The Nowell Residence

 On the SW corner of 25^th Ave E and E Boston Street sits a neat and unassuming Colonial Revival Cottage built in 1920.  Its official name with National Register of Historic Places is The Nowell Residence named for it first owners, Frank and Elizabeth Nowell. 

While it’s easy to think of 1920 as “fairly recent” when discussing our historic neighborhood only about 20% of the available Montlake lots had been built on at that time.  The ship canal had opened just a few short years before but we wouldn’t see the opening of the Montlake Bridge for another 5 years.  Montlake School as we have known it wouldn’t open for another 4 years.  By the end of 1920 only 60 homes in Montlake had garages as we weren’t yet an automotive-dominated society and there was no end of convenient street parking available.  The Central Business District between Lynn and McGraw Streets consisted of only two buildings.  This was the Montlake that Frank and Elizabeth moved into at 2021 25^th E.  

1923 - Courtesy of Ron Edge 

Prior to settling down in Seattle Frank had done a lot of traveling and held a number of different jobs in Alaska where he developed an interest in life on the frontier and an appreciation of the indigenous NW cultures.  

1905 - UWDC - NOW132

He became adept at photography and began documenting his travels.  In 1909 he landed a great gig as official photographer for the 1909 Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition and, while there were several notable local photographers, Frank H. Nowell was responsible for some of the most iconic images that we associate with Seattle’s first world’s fair.  

1909 - SPL - AYP304

He opened a storefront at 1212 4^th Ave where he specialized in portraits and photographic services while producing most of the images documenting the building of the Smith Tower completed in 1914.  When the Montlake house was built, 6 years later, he and Elizabeth moved in and lived there through the 1930’s before retiring to their Crystal Lake “ranch” near Maltby.  

c1918 - UWDC - NOW260

In 1950 Frank H. Nowell passed and left us his photographic legacy.  I wonder if there are still any glass plates in the basement?

Frank Hamilton Nowell

1864 - 1950

The Gerrick Residence

 

Google Earth

The Gerrick Residence is located at 2208 E McGraw.  It is somewhat unique for Montlake as it is one of only twelve American Foursquare homes in the entire neighborhood.  Built in 1909 it was the second permanent home constructed in Pikes 2^nd Addition to Union City and it might be the fifth permanent home in Montlake, period, but there were four other houses built that year.  So, it is somewhere between the fifth and nineth house in the Montlake Neighborhood.  The 2 ½ story home is listed at 3690 square feet and has 5 bedrooms. 

Copyright City of Seattle

Imagine what it was like when the house was new and McGraw Street was just a slippery dirt road.  The area was thick with second growth trees and you were living out in the sticks.  At the bottom of the hill was 24^th N where a streetcar ran and the sidewalk was partially in place.  It took you just 15 minutes to walk to the south gate of the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition.  On the way you crossed the new bridge over the Log Canal and you passed no other homes, only buildings associated with the Log Canal operations or some dilapidated buildings that sat between the canal and where Roanoke would be pressed up against the foot of Montlake Ridge.  By 1912 the only addition was a single brick house at the corner of 22^nd and Roanoke.  Any kids living in Montlake who wanted to play in the woods didn’t have to go to the Ravine or the Arboretum.  They just stepped outside of their front door and they were there.  

1909 - UWDC - SEA1402

When I was in grade school my friend Bennett Minton lived in that house and I was in it a few times.  The front porch ran across the width of the house and around the southeast corner, Under the porch was a root cellar with an earthy smell and dusty wooden shelves holding glass canning jars.  At the top of the stairs on the second floor was a landing with doors leading off in all directions to multiple bedrooms.  It was a really cool house that seemed bright and airy but I only had my own Calhoun Street house to judge by. 

Copyright City of Seattle

In the 1930’s and early 1940’s the house was owned by Ruby Burshia and five bedrooms were more than she needed so she rented them out as room and board.  My favorite ad was in the August 22, 1940 edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer where she hoped to attract male tenants with the draw being meals prepared by a French Chef.  Classy.

NewsBank

 

Memorabilia

 

Digging through a junk drawer I found a collection of old stuff that was once important to me.  Each item has a story, of sorts, and tells a tale about some part of my younger life. 

Take the Cub Scout badges, for instance….I don’t remember what each one was for but I did achieve Webelos which meant that I matriculated to the rank of Tenderfoot in Boy Scouts.  I mostly enjoyed Cub Scouts in spite of the uniform requirement.  It was fun with the exception of going door-to-door selling Clamorama tickets.  I hated that.  I was keen about advancing to Boy Scouts but that turned out to be something that I really wasn’t suited for and, though I wasn’t kicked out, I ended up leaving under a cloud due to actions and circumstances that are disagreed upon by all parties to this very day.  That little square silver box holds the Boy Scout ring that I took off my finger on the day I left.

People were always giving me pocket knives.  I have a ton of them and I can’t recall the who or why on most but that red knife is special.  When I was in the first grade I talked my parents into buying it for me at Sears Roebuck in Wichita.  I couldn’t believe that they actually did it.  Being given stuff that we didn’t need was out of the norm.  Look closely and you will see Roy Rogers and Trigger on it.  Dale didn’t make the cut and if she had I wouldn’t have wanted the knife.  I always thought that she was bogus.  In retrospect so was Roy.  I mean that pair dressed like Liberace.  I broke the end of the large blade off carving my name into our chicken coop.

The green things are Heinz Pickle Pins that were featured during the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair at the Heinz exhibit where you could push a little button and a pin or two dropped into a tray.  There was usually a mob of kids waiting their turn and a Pickle Pin Monitor dressed in a green blazer making sure that each kid only got to push the button once.  I went there one day and there was no mob of kids and no pickle monitor.  Out to lunch I guess so I cranked out a whole lot of those pins because I could trade them for gum, candy, a decent used Duncan Imperial, several packs of strings or cigarettes.  As you can see I only have 9 left.  What do you want to trade me?

That brass tag belonged to our dog, Ace.  It’s his rabies tag from Wichita.  Ace was a good dude and my best and only brother. 

That silver thing “north east” of Ace’s tag is one of those tiny cigarette lighters.  They were highly valued by some kids (including me) and came in gumball-type machines in a little clear round plastic case.  Seems like those machines might have cost $25 a try and I spent a few dollars before I finally got one.  It was really exciting when I finally saw it drop but it was very disappointing as a lighter.  Poor performance, no wind protection, leaked in your pocket and that irritated the skin.  Leakage meant that it was always out of fluid and wouldn’t light, you had a scab on your leg and that you always smelled of lighter fluid and Bactine.

The little knife in the scabbard was something that I purchased in a souvenir shop.  I don’t recall where but probably the Roadside Geyser, Estes Park, The Big Well, who can remember?  Some family vacation someplace.  Originally it had a white plastic pearl handle but I thought it looked a bit wussy so I colored it black with a felt pen. 

 That shiny rectangle is my dog tag from Jesse Chisolm Elementary School in Wichita.  All kids were required to wear them to aid in potential body identification after the Russians dropped the bomb.  Note that it lists religion and blood type in case you were still alive.  I wonder if Atheist was an accepted choice in those days?  We lived in fear.

I bet that the Buchan’s Championship patch hangs you up.  There was a bread company in Seattle called the Buchan Bakery and they sponsored an amateur basketball team called the Buchan Bakers.  They won AAU championships in 1956, 1957 and 1960.  Brett Fidler’s Dad refereed AAU games and I got to go to a few of them.  Mr. Fidler gave me that patch and it seemed so cool at the time.

Above the knife are two pins that I think might have been for some school athletic award.  A silver and a bronze.  That would be 2^nd and 3^rd place, right?  The silver pin is actually a bronze pin painted silver.  I don’t remember painting it silver but somebody did so it might have been me.  I may have been out of gold paint.

To the left of those is a pin I got for being on the Junior Safety Patrol.  That pin mattered to me because I was a big shot.  I was an officer and a Second Lieutenant!  Third in command.  At least I was until I was kicked out.  Mr. Aguilera managed the patrol, taught 6^th grade, Spanish and Square Dancing.  He was ill-suited for his job because he seemed to hate kids and had serious anger management issues.  He kicked me off patrol because he didn’t like the way I square danced.  When the call came to swing-your-partner I was paired with Alison Arsove and she swung me hard up against the folded bleachers with a great deal of force.  Aggie went berserk, picked me up, shook me by my shoulders, banged me hard against the wall and stripped me of my commission right there in front of God and everybody.  The bruises didn’t last long but I was totally humiliated and all I had to show for my work ensuring the safety of Montlake crosswalks was that pin.  But wait.  There’s more.  He didn’t just take my silver 2^nd Lt. badge away, he kicked me completely out of patrol.  He found me unsuited to hold a red flag on a stick.  That pin and the school photo of the Safety Patrol is all I have to show for my lack of skills at square dancing.

Some Members of the Junior Safety Patrol

Those little white things are my baby teeth.  None of my baby teeth ever got loose enough to pull.  I would have a permanent tooth coming in somewhere in my mouth and it would have no place to grow so I had to have each of them pulled by a dentist.  My Mom made sure that I had straight, beautiful permanent teeth and she was very proud of them until I got them knocked out in a car wreck.  Oh well.

That little silver and red thing is a West Bend Super Duper 502 fishing lure missing its treble hooks.  It seems that all three barbs got embedded in Chuck Carlson’s thumb and fore finger which is a whole ‘nuther story for a ’nuther time.  Chuck’s fingers were the only thing that either of us caught that day and he had to go to a doctor to have the hooks removed.  I got the lure back sans hooks.  Chuck was grounded and probably beaten for being a dumbass.  Charles Howard Frederick Carlson was one of my closest friends and had a sad and short life.  That lure really is one of my treasured possessions. 

The orange award ribbon was for a Halloween costume party at Montlake Playfield.  I was dressed as a college professor.  Don’t ask.  It was a goofy costume and the ribbon might have been given to me as a mercy award.  It’s hard to understand why I still have that.  

Finally the red and white ribbons were won at a Montlake Playfield track meet.  The red was for the long jump and the white for the hop-step-and-jump.  I only competed in the hop-step-and-jump because it looked silly and seemed to have no practical application in life.  I did the long jump to see if I was ready to make the leap from the roof of the school across the alley onto the lunchroom roof.  It was a personal goal because after so many earlier failures I still thought it might be possible to fly.  I had been working on it for over a year and long jumping everything in sight that I didn’t think would kill me.  I guess I was a pretty strange kid.  The red ribbon told me that I was ready and so I climbed up and did it.  I barely cleared the alley and the impact on the lunchroom room roof would be best described as violent and painful.  

While David Belle may be recognized as the undisputed founder of Parkour I was into it for over a decade before he was born.  It would be a stretch to say that I was a parkour visionary, though, because my young mind didn’t always work through all of the details.  While envisioning the flight I carefully worked on the mechanics of the launch and the flight, itself, but I never gave a second thought to the landing part.  THAT_LANDING_HURT_A LOT.  It was a harsh toke.

Hair Sins and Punishment

 

While some may blame their male pattern baldness on genetics I can say, with a great degree of certainty, that mine is due to some twisted penance that I am serving for some of the various hair-related sins that I committed in my youth.  Perhaps my parents are to blame for being too permissive and allowing me to choose my own style and comb my own hair.  A quick review of grade school class photos suggests that my classmates hair was combed by their Mothers by confirming that nobody else  sported a “Forward-Combed Flat-Top with Fenders Boogie” hairstyle.  It sure isn’t what any Mother would have preferred if choosing.  I remember that there were at least 2 or 3 products involved in the creation of my masterpiece and I recall thinking that I had really gotten the dance started as the girls couldn’t keep their hands out of it. 

Being desperate for attention I maintained that bad idea for far too long and by the time I realized that my individuality was a joke and needed to change I was in Meany Junior High and some guys were lightening their hair with Hydrogen Peroxide.  Not to be outdone or fearing that I would rot in hell for committing another hair-sin I bleached the B-Jezzus out of mine.  Not a few streaks or a bit lighter, no.  I turned myself into a very light-colored towhead.  Just a tiny shade darker than white.  That worked for a while.

Strangely, there were no pictures taken of me during those times.  I wonder why? 

If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound? 
If there are no photos of my blonde hair-sin, did it ever happen? 
My baldness would argue that the answer to both questions is "yes".it did.