INA’S WINTER VACATION – 1934 (PART 1)

A crocus blooms in Seattle

February – still winter and nothing much happening. Well, strictly speaking, that’s not true because things are happening in the ground. The crocuses and daffodils were blooming in Seattle last week, and surprisingly, primroses were also in bloom. Back home, I noticed one of my late-planted daffodils pushing through the soil, and to my great relief, I counted a dozen or so yesterday. It looks like I won’t have to call that large order of bulbs a loss after all. But – it IS still winter, and a regional cold snap is in progress. All danger of frost is not past.

You just have to find things to do in the winter, and for some people, it’s a good time to travel. In February 1934, my great-aunt Bertha wrote to her sisters in Drain, OR, as follows: “Ina [my grandmother] weighs 145 and feels pretty good. Vance wants her to come to Raymond for a visit. He was cutting wood lately and I suppose holding it with one hand and the ax glanced with the usual result. It severed some of the cords (tendons) on the back of left hand; they took him to the doctor and after stitching it up he could use his fingers. He is starting to teach jazz – imagine it.”

Vance at piano, 1934

I had forgotten that my dad’s thumb was misshapen, but I remember his telling me that the doctor was able to re-attach the tendons. Otherwise, he would have lost the use of those fingers and his livelihood as a pianist, though he might have continued to teach, I suppose.

Perhaps this accident was one reason that Grandma Ina decided to visit Vance that winter of 1934. I know she was worried about him. She left her farm home in the hills of remote central Idaho and traveled to the west coast. She would make this trip count by also visiting daughter Myrtle in Portland, her sisters Ida and Mabel in Drain (OR), and other relatives.

The farm was (is) a difficult place in winter

Ina opted for a one-way train ticket because a round-trip ticket would obligate her to return within ten days. Her ticket to Chehalis (WA) via Portland cost $9.51 – a lofty sum in those days. Chehalis was evidently the closest train stop to Raymond in southwest Washington where Vance was a piano teacher. My map shows that Raymond is 35 miles and an hour’s drive from Chehalis.

Indications are that Ina stopped in Portland to visit daughter Myrtle before going on to Raymond. She stayed with Vance several weeks before going back to Portland and then on to Drain to visit her sisters. On the first of April, Aunt Bertha, who lived on the adjacent farm, wrote to their sister Ida: “Keep Ina as long as you can as it’s doing her so much good.” Ina was battling high blood pressure and perhaps even depression. KW

[The bottom photo was taken at the farm in the spring of 1941. Left to right: Aunt Ida Patchen (Ina's sister), Ida's daughter Edna, Vance, Ina, Pearl, and Julian (Jack).]