Highlights of the Day

Went to Greenwood Cemetery today.  We found the family graves right away, which is pretty amazing considering this is a huge cemetery.  It helped that we had my cousin, Jeff, around who lives in Spokane and had just been to this cemetery for Memorial Day.

My grandmother is buried near a tree.  Her grave was looking pretty nasty.  I took my bottle of water and tried to get it clean, but just water wasn't going to cut it.  Here's what it looked like when we first got there:

HaHa!  You can tell by the lighting on this photo how much time I took scrubbing it.  The sun had come up a bit higher in the sky.  At first, I used my hands and fingernails.  I know...nasty, but I had nothing else, and I wasn't going to leave it looking like that.  My cousin, Mary, found a paperclip in her purse, so that was very helpful.  Jeff got out some baby wipes, and that did the trick for the flat surfaces.  Mary also went at it with a pine cone.  We joked around that that's what God made them for.  It worked wonders for the scroll work.

I don't know if you can tell from this photo, but it looked markedly better when we left.

One of the funny things, I thought, was that the Holz's and the Stegner's are buried together in this cemetery.  I don't have to wander far to find both sides of my mom's family.   They're all around the periphery of the same tree.

This was my grandfather's house in Spokane.  My mom grew up here.  I was glad I caught it when I did.  They're putting through a new highway, and all the other houses on the street have been taken out.  Theirs is honestly the ONLY one left.  Sad.

About six blocks away was my mom's junior high.  She loved this place and had reunions with friends from this school for years after she left it.  We got to walk in and walk around.  I talked to one of the teacher's aids there.  He said that he went to school there and his grandmother did too--probably about the same time as my mom.  Sounds like she may have been one of my mom's neighbors too.  Wonder if they knew each other.

This house was lived in by my great grandmother and step great grandfather back in 1926.  I need to get home and look through the information my mom kept to find more information, but when I scanned this photo years ago, I also searched googlemaps because the photo had an address on the back (very helpful).  I found that it was still standing and was so excited.  Tonight I got to see it in real life.  One of the guys who lives there let us in his apartment (the downstairs one where the large turret is.  It was so cool!

This was the carriage house out back:

These were the doors to the parlor (which is now shut off), just inside the entrance:

This was the fireplace in the guy's apartment:

This was the radiator in the guy's apartment, which he says still works:

This is my lovely cousin, C.J. on the stairs going up.  The detail work on this house is fantastic!

This has to be the original flooring near the servant's stairs:

We think this is the original gate.  It was hanging on the wall downstairs:

This is the utility room:

The railings on the first floor stairs:

The front door from inside (sorry about the yellow.  My camera was having issues):

The radiator between the two entrance doors (what the Japanese would call the "genkan":

Sideways view from the front porch just leaving the apartments--the large turret area:

Can't wait to get home to find out more about how my family ties into the history of this house.  Such a beautiful piece of work!