Back Farmyard

"Peppy" strikes again! Looks like my brother's pet rooster just had a roll in the hay with that tail exiting right (DJ could correct me on this). In our early to mid-years in the project ('43-50) we tried several farm projects in the backyard to supplement our diet. First a vegetable garden and then the chickens.

I'm suprised the free ranging dogs, cats and local swamp critters didn't wipe out our little flock.
But maybe we should thank tough little Peppy in defending his harem. The trouble was that Peppy fiercely defended his territory against all comers, including us kids. We had to run his gauntlet whenever we wanted to collect some eggs. I guess my brother or father did the honors; I was too scared of him.

One day Peppy pecked my father one too many times. Maybe the "Old Bull" (as my mother called him) was in a bad mood. He grabbed a big stick and clubbed Peppy to purgatory. Later that afternoon my brother came home and let out a scream when he opened the fridge. He knew at once that plucked carcass there was his beloved Peppy.

I thought Peppy tasted pretty good and there was extra for me since DJ stuck to scrambled eggs.

Notice the trim white picket fence and little tool shed with drums of heating oil. Everything was built by Dad from discarded materials left at his job as a journeyman electrician. That's the kitchen window opened above cans for seedlings, I believe.

Our home looked a little rough around the edges compared to the sleeker, modernized version in the photo below. But that one looks so sterile. Ours looks really lived in with a pride of ownership. But, of course, we were only renters at $55/month as an "upper income" project dweller!

Old Home Made Made New

On July 15, 2000, exactly 44 years after my family moved away, I returned. Old 517 here is entirely improved except for the brown lawn and lack of white picket fence. Modern appliances so no coal bin, chimney, nor oil drums feeding a metal monster in the living room. Internal rooms must be changed since they now have a slider back door opening onto a cute little deck. We had a large, windowless pantry and no back door. Still have big fir trees in back but no madronas were in sight. Streets were re-routed or disappeared. The parent seen in the yellow shirt valued her privacy. She demanded to know why I was taking photos. When I said that I lived there 50 years ago, she was satisfied. The little girl was still scared of me.

This renovated neighborhood was so quiet and clean, I don't know why they tore it all down a few years later. I hope the displaced residents, who I'm sure were of low income, found decent new homes as good as this.

Our Home in 1943

517 S.W. 100th St was a typical project home, as you can see. Rough wood siding painted a light battleship green at that time. Gravel road, gravel driveway with lawn newly seeded. But we always had sidewalks. Our unit extended to just the living room and two bedroom window sets. The third bedroom window set was part of our neighbor's unit on the other end. That's me in my mother's arms. My sister and brother are seen in the living room window. They were confined to the house being sick with some childhood disease like the measles.

Behind our '41 Chrysler Royale was the double coal shed for us and the other neighbor. My brother had the job shoveling coal for the kitchen stove (for cooking and hot water). Much later I took over when he started his job on a "Seattle Star" paper route.

Not too long after the time of this photo, I was able to walk and climb. I immediately escaped out of that first bedroom window and ran naked down the street.

The Old Schoolyard

Such a warm sight to my eyes despite the gloomy day in Spring, 1956. This is my little sister and friends. Gaze upon the vast expanse of pea gravel in back of the school where we enjoyed many a recess and after-school games. Different groups of kids were free to do their thing unlike the front of the school which was bisected by walks and fences, as I recall. In the Fall of 1948, when I started, the school was overcrowded and the two 1st grade classes were in the facing housing units just to the right of the dark clothed boy's head. "The Portables" I think they were called. It was cozy there but cut off from the rest of the school. I enjoyed it better in the 2nd grade when we began that year-by-year progression from one end of the long narrow school building to the other, west end where the gym was. Does anybody have a photo of the school itself?

4th Grade Class Photo

Ah, 4th grade, in retrospect the perfect class for a kid. Maybe you can recognize yourself in one of these faces. At nine, you were well accustomed to the school routines; apron strings completely cut. You were too young for the self-conscious, emotional turmoil of adolescence. You were hot stuff if you knew the answers in class and could outrun the other boys and girls on the playground. Your teacher was the most important female in your life and, if she was as pretty as Mrs. Sanders here, you were in love.

After 55 years I forget the names of half these kids (can you help me?) but their personalities remain vivid. Placid Delbert J; chatty little Larry P; wryly humorous Marvin; good old Claude S; my quiet classmate through all 7 years Bruce F; tall awkward Orville F; quiet loner Darlene S; quiet friendlies Faye, Yvonne and Bernice L; big, smart and popular Karen A. and her tall, lanky, less smart crony Betty T; and my only girl pal in class Diane L.

With my superabundance of mental and physical energies, I was ever a distraction in class. Mrs. Sanders even labelled me "obnoxious" on my report card. But I think she liked me, often getting to eyeball distance with me and talking me down to a dull roar.

The project kids here weren't marked by their appearance. I came across another 55 year old class photo from another school in the district, Normandy Park E.S. It was a ritzier neighborhood that we aspired to. All private houses, big yards and with an exclusive community center right on the Puget Sound beach. But the kids clothes and hairstyles were indistinguishable from ours. I initially thought some of the kids had transferred from my own class.

Welcome Old Neighbor or Classmate!!

I have created this blog to connect with former residents of White Center Heights, the old public housing project just south of Seattle. Also, former attendees of the WCH Elementary School are most welcome as are others who are interested in this special little place created at the beginning of WWII and now, sadly, is just a memory.

The old wooden school was demolished in 1973 and most of the houses have been leveled or drastically remodelled and renamed as "Park Lake Homes II". My family was one of the "pioneers" of the project, moving in 1943 before the school was even built. My older sister, brother and younger sister all attended WCHES. We finally moved out in 1956 after I had completed the 8th grade at Evergreen (then Jr.) H.S.