The Porch

A place of peace,  a corner of solitude and reflection, a perch to watch the live theater production of other people's lives, and even an upright bed to fall asleep on under a bright sun-kissed summer day, the front porch is all of these, and more.

Our porch at our house on Cedar was my place for dreaming. It was my sanctuary where I could read about and fantasize about cities far away from the small town of my birth. On Sundays, I would scrounge some change together and book it down to the Wallace Corner where they sold newspapers from Seattle, Los Angeles, San Franciso, and other exotic cities, I would usually purchase the LA Times.

Once home and settled down on our porch on one of the chairs that we had outside, I would open up my treasured paper, and with the bright, summer, sun lulling me into a state of euphoric trance, the words on the paper became alive with scenes of towering buildings, bustling sidewalks, sporting events, concerts, theaters, food, and beautiful people. I, of course, could envision myself in the middle of it all.

With all of these marvelous things dancing in my head, I would nod off to sleep, Oh, but as with all dreams and with all sleep, one wakes up, and I would wake up, wipe the sweat off my forehead, look around a bit confused, and it would hit me. I was not in LA, NY, Seattle, or San Francisco, no, I was right on the good old porch at our house on Cedar Street.

And that was the way it was, growing up Wallace.

The Selling of Wallace

When I hear one time Wallace natives talking about our hometown they give a glowing testimonial to the beauty, the schools, and the charm and the unique character of the town, but then all say " but I would not want to live there anymore because it has changed so much."

Yes, it has changed.Our Wallace is, at least on the surface, no longer here. Real stores and real industry have been replaced by 2nd hand stores and something that I despise-tourism. Wallace sold its collective soul and history for petty tourist dollars.

It is sad that Wallace sold out so cheaply. It is just like--well, I guess it comes about naturally, after all, Wallace was renowned for what was sold on Cedar Street. Can't we at least keep some of it for ourselves? Let's not sell our souls.

The tourists with their cameras clicking, the kids with their runny noses and snotty attitudes, and the once proud locals hawking their past like street vendors at a dirty street carnival is not the way that I choose to remember the town that I loved and grew up in.

The people who made Wallace what it was, a great mining camp, were real people with real lives and real families. The blood that spilled deep in the earth was not Hollywood ketchup, The tears that the families shed for their lost father and husband who the unforgiving mountain of gems periodically sacrificed to the gods were real tears of sorrow. The muck was real, the pain was real, The broken limbs were real, and the sweat was real.

How about the rewards? How real were they? The kind of reward for the pain, the tears, the broken limbs, the shattered dreams. and the muck cannot be defined by the measure used by corporate America and the ever growing sense of entitlement of today. No, the rewards are probably not understood by the tourists who gawk at the old buildings, the rotting frames of the old mines that dot the hillsides, rising up from the sides of mountains like ghost ships in the oceans.

The rewards were modest pay, the satisfaction of pushing mind and body to the maximum limits, and most of all, the joys of living the life style that only those who lived there can understand. The tourists will get their pictures, their souvenirs, and their vacation memories, but they will never truly get what it was really like, what it felt like, and even what it really looked like.
Those things can never, never, be purchased in a tourist shop.

Mutual Respect

He was sitting in front of his television set that day. I remember it well. My brother and I had crossed Cedar Street to the  elegant brick apartments on the corner of 2nd and Cedar. I would often sit on our porch at 218 Cedar and study the bricks and mortar of that grand building. I knew that rich folks lived there and that their lifestyle was different than mine, or at least I imagine it so,

I cannot recall with any hint of accuracy the specific errand that required that my brother and I make the short trek across Cedar Street to our desired destiny, the resident apartment of the very distinguished, scholarly, and long time practitioner of the law, Mr. Harold J Hull, and his wife Elizabeth. The elder Hulls had been our next door neighbours until they moved to the apartment across the street.

I can still clearly recall that after we knocked and Mrs.Hull had bidden us enter, Mr Hull admonished us in a firm voice to not talk because ' the President of the United States is speaking."
He made it sound so special, so important, and so sacred, that we dared not utter a sound.

Now, when the president comes on, we make snide remarks. Newspapers print cartoonish images of the current leader and we call them by first names. Now, it isn't just because we the people are being disrespectful, no, half of it is because leaders disrespect the office,  the Constitution, and most importantly, they disrespect we, the people.

Can mutual respect ever become the norm again? Maybe, but I am not sure that we will ever again hear don't talk, " Because the President of the United States is speaking."

Thank you,Mr, Hull. You were an inspiration when I was growing up Wallace. 

Shootout at the OK-Whoops I mean at the ------------

It is suppose to be a day for love, a day of telling those close to us that we love and cherish them, a day when we exchange hearts in grade school hope that special someone likes us as much as we like them. Love, however, was probably not what was in the heart of Mr, John Stoddard, age 48,formerly of Oakland, California, that morning of February 14, 1951, as he walked down the streets of Wallace.

No, love was not what Stoddard was feeling as he gunned down Gail Hailstone, 33 of Wallace, Willis A Maitland, 49 of Wallace, and Robert Allen, 29 of Wallace. Hailstone, a Sunshine Mine employee died, and Stoddad was shot dead by host of local law enforcement.

Where did this massive shootout happen, you ask? It happened right in the old Wallace Supply Store on Cedar Street. It was 4:55 AM when the firs shots were fired by the crazed killer, and his first victim was Gail Hailstone. Why had Stoddard broken into the store that morning? Was theft his intention? The police don't think that was it because the cash register had not been messed with and nothing was missing from the store. The general consensus according to the Spokesman Review was "that the man was crazed before the foray started".

Well, here is the account was reported in the Spokesman on Feb. 15, 1951. Who knew that Wallace had such a shootout in modern times.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19510215&id=yX1WAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0OUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6548,5211064&hl=en

A Not So Merry Merry Go Round

Ah yes, it looks innocent enough, but much like the Puffer Fish with the deceiving look that imitates a smile  but with a body loaded with poison sufficient to kill 30 people and 5 elephants, this creature once found in playgrounds around the nation, can reach out like the arms of a giant octopus, grab you,  and -BLAM, you are on the ground screaming as the flesh is torn off of your body.

OK, OK, I am exaggerating a little, but only a little bit, because you, see, this innocent appearing, playground apparatus got me, and, well here is the rest of the story.

It was sometime in late Fall. I know that I was still riding my bicycle, so winter had not set in yet.  In 2016, we see bikes all winter long, but when I was growing up Wallace, bikes in my home were put up in the attic in the garage for safe keeping until the ice and snow had transformed into spring rain and the sunshine.

I got on the old English Racer( remember those?) and headed up Cedar Street to the Academy playground. The Academy had a great playground including a "merry go round', the kinds that everyone ran around the sides of until it got going fast, and then we would jump up on it and ride around until we were sufficiently nauseated.

Now, I was a bit uncoordinated in those days, being a growing 5th-grade boy and all, but the allure of danger outweighed the fear of injury,

I don't remember everyone who was at the playground that day, but I do remember that Rick Gilles and Mike Gnaedinger, my doctor's son, were there. I don't remember if GF was there that day or not.
We all were going to run and jump on the merry go round, and with all the guys there, there was no doubt that we could get a real fast speed going.

We started running and pushing and getting ready for the one at a time jumping on. Faster and faster it spun, and it was my turn to jump on. Well, I jumped, and to this day I don't know what happened, nor do I remember not landing on the merry go round. I only remember the sickening pain that tore through my left knee as the bolts underneath the carriage tore through the flesh several times until the guys riding realized that my left was underneath the carriage, and was being ripped every time the carriage passed over my knee. Finally, it came to a halt, and I pulled my bloody leg out from it.

I looked down and saw huge gash right under the knee cap. It was deep, and it hurt like the dickens. Mike Gnaedinger was the first to run up to me, and said, " You had better go see my dad".
Somehow, and to this day I don't know how I did it, I got on my bike, and with one leg dragging, I walked, rode, that bike back down the street to my house on Cedar. My mother took one look at my leg, and up the street, we went to the Wallace Hospital, which was only one or so blocks away.

I still have those scars, and whenever I drive to Wallace and see the old Academy building, I cringe.

This monster can get you, Be afraid, be very afraid. 

We Didn't Have A Clue, Or Did We?

Nope, it looked like my brother and I would not even have a clue that Christmas years ago. Our house on Cedar Stree had so many wonderful spaces for two growing boys to find, explore, hide, and snoop in. What was the last one? Snoop in? Well, yes, for each Christmas time my mother and father did their very best to hide those mysterious packages, and every year it was such fun to find them and carefully unwrap just enough to confirm what we thought they contained.

The basement of our house had a little room in the far corner had a little storage room with a door. In that room were shelves that my mother would use to put her canned peaches, pears, rhubarb, and other delights that we consumed throughout the year. It was also a great place to hide Santa's stash until Christmas unless of course two young detectives in the making were sniffing out the case.

Our instincts were right that December afternoon as my brother and I found the forbidden fruit, and I don't mean the canned kind. With the skill of a safe cracker, our fingers gently lifted up the corner of one package tagged to both of us. Every year we got one gift between us, and this year was no exception. We were thrilled to see that we would be getting a game of Clue this Christmas. I don't know if that board game is still around, but we sure loved to play it back then. We deftly taped the corner back up and scampered up the basement stairs, feeling confident that our escapade would go unnoticed.  Well, let me tell you, we were so wrong.

" Boys, come here" I can still hear it. Yes, we had been found out! Our mother was so " disappointed" in her boys, and as punishment, she was taking the game back to the store. There would be no Clue that Christmas.

My mother's sister who lived in Los Angeles always sent nice gifts each year, and the year of the clueless caper was no exception. There was one package from her that had both names on it, and like hungry wolves, my brother and I ripped the wrapping paper to shreds. As it became clear what was in the package we began to whoop and laugh hysterically, for yes, unknown to mom, our dear aunt had sent us boys a game of Clue for Christmas. Even our mother had to laugh.
Christmas was special when growing up Wallace.

The Joy of Leaves

Watching a video of my grandson being totally mesmerized by a single, fallen leaf in the park, reminded me of the joy that Fall brought to me as a kid growing up in Wallace.
Falling leaves brings joy to kitties, puppies, adult humans and tiny tots.


Wallace was certainly blessed with leaves of all shapes, colors, and sizes and our house on Cedar Street was no exception.  We  had two beautiful chestnut trees on the front lawn and believe me, there was no shortage of leaves on the Iawn in the Fall. I still ache when I think about raking all of those leaves.


As an adult, I moved back with my first wife and kids for a short time to Wallace. My son was about eight, and my dad asked him if he would like to make a little money raking up some leaves in his yard. My son, anxious for video game money, readily accepted the job. I thought that that he would learn a splendid lesson about how we needed to work for things that we wanted.

He labored, and labored with the raking, and was rewarded with a nice payment from my dad. I asked my son if he had learned anything from the experience. The answer that I got was not what I expected. Looking me right in the eyes, he said,"'yea, I learned that I shouldn't have accepted the job"


They say the apple never falls far from the tree.

A Walk Down Cedar Steet-The New Morrows

Downtown Cedar Street! Wow, it was exciting to grow up during some of the great eras of Wallace. It wasn't "Historic Wallace" back then, We weren't historic, infamous, yes, but historic? Nope. History was one of my loves in subject matter, and to me, history was about Rome, Greece, the East Coast, San Francisco, and Lewis/Clark, but not little old Wallace, Idaho. Nope, Wallace was simply a hard-working town where the good folks worked and played hard, really hard.

Amazingly, Wallace, for being such a small city, was gifted with a downtown core more like one would find in a much larger place, like Spokane or Seattle. Each one of these fine merchants was very individualized unlike the box trap stores of today. Last week, I talked about Gene's Radio Shop, which was one of my favorite stores, especially around Christmas time. Today, I want to start a few days of stories about different businesses in Wallace.

 Our family home was 218 Cedar, and so, we were just a few blocks away from the downtown core of business, Now some of these were establishments that well, let's just say, my mother did not approve of some of them, but most of them were just good, hard-working merchants trying to make a living.

Walking towards downtown from my home on Cedar, the first real business that one came to was the fine department store, THE NEW MORROWS. Yes, Wallace had a department store, and it was a very good one. Morrows was owned at that time by a husband and wife team, the Thompsons, Gus and Minn.

My first real job was in Morrows, but more about that later. I know that it must be hard to believe for those young people growing up today in Wallace, or for those transplants who moved to Wallace in recent years, that Wallace was a real town, but it was. Morrows actually had three floors of shopping for a while and included Anthony's, a fine jewelry store, and  Morrow's Lunch Counter.

There was a men's wear department, full of ties, dress shirts, work shirts, work pants, dress pants, boots, tennis shoes, dress shoes, and mining boots. It had everything a man or young man could need. There was also a women's clothing department, a lingerie department, an infant's department, suitcases, bags, accessories, and of course fabrics and sewing items. Upstairs there was a really nice women's dress department, and the accounting and business office. It was quite a nice department store, and one that I remember very fondly. I wish that it was still there.

Fort Hemlock and Run Spot Run

When I was four years old, we moved from the suburbs of Burke to the big city of Wallace. We did not initially buy the house on Cedar Street, but instead we rented a house on a street that no longer exists, Hemlock Street. Hemlock was about where the Wallace Inn laundry room is today. It dead ended at what was then the main highway, Hwy 10.There were only six houses on Hemlock Street when we moved there, and at the end of the street where it met HWY10, there were about three steps that went up to the sidewalk. At the bottom of those stairs was a perfect place to build a snow fort.

I was only a kindergarten pup, but big brother was three years my senior, and his friend was about a year older than my brother was. It was a great fort that they built, and in that fort was an arsenal of snowballs that we had spent hours packing with snow and a little bit of ice. Now, what are we going to throw those snowball at? Trucks, of course, that came along Hwy 10. We never threw at the cabs, but only at the trailer.

I, being of little arms and lousy aim, never hit anything, but Leon and Craig had already developed good pitching technique, and they hit their targets with accuracy and they hit them frequently.
Now, I, only being a  small tot, mostly watched the "big boys" practice their snowball throwing craft, and on this particular very cold Wallace winter day, I was just being a spectator. I was always afraid that someday we would get in trouble, or worse, get clobbered by some angry trucker for hitting his truck.
I had that sense of foreboding that day, and so, I was on " run as fast as you can" mode.

I don't remember who threw that snowball. All that I know was that I did not throw it. The semi came into view, and the snowball flew through the air like a Nolan Ryan fastball. Plunk, it hit something, but wait a minute, it wasn't the truck that it hit, nope, that would have been fine. Instead, it landed like a perfectly placed pitch smack against the windshield of the police car behind the truck.

Well, legs don't fail me now, I said to my shaking limbs, and off I ran as fast as I could go. My brother and his friend, being older and wiser than I was, did not run, and, of course, the cop did not chase them.Yes, it was me he was chasing. I had just committed the crime of eluding a police officer.
I ran as fast as my kindergarten legs would carry me, straight in our back door, and up the stairs to my bedroom. Of course, I was not savvy enough to realize that officer only had to see which house that I went in.

My heart was beating what seemed like a thousand beats a minute when I heard my dad's voice calling me. " Son, come down here. Someone wants to see you."
By now, the tears were rolling down my cheeks, and my whole body was shaking. I was so sure, probably from having watched too much "Dragnet", that I was going to be hauled off to jail. Perhaps a diet of bread and water was in the making.

Well, I entered the living room, and there was the officer, and my folks, as well as my brother. The officer told me that the older boys had already told him that I was not the one who threw the snowball. He then proceeded to lecture my brother and I on how such a stunt could cause an accident, perhaps even leading to serious injury for the driver. He then looked sternly at me and told me to never run from a police officer, and that he, at first, thought that I was the guilty one because I had run. He then left, and that was the end of it. Well, almost. There was, of course, the visit to our room by my dad, and the lecture of how this was going to hurt him worse than if would us. Yea, right.

The next day, Fort Hemlock was torn down, never to rise again. Now, did I learn my lesson? Well, stay tuned for the time that we were playing baseball at the intersection of Third and Bank, and a policeman pulled up, and well, you guessed it. Story at 11:00
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Leaving Hemlock Street, we fast forward to the days of or lives on Cedar Street. I was now three years older than my Fort Hemlock days, and much smarter and wiser? Hardly. We had arrived. We now lived next door to a lawyer, a store owner, and across the street from two bankers, and one block away from two doctors. We were Cedar Street snobs.

By that time I, too, had developed the ability to throw snowballs and baseballs. I hung out mostly with my older brother and his friends, so I had to play hard and be tough.

Cedar Street was not a good street to play baseball on, but right around the corner was Third and Bank Street, and Third and Bank was a great place to play baseball because there was a wall that held the hill on High Bank from crashing down to Bank Street. The wall we used as the outfield, and, of course, when we hit a ball over the wall, it was a homer.

The city fathers did not think that playing baseball in the streets was such a grand idea, and so they passed an ordinance that made it "illegal" to do so. It was to be actively enforced by Wallace's finest.
That threat did not stop our local gang of kids from daring to defy this criminal action, so one day in early June found about 6 of us playing again on Third and Bank. I was in my position in the "outfield when I looked down the street, and to my utter horror, the unmistakable markings of a Wallace City Police car was coming straight for us. Once again, without a word, I commanded my legs to run as fast as a third grader can run. Rounding the corner of Cedar Street with a sprint that would shatter any Olympic record, I ran into the house and straight up the stairs to my bedroom. Well, here we were, Deja vu all over again.

Sure enough, I soon heard my mother's voice calling my name. " Son, please come down here, someone wants to talk to you." Down the winding staircase I came, and there, sitting in our living room was Wallace Officer, Barney Fife. OK, the name was changed to protect the innocent.
Officer Fife wanted to know where I had been about an hour earlier. I was perplexed by the question. An hour earlier I had still been in the house. He then asked me why I had sped away when I saw him coming. I told him it was because of the ordinance forbidding playing ball in the street.

Now, sometimes Divine Intervention smiles on one, and this happened to be the case here. Our pastor, who made a little money on the side painting houses, had been hired by my dad to paint our kitchen, and living and dining rooms. Rev. Philp had been listening to the conversation, and spoke up, and verified that I had, indeed, been in the house an hour before. Officer Fife then told us that about an hour ago some kids had broken the windshield of car a few blocks away, and he was gong to stop and ask us if we had seen any other kids out there. Of course, when I ran, he assumed that I was the one who had broken the windshield earlier in the afternoon. We all kind of laughed. and I was relieved that I was not going to jail that fine afternoon.

When my brother came home in a bit, he asked me why I had taken off. He said that all the officer wanted was to ask about the windshield, and it had nothing to do with playing baseball in the streets.

Ok, I am a slow learner.

Remembering my place of birth .

I went over to hometown of Wallace today for a short trip on the 14th.. Since my birthday is on the 16th, I took a picture of the grounds where the Wallace Hospital once stood, and where I was born. The hospital grounds are now a small, lovely park. The third picture is the way the Wallace Hosptial looked in 1909, and no, that was not the year of my birth. The 4th picture is the house on Cedar that I grew up in. My folks owned it until 1984 when they moved to Osburn because the old house was too much for my mother to keep up with. I love that old house.

No place is lovelier that Wallace, Idaho in the Autumn. 

Then and Now

Wow, here it is, January 2, and there is no snow on the ground, 45 years ago it was certainly a different story.  It was the great winter of 1968-1969- in Wallace, and it was one for the ages.

The snow began falling in earnest shortly before our Christmas vacation from school. (Yes, we had Christmas vacations back then, not Winter Breaks, so sue us oh mighty ACLU.)  If you had lived in Wallace for any length of time, or were a native, like I am, you just knew that this winter was going to be a very long, hard, cold winter. We were not wrong.

Wallace School District 393 had a reputation for not closing for the weather no matter what. Other towns around the country would get an inch of snow and shut the doors. We had no such luck in Wallace, and we were proud of it. We were like the USPS use to be. We never missed a beat. Oh, the bus students might get to go home a little early if conditions were really tough., especially the Murray gang, But the rest of us had to trudge home everyday though mounds and mounds of white, sprinkled with dashes of yellow and brown. Hey, the dogs had to do their business somewhere, didn't they?

As one got older walking home was not so bad, but for the elementary kids, it could be a brutal road back to the warm embrace of mom's kitchen and the steam heat coming out of the hissing radiators. OK, OK, I was not in elementary school in December of 1968, nope I was in junior high. OK, OK, I cannot tell a lie, I was in high school. There, are you happy?

My dad and I shoveled and shoveled that winter. It never seemed to do any good because even as we were finishing the sidewalk and the stairs to the house, the sidewalk was already being suffocated with another layer of a thick, white, quilt of snow. Would the snow every quit feeling that winter? That was the question often heard around town. Even the old timers around the bars in Wallace were shaking their beer and whiskey blurred heads and saying that they had never seen anything like it, at least not since the 1930's. Hey bartender, give me another shot, will ya?

Sometimes in life, the bird isn't only pooping on your car, but our feathered friend drops one on your head with an accuracy that the United Stated Air Force would love to be able to duplicate. The great winter of 68-69 was one such bird. In addition to the mounting piles of snow, the temperatures decided to do a polar plunge, and plunge it did, dropping down to as low as 25 below zero. In normal times, when the temperature drops down below zero, the snow stops. Score another point for the 68-69 winter. It refused to follow the rules as set forth by the US Weather Bureau, the National Geographical Society, Skippie, the weather guy on the local Spokane television station, and the boys glued  permanently to their seats at the bar in the Cork and Bottle.

My dad, my brother, and I spent all of the Christmas vacation shoveling, shoveling, and shoveling some more. The wind howled, the snow piled, the temperature plunged, and Jack Frost not only nipped, but he took a big chunk right out of our noses. God help you if you had a runny nose. Let's just say that it was not a picture that you wanted as your defining Kodak moment.

Christmas vacation for the 68-69 school year was winding down, but the weather was not. One of my best friends took care of the shoveling duties for a wealthy lady that resided across the street from us. It was the evening of Jan, 2, 1969, and tomorrow we would all be back in the safe, leaky roof confines of Wallace High School. I saw that my friend was busy shoveling the sidewalk across the street, so I threw on my winter attire and headed over there to say hello. It was a few degrees below zero when I went over there. We talked between chattering teeth about the snow, school, and well, the other things that high school guys talk about. It was then that we begin to notice a shift in the air.

Yes there was a difference. A warm air current was starting to blow, and the temperatures started to climb dramatically, The snow was actually starting to melt, and we realize then what was happening. We were saved from the white sea of snow by a Pineapple Express or a Chinook, whichever term you prefer. Of course, this weather phenomenon carries with it its own problems because it rapidly melts the snow, but as the temperature climbs, it begins to rain. The huge mounds of white snow are not knee deep swamps of slush and ice.  That combination, my friends, makes for some very treacherous walking and driving conditions.

The next day, we were all back in the halls of good old School District #393, and life went on as usual in the city of Wallace. Tough, hard long, cold winters were just part of growing up Wallace. All that I can say, is that 45 years later, the weather has most certainly changed.

 Cedar Street in the winter of 1913-from the University of Idaho Digital Collection. 

When A House Is A Home-Reprinted from 2009

We were so excited.because we were moving to the big time. There were two streets in Wallace that had kind of prestigious addresses, King Street and Cedar Street. We were moving to Cedar Street. Ah yes, the rich street where doctors, lawyers and the giants of the mining industry lived.
We lived right next door to HJ Hull of Hull, Hull, and Hull. Straight across the street were the Rices, and two bankers who actually owned the First National Bank of Wallace. The next block down had Dr. Fitzgerald, Dr. Dyer, and other mining executives. One block up had Dr. Ellis and Henry L Day of Day Mines. Yes, indeed, we had arrived.

OK, we were not rich by any stretch of the imagination. My Dad was a miner. So, what were we doing nestled between all of these rich folks? Well, you see, my Dad wanted to give us a home that we would be proud of, and what a home it was! No, it was not like the glass mansions of today, it was old, very, very old, but oh so full of charm and personality. We had four bedrooms, a full kitchen, an old fashioned pantry with actual flour and vegetable bins, a dining room, a living room, french doors, two bathrooms, and an elegant staircase with a rich wood banister that lead to the bedrooms on the second floor. We had to pay a king's ransom to purchase it. Dad paid a whole $9,500.00 for it ! Recently, I saw it listed for $275,000! Wow, how that old wood must have grown in value!

The difference between then and now is not just the price, but you see, my Dad gave us a home, not just a house.Nowadays so many buy houses, but they don't buy homes, and there is a vast difference. Cedar Street a was home, and I still get misty eyed when I drive past that old house on Cedar. When I was in my thirties, my folks sold the old place and moved to Osburn because the house on Cedar was simply way too big for an aging couple to maintain. I was so sad when they moved, but the memories of Cedar Street will never die in my heart.Every Christmas, wherever I am living, I think of Cedar Street, and my heart grows warm. That old house is Christmas to me.

For you see, we had a home, not a house.

A Look Back In Time

Cedar Street in Wallace-1937-Noitice the diagonal parking-Please note, I was not alive yet in those days (:)

  

Burke in the old days. Burke was once a rip roaring town,and this was probably a lot like it looked when my dad first came there in 1929 as a young teenager.