Monday, April 30, 2007

Smelterville: Weekends in Pinehurst

Aside from Rollerskating, I also spent a portion of my weekends in Pinehurst, staying at the Caldwell's on main street. There house was between the Post Office and the Library and sat back away from the road. The little house we lived in when I was born, was further back and to the right of their home.

Dorothy Caldwell was a school teacher (fourth grade) in Pinehurst, and she was like a grandmother to me. (My grandparents all lived in Utah, and I only saw them about once a year). She and her husband, Glen, had 5 kids who were 7 yrs or more older than I. The two daughters M & D used to babysit me when I was very young. When I was 5, I was the flowergirl in M's wedding. I spent many days and likely a few nights at D & her husband R's place - off and on through my younger years.

On weekends, I had a standing invitation to spend the night at Dorothy and Glen's. I would sleep on the hide-a-bed, watch cartoons on Sat morning, eat Trix cereal and play with their dog Coonie. (By this time Lucky was gone.) Sometimes I would plunk out melodies on their piano, or listen to their youngest son play the "Flying Purple People Eater" on his record player. (He also had a Flying Purple People Eater stuffed animal that hung high by his bedroom door, but I wasn't afraid of it because it was too little to eat anyone.)

One week, Dorothy called me and said she had a surprise for me when I came to stay. I really wanted to know what it was, and she told me a new family had moved in next door (behind the Post Office) and they had a little girl I could play with. She told me the family was all boys except the one little girl, and she was excited for me to come and play.

That weekend, I met the Carvers for the first time. The parents and all 6 kids lived in the very small home. I remembered the parents bedroom was past the kitchen before we'd go out the back door in a porchlike area. (And it probably was). They had just moved to Idaho from West Virginia at the invitation of some relatives who lived in the eastern part of Shoshone County. They had four boys, the girl, and then another baby boy. The girl M and I became very good friends, but I also became friends with the boys who were near my age. G was my age, S, a year older, and B 3 yrs older.

When I went over to play with M, we usually ended up outside playing Tarzan with some of her brothers. S was Tarzan, I was Jane, M was "girl" (a role we invented for her), G was Boy and B was Cheeta. They was no tree house, but we would play in the base of the trees and pretend it was a tree house. When we couldn't play outside, we would watch movies inside. I really looked forward to going to Caldwell's and playing with the Carver kids.

In addition to being my weekend get-away, the Caldwells also were the first people I knew who bought a color televison. They got theirs in about 1963. Our family was invited to come every Sunday night to watch Bonanza and Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color in COLOR! It became our Sunday night ritual and I loved it.

12 comments:

Goody said...

You have a real gift for storytelling and getting just the right details to bring the story together-you just triggered the memory of our first colour television.

Thanks for visiting the cooking blog.

Pinehurst in my Dreams said...

Thank you. I know I get my gift of gab from my dad's side of the family. Wasn't sure if the writing would flow as easily.

Come again!

raymond pert said...

G. Carver lives near my sister up in the Kettle Falls area and worships at the same church..or at least all of this used to be true...maybe InlandEmpireGirl will chime in here and confirm or correct me.

raymond pert said...

The first color t.v. I watched was Smelterville at the Gallaher's, just around the corner from the Wayside Market. I also went to a Smelterville color tv to watch the CBS Leslie Warren version of Cinderella at Betty Gulman's. It was a huge deal!

myrtle beached whale said...

I can remember having one television sitting on top of another. The sound worked on one and the picture on the other. I believe that might be one of the prerequisites to being white trash.

Pinehurst in my Dreams said...

Pert: Last I heard G lived in Kettle Falls. I stay in contact with his mom in Pinehurst - they were like a second family to me. I never knew the Gallaher's or Gulmans, but wasn't it a big deal when color came on the scene?

MBW: So funny! You may be right about it being a prerequisite to being white trash, but our parents did what they could to make our lives better than theirs had been.

raymond pert said...

Betty Gulman taught 4th grade at Silver King....does that jog your memory of her?

Pinehurst in my Dreams said...

No, because I left Silver King after the third grade. I used to know all the names of the teachers there, but they have faded greatly in the last 30 yrs or so.

In fact if MBWhale had not mentioned Mrs. Watts, I probably wouldn't have remembered her name - even though I had her for third grade & remembered her name for many years. I sent MBW an email and told him that I am better at remembering places and events and my sister is the name queen.

myrtle beached whale said...

I honestly am not sure if I had Mrs. Gullman. I may have, but she did not impact my life. I think my 5th grade teacher had a Polish sounding name starting with a P. Not sure why that comes to mind.

Pinehurst in my Dreams said...

RPert is gonna have to field that question. He probably knew all the teachers there.

Christy Woolum said...

Yes, G.Carver does live up the road from me. He commutes way over to Metaline Falls and works as an electrician in the mine there so I haven't seen him as much lately. The world just gets smaller.

Pinehurst in my Dreams said...

Well, if you see him - say Hi. I don't think I have seen him since about 1987, when he and his first wife attended Kellogg Assembly of God, and I went there on vacation from Texas.