Growing up on ``the hill''

I recently discovered a Facebook group called ``I grew up on Capitol Hill.'' That's the Seattle neighborhood where I spent my childhood. I wasn't all that surprised to see the group already has 500-plus members, for it was on the hill that all the Catholic doctors and lawyers found the big turn-of-the-century homes for their 12-child families. A LOT of people grew up on Capitol Hill.

I scanned through the list of members and found a few relatives, a couple of classmates, and  many people who were either younger or older siblings of those who went through Holy Names Academy with me or St. Joe's and Seattle Prep with my brother.

In many ways Capitol Hill was a world unto itself in 1950s America. It was probably far more homogenous that many Seattle neighborhoods, and the clustering of so many important Catholic institutions may have led to some smug triumphalism that was part of my makeup back then. We had all the answers, we built our own community, and we had enough safety in numbers that we never needed to fear -- or, alas, explore -- worlds beyond our boundaries.

Still, I have many many fond memories of the years there. They've contributed largely to the adult person I have become, and maybe even to my profession as a journalist.

We lived somewhat distant from the Capitol Hill epicenter, which was probably located within a couple of blocks of 18th and Aloha. Instead, we lived far down on the eastern side of the hill, in an odd little section that was almost entirely Jewish. As a result, our neighborhood friends were not the kids we knew from school. We were ``other'' to the neighbors because we went to Catholic school, and we were ``other'' to our classmates because we lived on the opposite side of ``the busy street,'' 24th Avenue that most kids were forbidden to cross.

Because we didn't live upon the top of the hill, close to our classmates; because we weren't Jewish like our friends in the neighborhood, because our dad had taken the extreme step of marrying a Catholic and our mom had behaved in an equally unusual fashion by marrying a Protestant, I got used to  being a perpetual outsider, standing on the periphery, waiting, watching, evaluating and analyzing. Having an alcoholic parent contributed to this too, for we'd never invite friends home for fear of what they'd encounter, and our parents never socialized with the neighbors or parents of our school friends. At the same time, I had aunts and uncles and a passle of first cousins on the hill, and my maternal grandparents spent the last years of their lives living there, too.

So while we had some powerful connections to the community, I became the equivalent of a Martian anthropologist sitting on the chandelier, always watching, always curious, always trying to decipher others' behavior and attitudes for some clue to whatever ``normal'' might have been. 

When I climbed up the big hill to Holy Names Academy for the first day of first grade, I looked like all the other little girls in our navy blue jumpers and white blouses. But I can remember being amazed that they all seemed to know playground games I'd never imagined existed, and they even all knew each others' names.  Even now I can remember how surprised and indignant I was that everybody else seemed to know a set of rules that eluded me. Certainly the ``outsiderness'' I felt then is part of what makes me stand back and observe today, like a good journalist should.

We lived on Interlaken Boulevard, a graceful, curving tree-lined street designed by Frederick Law Olmstead that led directly to the University of Washington Arboretum, also known as Washington Park.  Our front yard actually was Arboretum property, with part of it a grove of rare dogwoods.

Our house was one of the grand examples of carpenter's gothic, built around the turn of the century by a Swedish immigrant who, stories had it, got rich in the timber trade and decided to build a house that would outdo the grand house his brother built next door. When we moved in in 1950, the house had inlaid hardwood floors, leaded glass french doors, marble counter tops, dark woodwork and wainscoting, a separate maid's staircase and a butler's pantry, a 3rd floor attic ballroom, and a genuine Tiffany chandelier that was larger than a wringer washing machine and had matching stained glass doors for the built-in china cabinets.

Our parents appreciated none of these features and systematically went about ripping them out to replace them with new modern 1950s details like huge picture windows, dropped ceilings made from acoustical tile, linoleum counter tops, recessed fluorescent lighting, and 4'X8' sheets of paneling that covered up the old lath-and-plaster walls.  I suppose we were like a lot of the kids on the hill in this regard: we lived in beautiful old homes that were raped and bastardized and became monuments to the worst of the 1950s' appetite for remodeling. Certainly a father with a couple of beers in him and a crowbar in one hand was a dangerous thing in those days.

Many of our classmates were from Catholic families with Irish or German roots, or, to a lesser degree, Italian. We were different. Our dad was a Norwegian immigrant who escaped the wheatfields of Washington State's Palouse country to become a Boeing engineer. He was Protestant, from an Evangelical Lutheran sect known for its austerity. Mom came from a pioneer Washington State family that was so ultra-Catholic that we even had our very own Jesuit priest cousin, famous for saying mass atop Iwo Jima during World War II.  Religion was, as you can imagine, a big deal in our family.

Every time I return to Seattle and drive by our old house on the boulevard, I take a look at the huge hill I climbed every day to school and wonder how I managed it with a heavy load of books and a violin case.  In many cases, adults go back and find the distances of their childhood weren't so great, but when I take a look at the infamous Galer Street hill and know I climbed it every day rain or shine, I'm amazed.

Although we participated in the wide games-- British Bulldog, Kick the Can, Hide and Seek, Red Rover -- that took in the whole neighborhood on those northern latitudes' long summer evenings, I  spent most of my free time alone. The Arboretum was my place of singular magic, with species of trees and flowers that only much later I learned were rare and unusual. I used to climb under 50-year-old rhododendrons that were two stories tall, and make leis of their dropped cone-shaped flowers.  I sat on the edge of the ponds carefully capturing strings of frog eggs I took home to hatch in a dishpan in the basement. In the spring I'd walk under one of the weeping cherry trees along the Arboretum's Azalea Way and jiggle the branches so I'd be caught in a blizzard of pink petals. And often I'd climb a weeping willow tree where I'd perch on a branch with a book in hand and disappear for hours into the adventures of Josephine March and her sisters. 

Our house was within easy walking distance of two great museums where I also spent hours. At the Seattle Museum of History and Industry in Montlake I fell in love with the button blankets and carvings of the Haida people, the Inuit masks,  and the Coastal Salish baskets. I'd look up with pride into the rafters to see the seaplane that was one of the first in the Boeing fleet and know that my dad was helping to design the newest jets coming off the line.  And the diorama of the Great Seattle Fire of 1889 always left me with a frisson of terror.

The Seattle Art Museum in Volunteer Park awakened my love of Asian art, from the rows of tiny Chinese snuff bottles to the terra cotta Haniwa figures to several folding screens depicting Japan's Heian era. The museum also had part of the Kress Collection of Renaissance art, most of it third-tier, but still impressive to my untutored eyes. And its occasional traveling shows were wonderful, including a Monet show that featured some canvasses that later perished in a museum fire in France. Of course like every other Seattle child, I rode the Chinese marble camels outside the museum's front door, and later photographed my kids riding them, too.

I'd also traipse through the Volunteer Park Conservatory, breathing in the warm heavy tropical air, and delighting in the way the mimosa ``sensitive'' plants would wither whenever my hand brushed their leaves. I'd wade with my younger sibs in the Volunteer Park wading pool that probably had a rather high number of parts per million of little kids' pee, and we'd race each other to the top of the Volunteer Park water tower, which was housed in what looked like a medieval brick castle, and gave us views for miles in all directions

It seemed our childhoods were much freer and less fear-filled than the lives of kids' today. I'd get out of the house as soon as I got home from school and changed out of my uniform, and spent weekends roaming the Arboretum with virtually no restrictions placed by parents. This was true for my three siblings as well.

We did a lot of the things our classmates did: bought penny candy at the same mom-and-pop stores, took 25 cents to the Roycroft Theater every Saturday afternoon for a program that included a serial, a newsreel, a cartoon and a feature film; built wooden hydroplanes and tied them to the back of our bikes for our own versions of the Gold Cup Races run on Lake Washington.  We sometimes went to the original Red Mill on Friday night with our aunt and uncle so we could have fish and chips and not have to go home to a kitchen that smelled like fried fish. 

We went to the Friday night social dancing classes when we were in seventh and eight grades, and stood on one side of the hall while the St. Joe's boys were on the other. I can still remember a couple of Jack Reilly's sequence of steps and calls from that 7th-grade square dance class where they partnered us up with the boys by marching us in intersecting lines. Reilly, who owned the Aqua Barn out in Renton, taught us square dancing in 7th grade and social dancing in 8th.

I played in the string orchestra at school and was nerdy enough that I stuck with my Girl Scout troop all the way through high school. (And some of the women who were in Girl Scouts and the orchestra with me remain close friends to this day). I was both intellectually precocious and physically awkward:  a teenager who suddenly sprouted to six feet tall by her 13th birthday, and who thought physics was almost as much fun as writing notes in Morse code and passing them to my friends.

I had crushes on the St. Joe's boys even though many of them were still so short their heads could tuck under my chin when we were dancing. I'm sure they thought I was impossibly tall and weird. Weirdness aside, I actually did get to some of the high school dances, and still remember the spicy smell of a carnation corsage a Seattle Prep boy brought me on my very first date. I also read ``Seventeen'' magazine like a Bible, and used to have such envy when I'd go to mass at St. Joe's and see my more well-off classmates wearing outfits I'd seen featured in the magazine's pages.

Saturday mornings belonged to Miss Ruth Doherty's ballet classes at the Odd Fellow's Hall on Pine Street. She was dwarfed and bent by what was probably severe scoliosis, but  every Saturday she stood by the barre in a gauzy pink tunic and tights and led us through each step. The classes were probably not the best, and we had to stop halfway through and put on the tap shoes for the hated tap class, but it was enough to feed my passion for ballet that remains with me to this day.

St. Joe's itself was also important, of course. In 1950s Catholic America, life revolved around the parish church.  I can remember being terrified of Father Rinn, who would stand outside of church wearing a cape over his cassock and his hands on his hips, ready to catch latecomers to mass. I'm sure I was one of the kids who fiddled with the communion rail and caused one of the cast-metal bunches of grapes to come loose. I remember walking up the aisle on my First Communion day, trying to step on and pop the white snowberries that fell loose from wreath that crowned the veil of the girl in front of me in line.  And of course, even long after my immediate family left the parish. St. Joe's remains the place where we go to get married, and from which we bury our dead.

We left the Hill in the summer of 1960 because Dad was transferred to Cape Canaveral, Florida, initially to work on the Minuteman missile and later, in the space program. Life was never the same again. A certain center and certitude disappeared. I returned from Florida to attend Seattle University--technically on First Hill, but certainly within the Capitol Hill ambit -- but I never again lived on the Hill.

It's funny though, every single time I come to Seattle, the car automatically heads up Pine or Denny, I cross Broadway, make a few turns and find myself on Aloha Street. I always take a quick left turn on 14th, drive around the water tower, head for the conservatory and circle around the statue of William Henry Seward. Then I head back toward the art museum, always looking to the meadow to my right to see if my favorite maple tree is still there. (On my last trip, I discovered it was gone). Then I park for a minute facing Isamu Noguchi's ``Black Sun,'' and, if I'm lucky, watch the sun sink behind the Olympics. 

Afterward, I head back to Aloha, drive past St. Joe's, circle the Holy Names block, then head down 24th to Galer. I turn right and hope the rental car has good brakes as I head down down down that very steep hill. At the bottom I turn onto Garfield Street and look at the back side of our old house, then nip under the Interlaken Boulevard overpass and take a right turn into the Arboretum. I take a right turn on the boulevard and head back up hill, slowly, peering for a glimpse of the old house that is now almost completely hidden by trees on its front side.

It's just one of those rituals I have to perform. It's a way of connecting to my particular set of Capitol Hill roots.  Today I'm a silver-haired grandma with bifocals, a member of a Pagan coven and a hard-nosed legal journalist here in the Bay Area. But every time I pass the corner of 18th and Aloha, I remember once again that I grew up on Capitol Hill and will always be a Holy Names girl.

Comments

[Alice Welsh Berkshire]

It was my parents that ran the Roycroft Mom and Pop store from 1945 till 1960. Open 7 days aweek from 11Am till 11 Pm. On Sundays 10 till 10 with special permission from the Catholic Church because they had beer on the property.
My God Mother Sally MacCoulla (SP)had a dress shop between the store and the theater and later became the accountant for Hides Candy one block over.

[twitter.com/jseattle]

I live in the shadow of St. Joe's and run a news and community site on Capitol Hill at http://capitolhillseattle.com Really appreciated this taste of life on the Hill that I've imagined but not heard much about. Thanks so much for sharing it. You too, Alice! Where was Hides Candy located?

[twitter.com/Ipomoea911]

I live across the street from the old Roycroft Theater (now the Russian community center) and I followed the link posted by jseattle. I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed this-- I am the fourth generation of my Norwegian immigrant family to live in Seattle, but until me, we were strictly Rainier Beach. I really appreciated this peek at the past of the neighborhood I've grown to love so much. Thank you!

[laurn]

This was so wonderfully written! Thank you so much for sharing. You had such a fulfilling and thoughtful childhood. And a fantastic memory!

[Chad W]

Thank you so much for sharing this! Your story really touched me...being achild of the early 80s, I don't have nearly as much lore surrounding my upbringing. You have painted a vivid picture of what I wish I had, and I have to say, a tear popped out at the end. Take care.

[Scott P]

I live up the street in the Stevens school neighborhood with my young children. Stories/history like this are why we live on Capitol Hill. Thank you so much for this - it is beautifully written. Someone should gather these oral histories and write a book.

[JoshMahar]

As a young 20-something, who moved to Capitol Hill only a few short years ago, I really appreciate this wonderful history of a Capitol Hill gone by. Thank You because without you, and the culture of 1950's Capitol Hill, our neighborhood certainly wouldn't be as rich as it is today.

[B.Williams]

I lived on 25th and played basket ball at the Turners house which must have been2 or 3 doors west of you.We loved Fr.Rinn because he would say the 6:00 mass in 20 minutes on Sunday mornings so we paper boys could go back to bed in a hurry. I also experienced all those things you wrote about and it brought back all the memeries. thanks

[Victoria Slind-Flor]

The house next door to us was Turners' house before it became the Crissey house. So we're talking about the same house on the same street. Both houses had two addresses, one on Interlaken Boulevard and one on Garfield Street.

[Lady Victoria]

"...fair Seattle's pride and gloo-o-ry neath the cloud-wreath mountains crest! ...Holy Names for-ever more!" I too, am an Academy graduate, as are my two sisters, each 7 yrs adrift from my own age.

Growing up, I resided on Beacon Hill, but I spent many hours at HNA, running for the #19 bus on 19th E, later visiting with my mother's German friend who lived on 18th and Aloha and even later with my older sister who owned the house at the SW corner of Aloha and 18th. Yes, for me too, life begins and ends on "our hills". Didn't matter if I moved to Renton - Beacon & Cap Hill people linked up to me.

Here I am, 30 yrs later and I'm back living on Beacon and this time, working on Cap Hill for Coldwell Banker Bain as Tech. Funny how that whole thing in life has come full circle for me...

Thank you for writing your memories. I have fond ones of a Thanksgiving dinner in the 60's at our German friend's house, watching as feather-down snowflakes turned into a full-blast white coverage. My Norwegian father was driving his pick-up home with my German mom and I(thank God he was driving and not her), since our Cadillac at the time would've never made 12th Avenue, let alone 23rd all the way back to Beacon! We had so much snow and it was such a magical time to see all those lovely mansions transformed into romantic estate homes (in my child's eyes) with soft glowing lights spilling from the large windows which were accented by beveled, leaded windows.

I hope to hear from others about your delightful column.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving and I hope to meet you sometime at an Alumn Luncheon!

Visit my website at: www.CostumingInSeattle.com
or the blog: www.SITUSeattle.wordpress.com

Fond regards,
Lady Victoria