beat the crowd there. 

By the time we got there, all the people who had left before the last song were already there, but at least we were able to get in line for autographs.

As we stood there in line, Johnny Cash signed one program after the other, about as fast as he could scribble his name. He never looked up, just kept writing.

Finally, we were at the front of the line. Grandma Compton started to explain that she was there to get an autograph for her son in Viet Nam. 

At the sound of her voice, Johnny Cash looked up to see who was there speaking in that aristocratic English accent. 

He literally stood there spellbound looking at this fine lady in her Blue Fox  fur coat.  I am sure this was FAR from the usual fan that he signed an autograph for. 

Then, he took the program, and wrote a special note for John, and autographed it for her.  Grandma Compton was happy....

It was an epic and memorable  experience.

The 50's Camping and Fishing Trips

When I was a little girl, we used to go on fishing trips on the weekend when Daddy didn't have to be on call with Northern Lights. 

The Baileys lived next door to us, and  "Grandpa Bailey" always went on the fishing trips with us. The two families had lived across from each other in Paradise Valley, gone through the Great Depression together, and they were just like family to us.

My mom would fry chicken, make a huge bowl of potato salad, and then we packed whatever else she wanted along for meals.

There was always a large can of pork and beans; which we always called "Fishin'Beans", since that was the only time we ever usually ate them. 

Sleeping bags, air mattresses, and my mom's hammack all went in the back of the car somewhere. 

She would pack little plastic toy sets (boats, cars, etc) for me to play with at the water's edge, and often my swimming suit if she felt it was safe enough for me to actually be IN the water. 

Grandpa Bailey had an old wooden rowboat, and it  pretty much spent the summer months strapped to the top of his car, a 51 Ford.  Our car was a 1953 Buick Special; so neither car was especially suited for off-road travel to the lakes where we went fishing.

Brush Lake (north of Bonners Ferry), and Solomon Lake,  were two of their favorite spots, but we also went other places sometimes.

 The roads getting back into the lake were not much more than two dirt tracks in the grass back then; and if you made a wrong turn or missed the right road, you just had to keep on going until you got to the end. 

One such trip, we missed the turn for the lake (Solomon, I think), and hours later finally ended up at the lookout up on top of the mountain. No one wanted to drive back down that road in the dark, so we made a hasty camp, and spent the night there.

 After having a big black bear nosing around camp the next morning, we didn't waste any time packing up and once again heading down to the lake.

Mom always slept in her sleeping bag in her hammock, but the rest of us were on the ground on the airmattresses. I well remember waking Mom up at nite because some critter (packrat?) went scurrying across my legs and feet.

 I KNEW it was actually a bear, about to eat me up; but she would assure me that she could see my sleeping bag , and there were no bears on it !  (I still slept with my head buried into the sleeping bag).

When we had caught some fish, Mom would cook those for us to eat. Pancakes and fresh trout (cooked over a campfire) is to this day, one of my most favorite breakfast memories ! ! 

Attacked by Wild Longhorn Cows

Sometimes at night, my mom would tell me stories about when she was a little girl, living in Texas. 

One of the stories she would tell me was about the wild Longhorn cattle chasing the buckboard when she went to school.

Since Mom was born in 1903, and lived in the backwoods of Texas, the children were taken to school with a horse and buckboard. 

They had to go through the cattle range to get to the schoolhouse, and sometimes, the longhorns would see the buckboard and chase after it.   The driver would then whip the horses into a headlong run; but the longhorns were very fast, too, and would race alongside of the buckboard, and try to attack it and turn it over.

All of the poor little children would of course be terrified, and hiding on the floor of the wagon, fearing for their very lives.

The driver carried a big bullwhip to fight off the longhorns with, but that usually just made them more angry and determined to tip the buckboard over. 

Eventually, they would get tired of chasing the wagon, and the children would make it safely to school; but this was an occurrence that could happen anytime, so the children were always on the watch for the longhorns.

Mom was an excellent storyteller, so  I could vividly imagine the herd of longhorn cattle, wild-eyed, and frothing at the mouth, chasing after the buckboard, while the driver bravely tried to fight them off with his bullwhip. 

Many years later, Robin confided to me that Grandma had told her the same stories when she was little; and that is why, to this very day; Robin and I are both terrified of cows ! ! 

Nyla and I Repair a Leaking Radiator Hose

Checking all your belts and hoses is a seriously good idea, especially if it is an older car. I have had those things go out, and in the middle of nowhere, and that is when you are sometimes least prepared. 

I was on a trip to California from Spokane to take my friend Nyla down to see her mom who lived in California. 

I had just replaced the head-gaskets on the 71 Datsun pickup engine we were driving, and the garage was supposed to have checked everything out before  I got it back.     They didn't.

We had made it into our second day, and were winding through the mountains of central Oregon when the radiator hose broke and started spurting everywhere.  Fortunately, we had brought along extra gallon jugs of water, so we let it cool down and refilled the radiator.

 

Now.... how to patch that hose ?? 

Imagine------ two little old ladies, out on a back highway, 20 miles to the next town. 

Then,  we dug through everything that was in the back of the Datsun pickup, looking for something, anything, that would work temporarily, so we could limp into a mechanic shop.  

Finally, we found an old shower curtain (to this day I have NO idea why that thing was in the back of my pickup ? ?), and we took scissors out of my knitting bag, and cut a nice piece of shower curtain off and wrapped it tightly around the radiator hose.

Next, I took some of my knitting yarn, and we wrapped that around and around the shower curtain and put some good "granny knots" in it. Away we went, praying we made it to the next town.

Yes, it worked, we made it to the next town, and you should have been there to see the look on that mechanic's face when he opened the hood and looked at our repair job.  

 I know that he must have chuckled about our shower curtain "fix-it" for the rest of the afternoon...

Why I started being a slow driver (when my kids were little)

Losing your brakes is NEVER a good thing !
I have not had brakes go out on me for many years, and hope it never ever happens again.
It is one of the scariest things that can happen with a mechanical malfunction, or, at least that is how I feel about it. I have had an angel looking out for me on the occasions that the brakes did go out, and it seriously made me reconsider speed when I was driving after that happened.


Way back when my kids were little, we had an old 1959 Pontiac Catalina station wagon. That wagon was built for power and speed, and it would easily pass 100 mph on the speedometer if I wasn't paying close attention. ( and even when I was paying attention. That old wagon was just plain FUN to drive ! )

This particular day, I had my kids in the back seat, and we were hurrying to Sandpoint from Bonners Ferry (about a 35 mile drive. ).  

I was pushing close to at least 80 most of the way (and we were all happily singing songs together as we sped along).
When I got to Sandpoint, I decided to take the back road into town, for some unknown reason, and turned off of the highway before I got to town. 
As I was doing that , and pulling up to the stop sign at Boyer to make a left turn, the brakes went out just as I got to the intersection of the two county roads !
Thank goodness, I was almost stopped, and we just slowly cruised through the intersection and gradually stopped since it was a flat gravel road.
When I could actually breathe again, we walked to a house nearby and called for help . (That's what people did before cell phones)


After that experience, I realized just how much I had jeopardized my children's lives by driving that irresponsibly; and how easily we could have all been dead if the brakes had gone out on one of the sharp corners that I had careened around on my trip down the highway.
I said a thankful prayer to God for looking after us, and made a promise to drive at a safe speed from then on.

Daddy's Wonderful Radio.

When I was a little girl, my dad had what I thought was the most amazing radio in the world.
 It had the regular AM stations, but it also had a shortwave band. Sometimes he would turn on the shortwave and we listened to what sounded like Chinese, and other strange and wonderful languages. 
Mostly, it wasn't anything that we could understand, but it was sure a lot of fun listening to it anyway.
The radio had a big bright green "eye" that would get wider and narrower as he tuned it in to the station. Sometimes, the radio made really weird sounds as he was finding the station and getting it tuned in.

My favorite singer was (of course) Roy Rogers, and I loved it when the announcer at KSPT, our local radio station, would say that they were "calling Roy Rogers up to the mic".
 I envisioned the radio station with all the singers just sitting around there in chairs, waiting to be "called up to the mic".

One day, my dad had to go to the station, and asked if I wanted to go along.    I was beside myself with joy !    Roy Rogers ! 
I was going to see Roy Rogers, and maybe even watch him sing.
I could hardly wait to get there ! ! 

When we got there, we walked inside, and I looked around, but there were NO singers, and NO Roy Rogers, anywhere. 
Finally, I tugged on Daddy's sleeve, and whispered "Where is Roy Rogers at ?"
He gave me a blank look, so I had to explain that I wanted to meet Roy Rogers and watch him sing. How disappointed I was when Watt Moreland ( the announcer)  gently explained to me that none of the singers were really there, and he was just playing records.

Radio was never the same for me again.....

How this is going to work...

My son, Tony (Ant'ny) asked me to write down some of the family history that I can remember being told by my parents (Floyd and Winnie Smith), and stories from when I was growing up in Sandpoint. 

I am also going to add stories from when my children were little . (Yes, Robin, the Firecracker Story will be in here somewhere...)

I want to be able to illustrate with photographs when we have some that will go along with the story, so I have asked my son Tony to set us up a website where we can all upload some of the old family pictures, and we can use those here in the blog. 

Stories will be in no particular order, just as things come to mind, I will write them down on here. Maybe even family recipes, like my Mom's wonderful potato salad (which I have passed off as mine for the last half-century). 

The reason for doing this as a blog is so that people can comment on the stories, and it will then become an interactive family history. 

Any suggestions for stories or other input would also be great, since I am pretty new at this whole thing.

A little family history , first...

I was born and raised in North Idaho. Well, almost born in Idaho. My mom was just about 40 when I was born, and she also had a tumor in her stomach, and it was growing right along with me; so the doctors didn't think she would be able to carry me and survive. She had the best doctor she could have, and that was in Spokane, WA; so I was actually born in Spokane, but my parents lived near Bonners  Ferry, in an old ranch house, at the time.

Mom and Daddy went through the  Great Depression while living at the ranch in Paradise Valley, and they would tell me stories of the hardships of the depression. They had a milk cow, and would carry the milk down an old back road (no longer used) that went into the town of Bonners Ferry, and came out near where the old Southside School was at.  They would either sell or trade the milk for other items that people were selling and they needed.
I remember they said that many days the only shared a little bit of bread between them for the day's food.
Both of my folks were excellent shots with a rifle, and hunted deer for meat, and shared it with other families who had none. They were considered such good hunters that the Game Warden would give them extra bullets to bring home deer for other hungry families in the area.

When I was almost three, my folks moved to Sandpoint because my dad worked for Northern Lights, Inc., and he was one of the very first linemen for the newly formed Rural Electrical Co-op. Our REA was one of the very first ones in northern Idaho, and Mom and Daddy had both worked together getting the rural farmers signed up for electric power.

My family owned a little grocery store, The Ella Avenue Grocery, and together with Bill Bailey (who was like a grandfather to me), they provided the people in the area with a convenient place to shop, for many years. We lived next door to the store, and the Baileys lived next door to us.
I attended schools in Sandpoint, belonged to the Bonner County Horseman's Association, and rode in the mounted Drill Team; and enjoyed trailriding , swimming, and fishing in the summer.

All in all, you could not ask for a much better childhood, and a nicer place to grow up at than Sandpoint.

This is my dad and I in the driveway of the old ranch at Paradise Valley.