*** Ridgefield, Washington, Bits

*** Hooverville in Seattle, 1931

*** U.S. Winter Olympics in 1935 on Mount Rainier

*** Bold Spirit, by Linda Lawrence Hunt, A Must Read

*** Friday’s Funny

Ridgefield, Washington, is almost a suburb of Vancouver. Did you know that Ridgefield was the home of U-Haul? And that the first speeding ticket in Washington was handed out in 1910 in Ridgefield to a fellow from Portland. And Ridgefield’s High School mascot name is the Spudders….from the early days of potato growing. (Made me think of the Beet Diggers, a high school mascot/name in South Jordan, Utah. I’m sorry, but to me it would be hard to yell “Go Spudders!” Or “Go Beet Diggers!”)

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A “Hooverville” was a shanty town built during the Great Depression by the homeless in the United States. They were named after Herbert Hoover, who was President of the United States during the onset of the Depression and was widely blamed for it. Did you know that there was a Hooverville in Seattle in 1931 on the waterfront? (Picture comes from The Columbian, magazine of Washington History.) Were any of your ancestors ever living in a Hooverville?? Would like to hear from you about them. Does sound like pretty poor living conditions.

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Did any of your ancestors participate in those Olympics? Wooden (laminated wood) skis were still in use then but aluminum skis were becoming available. What did your ancestor use? Tell us about it!?

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“In 1896, a Norwegian immigrant and mother of eight children named Helga Estby was behind on taxes and the mortgage when she learned that a mysterious sponsor would pay $10,000 to a woman who walked across America.  Hoping to win the wager and save her family’s farm, Helga and her teen-aged daughter Clara, armed with little more than a compass, red-pepper spray, a revolver, and Clara’s curling iron, set out on foot from Eastern Washington. Their route would pass through 14 states, but they were not allowed to carry more than five dollars each. As they visited Indian reservations, Western boom-towns, remote ranches and local civic leaders, they confronted snowstorms, hunger, thieves and mountain lions with equal aplomb. Their treacherous and inspirational journey to New York challenged contemporary notions of femininity and captured the public imagination. But their trip had such devastating consequences that the Estby women’s achievement was blanketed in silence until, nearly a century later, Linda Lawrence Hunt encountered their extraordinary story.”

I copied this blurb straight from Amazon.com rather than try to explain this marvelous story in better words. Need a good summer Washington history read? You cannot do better than read this book!

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