.jpg)
Photo by Retiring Guy's dad
Saturday, October 3, 2020
I never thought of it in these terms until much later in my life, but the time that I lived in Great Falls comprises the formative years of my life. More specifically, the years from 1953 to 1956 made me who I am, shaped my world view, and exerted a strong influence on my life.
With its unrelenting grid pattern — numbered streets running north and south, numbered avenues east and west, the geography of Great Falls was very easy for my young mind to grasp. It helped me to familiarize myself with my surroundings, to visualize the most direct route to get from one point to another. The best illustration of this influence is what I’ll refer to as The Long Walk of 1955. Four little kids, no one older than 5, take off without notifying our parents for what must have been, at a minimum, a
3-mile urban hike trek that took us to Gibson Park, across the Missouri River from downtown, past the fairgrounds and a refinery on the northwestern side of the river (which probably wasn’t within the city limits at that time), recrossing the river at the 14th Street Bridge, continuing along River Drive, and then proceeding through a railroad underpass which brought us back to Gibson Park. At this point, a neighbor drove up to us and barked a no-nonsense command for us to get into his car. Back at the parsonage, a crowd of people had gathered as Mom and Dad and my friend and his younger sister’s parents, who lived in the apartment building across 2nd Avenue South from the church, sent out an alert and initiated a search for us. What I recall most vividly about all the fuss is our being described as ‘lost’, which greatly irked me. During the entire walk, I followed a map in my head of where we were and how we were going return home. We weren’t lost, I insisted to myself and, perhaps, even uttered these words aloud to a disbelieving audience. And to this day whenever I’m going someplace, I always have a map in my head that tells me where I am and guides me to where I’m going, geographically and metaphorically.
(The map above is from a 1956 Great Falls telephone directory, that Mom and Dad packed. The arrows, of course, were added by me. I described this adventure to JoAnna as I drove the route. Unfortunately, I neglected to clock the mileage.)
Photo by Retiring Guy's dad
I was a free-range child, allowed to walk to nearby destinations on my own from a young age. The day before the start of kindergarten, Dad and I walked to Whittier School to take a ‘first day’ picture of me at the entrance. After that, I walked to school with no escort, even though I had to cross a very busy Second Avenue North, a major east-west artery. I remember walking to my friend Jacques’ house for what would now be called play dates. He lived three blocks from the old parsonage, catty-corner from Whittier. Other kindergarten friends who invited me to their homes lived a few blocks farther north expanded my geographic radius. This free-range experience, which continued after we moved to Warren with solo bike rides covering nearly every street in town by the time I was 12, laid the groundwork for the wanderlust possessed me in the 1970s and early 80s, a bit of which I recaptured on this latest road trip.
Photo by Retiring Guy's Wife
Another formative influence was living in a household without a TV. It wasn’t until 1956, when I was 6, when Dad made such a purchase. Not that this deficiency – some would certainly call it that -- was exclusive to Great Falls, but the city’s two (if I recall) TV stations didn’t start broadcasting until the late afternoon. Even during the year in Great Falls when we had a TV, I don’t remember watching any of us watching any particular programs. Saturday morning cartoons weren’t even an option. As I see it, the lack of a television set during my formative years made it easy for me to go without this ubiquitous piece of household equipment throughout much of the 1970s and into the early 1980s, which corresponds to my period of wanderlust. And it’s why I remain a casual viewer. The only show I watch with any regularity is Rachel Maddow. I am, however, within earshot of whatever JoAnna is watching. Lately, she’s bingeing The Gilmore Girls. The show’s fast-paced, rat-a-tat dialogue makes me wonder if all of female actors are trying out for the Hildy Johnson role, played by Rosalind Russell, in His Girl Friday.
Since 1957, I have made two brief solo visits to Great Falls prior to the recent one with JoAnna. The first took place in September 1974, a few weeks after moving to Deer Lodge. A Sunday day trip, I arrived in time to attend a service at First English Lutheran Church, introducing myself to the pastor as members filed out of the sanctuary. Someone overheard our conversation and remembered me from my formative years. Outside of taking pictures of the exteriors of the church and parsonages and driving around the city, maybe walking around Whittier School, I can’t recall how else I spent my time. Having left after first grade, I never kept in touch with any of the friends I made so I had nobody I could visit.
What I do recall, and what was then a revelation, is an altered sense of reality involving a reconsideration of distance. What I remembered from the 1950s as seeming so far away from where we lived was in reality just a short walk from an adult point of view. It’s a memory that I can still recapture even now.
Photo by Retiring Guy's dad
Here’s an example. On a few occasions, Dora Donald, the church organist, would incite me to visit her at her apartment, which, to my surprise in 1974, was just a few blocks west of the church on Second Avenue North. Back then, it seemed like such an adventure when I walked there on my own. As I recall, the two invitation were offered at the end of the church service. While Dora played the postlude, I sometimes walked to the front of the church and sidled next to her on the organ bench. She was single, lived alone, and, if I recall, didn’t have any family members living anywhere near Great
Falls. She became a family friend, Mom and Dad inviting her to dinner occasionally. Dora and Mom corresponded for many years after we moved to Warren. I can still picture Dora’s grandiose style of handwriting.
Photo by Retiring Guy's wife
(Notice the organ stops on the two pictures. As Pastor Barb Gwynn confirmed during a tour of the church on our second day in Great Falls, it the same organ that Dora would have played when we lived there. More about the church later, though perhaps not in this letter.)
My second visit occurred in 1983 on a return trip from Washington State, after dropping off Paul Stearns at the Olympia National Forest. He had recently accepted a summer internship with the U.S. Forest Service, and, with my wanderlust still percolating, I volunteered to drive him there. Road trip!! I stayed at a Great Falls motel after long day’s drive and spent a portion of the following morning driving around the city and rekindling childhood memories while taking a few pictures every now and then. Basically, I just breezed through town, not giving myself the opportunity for a more immersive experience.
Photo by Retiring Guy
Like the one that took place last month.
It was an unexpected turn of events.
Photo by Retiring Guy
As JoAnna and I concluded the first phase our exploration of Great Falls, we noticed a group of 8 people gathered in front of the old First English Lutheran Church parsonage, where Dad served as pastor from November 1952 to July 1957. The two-story, 4-bedroom (1 bathroom) brick structure sits on the edge of the downtown business district, hemmed in on 3 sides by a narrow passageway between the house and church, postage-stamp-size back yard (where a wooden fence once sat on the property line, and an alley, a feature found throughout Great Falls’ grid. The Nelson family lived here until mid-October 1956, when a new parsonage in the rapidly expanding southeastern part of the city was ready for occupancy. The old parsonage became the church’s parish center, used primarily for Sunday School and other religious education activities. My class met in what had been Mom and Dad’s bedroom, which now serves as Pastor Barbara Gwynn’s office.
“You should ask them for a tour of the house,” JoAnna suggested.
More of an encouragement, actually.
I walked up to the group and waited to be acknowledged by the person who appeared to be the leader of the group.
When she greeted me, I introduced myself and explained that I was on the last people to live in the house.
“My dad served as pastor of First English for 5 years during the 1950s.”
Photo by Retiring Guy
Even through masks — and everyone was wearing one — I saw a few people’s faces express reactions of shock and surprise.
After some mutual filling in the blanks — why JoAnna and I were in Great Falls, why they were standing in front of what is now the church office — we were asked if we’d like a tour of the house. I eagerly accepted.
Photo by Retiring Guy
My initial reaction after walking inside was how small and cramped the interior space of the house felt to me, especially the hallway and U-shaped stairs leading to the second floor. I expected to see a grander space. But then I was viewing the house from the perspective of a 7 year old, remembering it as I had pictured it in my mind for the past 63 years. I experienced a similar sensation when I made a day trip to Great Falls from Deer Lodge in September 1974. Various places that I thought were located a considerable distance from the church and old parsonage were in reality, by adult standards, just a short walk away. For just the second time in my life, I momentarily recaptured how I viewed the world as a child.
Photo by Retiring Guy's dad
Some of the rooms — the kitchen and playroom on the first floor — have been thoroughly repurposed. What served as our dining room is now an open storage area,
the corner cabinets removed. (The flowery wallpaper was probably the first to go back in 1956.) Walking through the house, I felt as though I was undergoing an out-of-body experience, joining the ghosts of my childhood that stirred the air. On our second day in Great Falls, JoAnna and I had a chance to walk through the house a second time, before Pastor Barb gave us a tour of the church. My running commentary of the Nelson family’s experiences at 112 8th Street North fascinated her. I wish now that I had recorded myself while providing during this oral history.
Photo by Retiring Guy
Not that I had the power of total recall.
“Where was your bedroom?” JoAnna asked while we wandered around the second floor.
“I was trying to figure that out myself,” I confessed.
Photo by Retiring Guy's dad
Photo by Retiring Guy
In addition to Mom and Dad’s bedroom at the front of the house, there were two bedrooms on both (i.e., alley and church) sides of the house and a tiny room at the back. All but one of the bedrooms had what might be called early 20th-century walk-in closets, narrow rectangular spaces.
Photo by Retiring Guy's dad
Photo by Retiring Guy
“I’d forgotten how big these closets are, considering the age of the house,” I marveled. “I can imagine using this as a play space.”
Yet I was unable to retrieve a single memory to confirm this observation.
Photo by Retiring Guy's dad
Photo by Retiring Guy
I gave it a try, though, walking from room to room, looking out every window to recapture even the most opaque glimmer of a memory. What resonated most – ands it was definitely a weak signal – is this view looking toward downtown Great Falls from the church-side bedroom window. Back in
1956, only the alley was paved. What you would have seen to the right of the diagonal line that cuts across the center of the photo is a line of garages set on the edge of a half dozen or so back yards. The frame didn’t look so desolately urban back then, though I have no photographic proof to back up this statement. The photo of Mom and Dad’s bedroom is one of the few that was taken on the second floor of the old parsonage when we lived there.
No comments:
Post a Comment