West Seattle, Washington
12 Thursday
(CSS team members, from left: Doug, Justin, Carmela, Tiziana, Carlos)
We’re welcoming a new WSB sponsor today: C.S.S. (Computer Service Solutions). Here’s what they’d like you to know about what they can do for you: C.S.S. (Computer Service Solutions LLC) has been serving our local community’s Computer and IT needs for the last eight years, growing at a steady pace. The foundation of C.S.S. success is built into the motto: “Better Technology to Serve You Better.” They recognize the importance of remaining nimble enough to hear what their customers are saying, as well as strong enough to provide the level of support and expertise their customers deserve. Serving both home users and the business community, C.S.S. provides a variety of computer services and IT solutions, including: Computer repairs, general system optimization, point-of-sale customized systems & support, data recovery/backup, upgrades, networking (Virtual Private Network), digital surveillance systems, anti-virus sales & installation, and software configuration. C.S.S. welcomes the opportunity to help you find a solution to your personal or business computer or IT project or problem. The team at C.S.S. is a dedicated group striving to perform their own personal best everyday and to achieve excellence, with the best customer-service possible, and the latest hardware and software technology. C.S.S. is also proud to be part of our community’s effort to recycle unused computers. It’s a free drop-off point for InterConnection, which refurbishes computers for reuse at a low cost while keeping hazardous materials out of our landfills. C.S.S. is located at 6030 California Ave SW, just 2 blocks north of Morgan Junction (map), 206-935-5808, with ample parking in front. We’re glad to have C.S.S. (Computer Service Solutions) join the WSB sponsorship lineup, which you can see in its entirely here (with information on how to become part of it).
These maps were mentioned in the WSB report on last night’s Delridge District Council meeting – and now we’ve obtained an electronic copy of the maps so you can take a closer look: Pages 8-10 of this WSDOT map package show how West Seattleites will be able to access downtown, and points beyond, if the current plan to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct‘s Central Waterfront section with a tunnel is approved. (Got questions? Remember next Tuesday’s “scoping meeting,” WSDOT reps galore, at Madison Middle School, 5:30 pm, which – disclosure – is being advertised on WSB this week to get the word out.)
Remember the strong-arm robbery at the Fauntleroy/Alaska 76 station weekend before last – in which the robber got away with cash and lottery tickets? (Here’s our followup with full details from the police report.) 
The King County Sheriff’s Office put out a call today for help in identifying a robber with a similar M.O. who’s struck twice in White Center (late January and early February); we posted that announcement on White Center Now but then realized it sounds a lot like the Fauntleroy/Alaska bandit, so we’re mentioning it here too. Checking with investigators to see if that’s the Seattle robbery alluded to in the King County news release; also seeking any available images to post. ADDED 2:26 PM: Image at left is one of several we’ve obtained from KCSO – none is crystal clear but they still may lead to an arrest. This shows the robber hopping the counter in one of the White Center heists. And Sgt. John Urquhart from KCSO confirms it may be the same robber as in the Fauntleroy/Alaska case. Here’s one more – again, small and blurry, but we’re sharing:
That’s Blue 55 playing the Alki Boardwalk last August, one of two Alki summer concerts presented by the Parks Department, and it looks like they’re doing more this year – this announcement just in:
Alki Community Center in West Seattle is planning a series of Music in the Park events for the summer of 2009, and is looking for bands who are interested in playing on dates in July, August, and September 2009.
Bands should play music that families will enjoy. Interested bands should call MaryPat Byington at 206-684-7430 or e-mail her at marypat.byington@seattle.gov by Monday, March 16, 2009.
(photo taken today, added 4:50 pm)
Local neighborhood leaders have been working for months (9/08 WSB report here) to get Morgan Junction’s new park – under construction now and scheduled for dedication at the Morgan Community Festival June 13th – named for the late longtime West Seattle Herald reporter Tim St. Clair, who lost his cancer fight a year ago. The campaign has run into some roadblocks, including Parks Department policy stipulating at least 3 years between a person’s death and a naming honor like this. But supporters aren’t giving up, and now they are asking for your help: Pete Spalding just sent word that he and several other of the aforementioned leaders, including Morgan Community Association‘s Cindi Barker, Steve Sindiong, and Chas Redmond, are starting a petition drive, hoping to gather signatures to present to West Seattle-residing City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen, who chairs the Parks Committee, and Parks Superintendent Tim Gallagher, who has the final say on park names. Download a copy of the petition here, gather some signatures ASAP, and send them to Pete, whose address is on the form. (Also look for the petition at upcoming community meetings – Pete says signature-gathering began at meetings last night including the Delridge District Council.)
Just back from a media-geared boat tour along the South Park stretch of the Duwamish River with BJ Cummings of the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, immediately after her group released its report on a year-in-the-making community-created vision of the Duwamish’s future. The “vision” – she was careful to caution, it’s a vision, not yet a plan – covers the West Seattle side of the Duwamish Valley as well, and we have maps, drawings, and video to show you; we’ll be adding them to this report over the next hour-plus (the map is available online now, as a 29MB zip file or as a smaller, zoomable image). This is all coming out now as the EPA works on the next stage of the cleanup of the waterway that’s so polluted, it’s a Superfund site. But there’s hope for its future, and in fact, perhaps this was a good omen for the tour: A California sea lion surfaced alongside the boat; Cummings said recent sea lion sightings on that section of the river are the first in a long time, though no one’s sure why they’ve come back. A water-taxi route along the river, from the foot of the West Seattle Bridge southward, and aerial gondolas (like the relatively new tram in Portland), are part of the plan, which you can inspect firsthand during an event at the Duwamish Tribe‘s new Longhouse this afternoon, 4-6 pm. 1:47 PM UPDATE: Maybe a water taxi like this? Here’s the one used for this morning’s tour, with Captain Howie Dickerman at the helm:
He does his biggest business in dive charters. And here’s the clip from our second pass under the South Park Bridge (which needs to be replaced, and now federal stimulus money is the best hope) – listen to the eerie sound of traffic going over, as we pass under:
Click ahead to see Cummings explain what the report is for, and describe its toplines (as we continue to add to this story):Read More
Thanks to Keith for e-mailing to share the news that the Natureway vitamin/supplement shop cleared out of its Junction storefront over the past few days – we subsequently found the above-shown sign on its door on California north of Oregon. We had noted when Fresh Vitamins opened last August in Westwood Village that it was owned by the same company, and this sign indeed directs customers to visit that shop instead; if you want to stay in The Junction, of course, Super Supplements is at California/Alaska (though that building is to make way in the future for the Conner Homes development, which as first reported here earlier this week has its next Design Review meeting March 12), and as pointed out in comments, GNC has a branch in Jefferson Square. 9:55 PM UPDATE: Following up on a comment posted below this story, we’ve received confirmation tonight that Funky Jane’s Consignment will be the new tenant in the space vacated by Natureway. We tried to contact the store’s owner today but were unsuccessful; we’ll try again tomorrow, to get more details on their plan. (Their current space, like Super Supplements as mentioned above, is in one of the buildings that will be torn down when the Conner project at California/Alaska/42nd is bulit.)
That long scroll of paper was a prop for SDOT reps to explain the forthcoming Fauntleroy Way “rechannelization” (approved last month) to anyone with questions at last night’s Fauntleroy Community Association-presented “neighborhood meeting” last night at Fauntleroy Church. SDOT was just there for questions – no formal presentation – but updates were presented on three other topics, and the theme for two could be described as “organize” – read on:Read More
INITIATIVE 100 LAUNCH: The signature-gathering effort for a city initiative seeking a vote on whether to build a jail — which could ratchet back the process that already has potential sites identified, including one in West Seattle — starts with a 7:30 am event at Town Hall downtown.
DUWAMISH CLEANUP REPORT AND OPEN HOUSE: What’s ahead for the waterway along easternmost West Seattle? A new report comes out this morning (we’ll be at the official announcement), and then you’re invited to come find out even more firsthand at the Duwamish Longhouse on West Marginal Way, 4-6 pm, followed by another in the series of cultural events at the Longhouse: films by Sandy and Yasu Osawa focusing on the Longhouse at Evergreen State College, 7 pm.
ANOTHER MOVIE: It’s Environmental Film Night at Camp Long Lodge, showing “Broken Limbs” — the clip above is a 3-plus-minute intro to the movie — focusing on the much-changed apple industry in the Wenatchee area, 7 pm.
ORGANIC PRODUCE FOR DELRIDGE? Tonight’s the next Delridge Produce Co-op organizing meeting, Pearls on Delridge, 6:30 pm.
By David Whelan
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
A state/city briefing on the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement/tunnel plan highlighted Wednesday night’s Delridge Neighborhoods District Council meeting.
Seattle City Council President Richard Conlin was scheduled to speak but didn’t make it to the meeting.
The Viaduct/Tunnel briefing came from Ron Paananen, who’s been a project lead for WSDOT, and Hannah McIntosh from SDOT.
(Photo provided by West Seattle YMCA: Campaign volunteer Benita Buchanan records the
total raised to date at last night’s report meeting)
Right now, the West Seattle Family YMCA (WSB sponsor) is in the middle of its annual push to draw donations to make sure their programs are accessible to all – They did a check-in last night, and Samantha Bowes sends this report:
Last night, West Seattle & Fauntleroy YMCA Partners With Youth campaign volunteers gathered at the Fauntleroy YMCA to report on their progress toward their fundraising goal. They’ve raised over $96,000 on a goal of $205,000 in donations to keep YMCA programs accessible to kids, teens, and families in West Seattle, South Park, and Vashon
This is half of the overall campaign goal of $410,000 – our Board of Managers is raising the other half, and is at more than $115,000 to date, for a total of $211,000 raised on that $410,000 goal.
175+ volunteers make this effort a success every year – our thanks to them and to the hundreds of local residents who contribute to the campaign.
To learn more about the campaign, volunteer to help, or make a donation, contact Samantha Bowes at sbowes@seattleymca.org or 206-935-6000.
The next steps are set for the Parks Department to sign off on upgrading the Elliott Bay Water Taxi‘s dock at Seacrest (as discussed at the Alki Community Center meeting a month ago) , to prepare for year-round operation to start early next year: First, the city Parks Board (chaired by Alki’s Jackie Ramels) will be briefed at its next meeting, Feb. 26. Then the board plans a public hearing on March 12th – and it will meet in West Seattle for the occasion; that meeting’s set for the WS Golf Course. Two weeks after that, March 26th, the Parks Board will make its recommendation, and the final say goes to Parks Superintendent Tim Gallagher. If you don’t expect to be able to make it to the March 12th meeting, by the way, the department offers other ways to have a say:
E-mail: send to Sandy Brooks at sandy.brooks@seattle.gov. E-mails are forwarded as soon as possible after receipt. Deadline is 5:00 pm, Tuesday, March 24.
Fax: send “Attention: Sandy Brooks” at 206-233-7023
U.S. mail/hand-delivered: send to Sandy Brooks at 100 Dexter Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109-5199, or drop off at the front desk at 100 Dexter Ave N. Deadline is Thursday, March 19, to allow time for copying and mailing.
As first reported here last week, the Water Taxi’s start date this year is planned for April 5.
By Charla Mustard-Foote
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
Seven people with a vital interest in West Seattle public schools got together with West Seattle’s Seattle School Board rep Steve Sundquist at Coffee to a Tea in The Junction this morning, to discuss issues ranging from proposed new staggered school start times (to accommodate a dual busing schedule) to a redefinition of the statewide definition of Basic Education.
It was Sundquist’s first “coffee hour” since the board’s controversial vote on school closures/changes, but that wasn’t the top issue on the mind of attendees — who had ties to Center School, Pathfinder, Garfield, and Washington Middle School — all were passionately concerned about the effects of state and local budget deficits on the content and quality of Seattle educational programs.
UPDATE ON “TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT” BILL: We have been keeping an eye on this one as it’s come up in some of the neighborhood-council meetings we cover, though so far its potential effect on West Seattle is unclear: If you’re tracking the “transit-oriented development” bill sponsored by 34th District State Rep. Sharon Nelson, the Daily Weekly reports it failed a committee vote today, though that’s not the final say. It’s also up for discussion tonight at a workshop sponsored by City Councilmember Sally Clark at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center.
LOCATION SET FOR CONNER PROJECT DESIGN-REVIEW MEETING: We mentioned yesterday that March 12 was tentatively set for the next – and possibly final – Southwest Design Review Board meeting on the Conner Homes Junction project (two mixed-use buildings at California/Alaska/42nd). The word “tentative” is now off the listing, and a location’s been set – that meeting will be 6:30 pm 3/12 at High Point Library. This project’s been of high interest, so we wanted to let you know the update rather than just sneaking it into the WSB West Seattle Events calendar.
An announcement from the Seattle Public Schools communications team says two Chief Sealth High School students, Michelle Tran and Mohamed Mohamed, are heading for New York City to attend the National Academy Foundation‘s annual gala, along with four other students from the district. Read on to see what it’s all about:Read More
We told you recently about West Seattle’s CoolMom.org group assembling and sending letters to First Lady Michelle Obama, expressing their concerns about, and hopes for, the future of our planet. This morning, members of the group got together to show us the finished product, 50 letters which they are binding into a book and are getting ready to send. (Left to right – on slide Sydney, then mom Terri Glaberson, center Deborah Kapoor w/ son Asim in front of her – CoolMom.org director and co-founder Kirsten McCaa – Laura Elfline with Sydney and Vivian, then Abby Suplizio with Gabe & Soleil.) Here’s Gabe, explaining what he wrote:
The book will be on its way to the White House shortly.
Less than 4 weeks left to sign up your business or organization to be part of the next Gathering of Neighbors — a West Seattle tradition, returning after more than a year and a half on hiatus. Here’s what you need to know if you haven’t already signed up:
Call for Participants:
Gathering of Neighbors is joining neighbors and businesses in 2009.
Saturday, April 4, 11:00 – 3:00 pm, Chief Sealth High School, 5959 Delridge Way SWIf you are a group which serves the West Seattle Community through community building, resource sharing or business services, you are invited to participate in the 2009 Gathering of Neighbors. The Delridge Neighborhood Development Association and the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce are co-sponsoring this high-visibility event where businesses and community organizations from across the West Seattle Peninsula come together, one day, one place, as “one community”.
Deadline for registration is Friday, March 13. Forms can be downloaded from www.dnda.org
Questions about the event? Contact Suzanne Nevan (206) 923-0917 x122, suzannen@dnda.org
Questions for the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce? Contact them at 206-932-5685, info@wschamber.com
Gathering Of Neighbors:
Date: Saturday, April 4th, 2009
Time: 11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Location Chief Sealth High School (at Boren),
5959 Delridge Way SW
The Gathering of Neighbors is one of two major annual events created by the now-defunct West Seattle group Megawatt. Now, a gratuitous plug: The other one is West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day, which we at WSB took over after Megawatt disbanded, and we want to remind you that the 5th annual WSCGSD — the second one organized by WSB — is coming up just a month after Gathering of Neighbors: Saturday, May 9 … look for more details in the weeks ahead about how to sign up for that!
It’s an often-used quote attributed to the late music legend John Lennon: Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans. This manifests in ways large and small – just ask North Delridge resident Betsy Hoffmeister, who’s spent the past year spearheading an effort to create a place at Cottage Grove Park (above) for the littlest kids in her neighborhood to play (here’s our first report from 2/22/08). We reported two weeks ago that the plan was evolving, and now Betsy is inviting you to help:
Are you interested in building a play space appropriate for the youngest children in Delridge at 26th Ave SW and SW Brandon St? If so, please attend a site review meeting with the Department of Parks and the Department of Neighborhoods on Thursday, February 19 at 11 a.m. If the weather is really bad, we will meet at the Neighborhood Service Center next door to the library on Delridge Way. Some background:
It’s been exactly a year since a group of parents in the Delridge neighborhood of Cottage Grove brought up the idea of building a tot lot at the site of the Cottage Grove Park on 26th Ave SW and Brandon. The City recently put in a new playground there, and we neighbors find it really difficult to use. The equipment is intended for older children, but the kids in our neighborhood don’t seem to play on it. There is absolutely nothing for toddlers to do, so families with mixed groups of kids tend to go to the other playgrounds in other communities. We held a series of discussions and public meetings to come up with an idea and decided on building an additional playground on the site, to contain a double bay swingset for tots and older kids, a small climber, and some spring toys. Lots of neighbors and businesses chipped in, we brought this to the City, and were awarded a Small and Simple Grant to pursue the project but with lots of preconditions.
One of the preconditions was for a landscape architect to draw a site design. A lovely volunteer architect drew up a site plan and ushered it through the City’s multi-step review process.
The result of the review process was a bit of a shock. The Parks Department folks decided that with all the concrete retaining wall, building drainage, moving irrigation pipes, moving trees, and other hardware stuff, the project is likely to cost on the order of $200,000. Yeah, I know, that’s a little nuts, considering that the equipment itself is less than $20,000!
Their suggestion was to come back and ask the neighborhood – rather than building a new playground, what could we do with the playground we already have to improve it? In the very near future, we will have a big old public meeting to discuss this. I have finally met one single family who loves this playground and we want to hear what they love about it, but we also want to hear from folks who don’t love it, what they’d like to change.
In the meantime, we went ahead and applied for a Neighborhood Matching Fund grant to try to get the money we’d need to build out, but that is only up to $50,000 matching. The meeting on Thursday is to look at the site, discuss options, and talk about preparing the full proposal to the city. We need some warm bodies, with or without children, to come along and demonstrate the difficulties of using this play equipment and talk about what we would like to see done. Please come out and help. Contact me, Betsy, at betsy at hoffmeisters dot com for more information.
Cottage Grove Park is at 5206 26th SW; here’s a map.
From the WSB West Seattle Events calendar:
TALK TO YOUR SCHOOL BOARD REP: For the first time since the Seattle School Board approved major changes and closures, West Seattle’s board rep Steve Sundquist will hold one of his regular coffee hours, to talk with, and listen to, anyone interested in education issues (and there are lots more on the horizon, like the start-time changes we mentioned last weekend). 9 am, Coffee to a Tea in The Junction.
HEAR FROM YOUR CITY COUNCIL PRESIDENT: Richard Conlin is one of the guests scheduled for tonight’s meeting of the Delridge Neighborhoods District Council, 7 pm, Youngstown Arts Center. The latest on the Alaskan Way Viaduct/Tunnel project also is on the agenda.
FAUNTLEROY NEIGHBORS UNITE: 6:30 pm at the Fauntleroy Church Fellowship Hall, it’s the all-neighborhood meeting organized by the Fauntleroy Community Association to share updates on issues including Washington State Ferries‘ future and the in-progress purchase of the Fauntleroy Schoolhouse.
From tonight’s West Seattle Crime Prevention Council meeting at the Southwest Precinct: As previewed earlier, the leader of SPD’s 911 center was the marquee guest, and the two-dozen-plus turnout was bigger than usual. What he had to say, coming up – but first, a few West Seattle crime notes: Overall, Lt. Steve Paulsen said, car prowls and burglaries jumped back up in January after a relatively quiet December, perhaps weather-related: 147 car prowls, more than 50 burglaries. But he also noted that police have no control over what happens after they’ve made an arrest, recapping the 14 burglary arrests made in the last couple months of the year – with 13 of those suspects back on the streets now. Meantime, the precinct is taking a new community-policing-focused tack with burglaries, having detectives call or visit all burglary victims who file reports, to follow up and to introduce themselves. One more crime note: Lt. Paulsen says last month’s stabbing incident near Riverview Playfield (covered here) was not random; some concerned neighbors were in attendance hoping to find out more about that. (And if you’re wondering, no new information about the unsolved shooting death of Steve Bushaw in The Junction on February 1st.) Now, on to the 911 explanation:Read More
(Chris Holm, Gwen Schwenzer, Georgie Kunkel, Elaine Russell and Anita Lusk)
By Christopher Boffoli
West Seattle Blog contributing journalist
There was a completely different version of West Seattle on display this afternoon: one in which people were happy to work for 59 cents an hour and bought their houses for $3,500 cash. A group of local “Rosie the Riveters” hosted a presentation, to a large group of residents of Providence Mount St. Vincent and their guests, based on their experiences as aircraft workers in Seattle during World War II.
Georgie Kunkel, Chris Holm, Anita Lusk and Gwen Schwenzer all worked in aircraft production in some capacity during the war years. Elaine Russell, and many other women like her, worked in a supporting role that freed up men to go off to the War to fight. They were trailblazers at a time when it was uncommon for women to even be employed outside of the home, let alone be dressed in coveralls and drilling holes through airplane wings.
“I was always adventurous, “ said Anita Lusk, a native of Wisconsin. “I’ve had a lifetime of mountaineering and sky diving and had that sense of adventure from early on. So the idea of moving to Seattle to take a job with Boeing was exciting to me.” Ms. Lusk and a friend, barely in their 20‘s, had been hired on the spot at a hotel in Milwaukee by a Boeing recruiter and took a train west for the first time in their lives. It apparently didn’t matter that they were young, single woman moving to a strange city on their own. “It was a different time. We were young, adventurous girls and Boeing seemed desperate to find employees. My friend and I lived in a boarding house and I worked at Boeing Plant 2 installing radio components in B-17’s.” She added, “Seattle was smaller then. Mercer Island was a forest of trees. If I knew what I know now I would have bought land out there.”
Chris Holm also answered the call for workers and moved to Seattle from St. Paul, Minnesota where she had previously worked in a factory processing meat. Her older sister had come to Seattle before her so she knew what to expect. “It wasn’t hard to get a job in the mid 1940’s. All of the young men were away fighting in the War so there was plenty of work. I worked for Puget Sound Sheet Metal works, adjacent to Boeing Plant 2, riveting bulkhead assemblies on B-29’s. It was important for the steel rivets to be very hard so they were kept on dry ice. We worked a lot. Usually 10-12 hours a day, seven days a week. I was delighted to be paid 59 cents an hour and I was able to save a lot of money.”
The War punctuated the end of the Great Depression, offering well-paid employment to people who had struggled with poverty for many years. Though they quickly became experts in airplane construction, few had ever flown in one and wouldn’t have an opportunity to travel by plane until decades after the War. Gwen Schwenzer explained, “A lot of people had been poor before that. I was very happy to be paid 69 cents an hour to work at a facility connected to Boeing at Lake Union.” Ms. Schwenzer worked on both B-29 and B-19 aircraft, riveting from the inside as a “bucker” would stand outside of the fuselage with a hardened piece of steel that would receive the end of the rivet and form it smoothly against the skin of the aircraft. “It was very important to rivet straight.” she said, “The worst part of it was getting used to eating our dinner with dirty hands as you get awfully dirty when you’re riveting. But I enjoyed the work and appreciated having money to put towards our house.”
“When we were working the money just piled up,” said Ms. Holm. “We were able to buy our house at 14th and SW Holden for $3,500 cash. It was small but we were able to add onto it as our family grew and we never went into debt. I still live there now.” Despite the long hours and seven day work schedule, there was still time for fun. “There were so many activities and events,” added Ms. Holm. “I loved going to the Trianon Ballroom, which on those days was at 3rd Avenue and Wall Street downtown. Harry James, Tommy Dorsey and lots of big bands came to town. Sometimes they would do radio broadcasts from there. And there were always lots of servicemen around to dance with.”
Georgie Kunkel played songs on the piano today before the start of the Rosie the Riveter program. And in between the stories, she led the audience in sing-a-longs of music that was popular in the 1940’s. “There was so much romance then,” said Ms. Kunkel. “All of the songs were about women who were waiting for their men to come home. We just don’t have that kind of romance now. In those days the women waited. I’m not so sure they’d wait now.” Ms. Kunkel met her husband only a month before he went overseas with the American Field Services. Shortly after he left he proposed to her by letter saying simply “consider yourself engaged.” When she and her husband were selected to appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 1989 for a show about letters from the War, Ms. Kunkel confessed that she had forgotten how exactly she had answered her husband’s surprising proposal. “Fortunately, he kept all of my letters in a coffee can during the two years that he drove an ambulance during the War. When I went back through and found my response to him I had written: “I haven’t known you long enough but I will wait.”
Ms. Kunkel worked at a Boeing factory in Chehalis, in Lewis County, drilling holes in wing panels on B-17’s. Like the others, she enjoyed her work immensely. Despite common stories of women being teased and mistreated by men at the factories who didn’t approve of having women on the line, all of the “Rosies” who worked at Boeing said that their work experiences were trouble-free with small exceptions. “I do recall that whenever something would go wrong, like if a rivet hole was not drilled squarely, the leadman would always come to me first and try to lay the blame on me. It was hard to drill straight holes. You had to eyeball it. But I knew my holes were straight.” The woman often faced greater gender challenges outside of their wartime work experiences. One of the women on the panel told a story of being asked to vacate an apartment as soon as the building manager learned she was pregnant as “they didn’t want any babies there.” And Ms. Kunkel related her experiences years later working as a teacher when she was repeatedly fired and re-hired after becoming pregnant and having her children. She would have to subsequently re-enter the school system at the lowest pay grade and work her way back up each time.
As essential as their work had been during the war effort, their departure from the factories was swift at the War’s conclusion. “We were all really surprised when the War ended,” said Ms. Kunkel. “They came over the loudspeaker and announced that the War was over. We were marched out of the factory that day and most of us never went back.” Ms. Holm returned to work for Boeing after the War as a file clerk, but at a fraction of her pay on the line. “I was happy to leave when the men came back,” said Ms. Schwenzer. “The men needed their jobs back.”
As the women transitioned to the roles of being wives and mothers, some of their paths wandered from Seattle. Ms. Lusk had been married in California during the War while her husband was on leave. “He was a wonderful artist. While he was overseas he would draw elaborate sketches on the correspondence he would send home.” Ms. Lusk had many of his impressively illustrated letters on display during the presentation. “After the War we moved to Colorado where my husband taught art. But he was eventually recruited by Boeing. We first went to live in Wichita, Kansas which wasn’t my favorite place. But I was delighted when they moved us back to Seattle because I loved it so much here.”
Most of the women would all ultimately return to Boeing in style when years later they were honored at a luncheon and when a permanent plaque was placed in their honor at the Boeing plant. Each was proud of the small but important part they played in the hugely successful effort of the “Greatest Generation” to save the world from Fascism. With their presentation today, illustrated with love letters from people separated by war, and photographs of working women that would become iconic images for the Feminist movement, the women are perhaps among the most humble heroes of West Seattle.
That’s how WSB’er “Westseattledood” headlined her e-mail, which included the following amazing tale, and the photo shown above:
My dog and I came back into West Seattle this afternoon after enjoying a hike through Seward Park. We stopped at the 35th & Avalon 7-11 for a can of pop just as rush hour traffic was beginning at this infamously busy intersection. The entire parking lot was completely full, except for one slot on the east side of the parking lot. I pulled in and decided after a brief cost/benefit analysis, to the leave the back window down so the Big Dog, the dood, could continue to hang his head out the window and watch all the comings and goings while I dashed in. I was quite mindful of the sketchy characters congregating around the car, but decided to take the chance and pop in and out.
I was in the store for about one minute, as there were no other customers. As I walked past all the cars to the end of the building, I cleared the last big truck adjacent to mine, I saw my car was not where I left it. My stomach dropped out of me. And, I was worried that someone would steal the dog! Someone had stolen the car! I did not leave the keys in! My god, they were unbelievably quick! I looked around the parking lot and just as quickly, I heard a woman directly across Avalon to the south (where the new building is going in), screaming and waving her arms. She was standing by my car, which was now angled parked into the cyclone fence of the construction site.
I flew across the parking lot, waited for traffic on Avalon to slow and crossed to my car. Somehow the truck rolled all the way from the top of the lot down through the narrow driveway of the parking lot, across four lanes of rush hour traffic to roll to a gentle stop across the street. The dog, oblivious to any harm, remained stationed at the rear window, as can be seen in the photograph attached.
My dog and I are clearly surrounded by angels. The angels, of course, are assigned to my good dog. I am merely the beneficiary by association.
PS. And, of course, I’ll be getting a new parking brake immediately.
In his State of the City address today (full text here), Mayor Nickels put out the call for 10,000 more people to volunteer. We know you’re probably volunteering already. But in case you’re not – the city’s partnering with United Way of King County to round up that help, and here’s the start link on the United Way site. (Side note: WSB often reports on ways you can help, and all those stories can be found, newest to oldest, in our “How to Help” archive; we’re always ready to get the word out about more volunteer opportunities, so contact us anytime!)
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