Elizabeth Irene Bryan-McCabe, born July 9, 1914, daughter of Charlotte Lucinda Mawrey-Bryan and William Wilson Bryan in Washington, D.C.

WE FLEW TO CHICAGO ON A DC-3
After a three hour wait we took a DC-4 and flew to Boise, Idaho Airport. From there we flew over Salt Lake City, Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens. We had no fold down trays as we do now on planes. The stewardess put a pillow on our laps to place the trays of food on. Then flying over Mt. Rainier at sunrise was a sight to behold. Orange, gold and red .. made it look like an ice cream sundae. When we were living on Rainier Avenue in Seattle, we could see Mt. Rainier on a clear day. It is a spectacular vista.

We lived in SEATTLE and then KENT, WASHINGTON.
We moved to a ranch in Kent, which is about 20 miles from Seattle. The house was in the middle of 60 acres. The owner leased the land out to cattle ranchers part of the year and grew alfalfa the rest of the year.There were over 50 fruit trees, mostly apples of many varieties and some peach trees, pears and plum and even a filbert tree or two. Ms. Lillian Olson, the owner, also had a tea house in Seattle. She used the fruit to make desserts for her customers. We were allowed to use all the fruit we could eat.

WOOD STOVE, FIREPLACE AND NO NEIGHBORS
There was a large red barn where bales of hay were kept. The house had only electricity. No heater. Only a fireplace and a wood stove. I had to learn to chop wood in order to keep the place warm and to cook food. My daughter, Aimee and son, John began school in Kent. They had to take the bus to and from school. We had to listen to the radio on stormy mornings because when the roads were too icy, schools were closed.

When we moved to the ranch in Kent, Washington, I had never had to chop wood. I cooked on a 1910 model wood stove, with a hot water tank attached. The heat from the stove would heat the water. The stove also had a warming area on top. I had to chop wood to keep the stove and the fireplace going. We ordered a cord of fire wood and I had to chop each piece into three parts. So it would fit in the wood stove.

The fire was started and coffee, oatmeal, eggs were cooking when the family trouped in to eat breakfast. Aimee and John would eat and run out to the road and wait for the school bus. (Unless the radio said no school today.) Linda and Michael would play until Aimee and John came home from school.

HIGH TREE STUMPS
I remember the time Aimee and John decided to take Linda for a walk to Mt. Rainier. They got to the end of the property and turned around to head back home. Once Aimee climbed to the top of a very high tree stump to pick blackberries. She couldn’t get back down. John came and got me and took me to her to help her down. In those days, lumbermen cut trees pretty high off the ground and left the high tree stumps.

There were WASPS, YELLOW JACKETS AND BEES on the property.
The wasps would build their nests outside our door. I had to discourage that. I would take the hose and knock down their nest. Guess that was dangerous. But they were attacking the kids whenever they would go outside. Red ants would build their anthills out in the fields too. Once in awhile Aimee or John would be running in the tall alfalfa grass and step right into one. I would have the hose ready to squirt the ants off of them. Once Aimee got stung by a bumble bee. She was running around barefoot and stepped on one. There were clovers everywhere. Bees like clovers.

We used to go to LUMBERJACK EVENTS too.
The lumberjacks would climb up poles and have a race to see who could cut the top off first with chainsaws. Also they would have wrestling events while balancing on floating logs.

FRESH FRUIT
Mac went to work at Boeing early, while it was still dark to drive the 25 miles. It was dark when he returned home from work. So I had all the wood chopping to do during the week. He did the chopping on the weekends. With all the fruit trees around the house, I had lots of canning to do. There were Delicious apples, Gravensteins, Winesaps, Early Green Apples, Banana Apples, Yellow Delicious Apples, Wolf Apples, Crab Apples and several varieties of pears. I would also halve, core the apples and put brown sugar and butter on them and bake them.

We had a FRONT PORCH FACING MT. RAINIER
And rocking chairs. Every so often a Finnish couple would walk up our long driveway and sit in the rockers and rock to and fro and never say a word. I would offer cookies and coffee and Mac would offer beer or bourbon. They would accept it all and rock some more. Then bow and go home. This was the extent of neighborliness in Kent, Washington. We did have a nice neighbor across the way. Mr. Lamb who had a big garden. He gave us vegetables. His wife raised ponies. She made it clear that she did not like children.

One day, our daughter, Linda insisted that Mrs. Lamb invited us over to ride the ponies. I doubted it, but to please her and Aimee, John, and Michael, (asleep for his nap). I washed their faces and hands and put on clean clothes and we went down our driveway and across the road. Linda, being more social minded than the rest of us, knocked on the front door. We got an icy stare and she said "what are you doing here?" So we wended our way back home. They couldn’t understand it at all. So I made cocoa and we had our little party.

I NEVER DROVE A CAR
Mac tried to teach me once, but I was not comfortable with it. So Mac would buy groceries on his way home from work. The nearest doctor was in Renton. There was nothing in Kent in those days. The children were never in a store until we lived in California. 1951.

OUTSIDERS ARE NOT WELCOME
It was very hard to be accepted. Newcomers were not welcome. Even the teachers were not very nice. Aimee had a hard time because she was new and also because of the spelling of her name. Perhaps they felt her name should have been spelled the "American" way. But as I get older, I realize most people do not like new people to come into their lives.

4TH OF JULY PICNICS
Mac belonged to the Volunteer Fire Department. On July 4th there was always a all you can eat picnic. Hot dogs, ice cream, soda pop. And of course fireworks. Everyone had a good time. At home on the ranch, Mac sometimes would bring home fireworks and he and the children would set them off near the barn. Cherry bombs were thrown at the barn and exploded. Once Mac put little firecrackers into the wood stove before I got up. When I started the fire to begin cooking breakfast the firecrackers all went off. What a joker.

CHRISTMAS PARTY FOR THE CHILDREN
This too was put on by the Volunteer Fire Department. There was a Santa and presents for all the children. Very nice time.

BREAKFAST AT MT. RAINIER
In the summer we would pack a breakfast and go to Mt. Rainier. I would fix bacon, eggs and toast. There were picnic tables and lots of room for the kids to play. Once we had bread on the table and Blue Jays began coming down one at a time and taking one piece of bread at a time. We let them take half of the bread. The children were very interested in watching the birds so cleverly taking the bread.

On our way home from Mt. Rainier we once saw a very large dead grizzly bear on the hood of a pickup truck. We also used to find real Indian arrow heads on the trails at Mt. Rainier. Little did we know that we were living the past. I guess we are now too.

HUNTING
Mac was invited to go hunting with his pals at work (Boeing). He came home and told us all that he could have shot and killed a deer and a rabbit. He said he couldn't do it. He looked at their eyes and felt sick about it. How could anyone kill a beautiful, harmless animal? That conversation stuck with the children. None of them are hunters or approve of killing animals. In fact, Aimee, our oldest,is a strict vegetarian today.

EARTHQUAKE!
There was a big earthquake in the Seattle area. Many windows in the Boeing building were shattered. The children and I were home. We saw the water heater swaying back and forth. I looked outside and saw the electric wires swinging like jump ropes. The cows all went wild and jumped the fences. Special cowboys were called in to round the cows up. One cowboy was hanging onto a cow’s tail and being pulled around.

WHITE CENTER, WASHINGTON
Later after moving back to Seattle our home was in section called White Center. Our home sat on a ridge where we could see the Olympic Mountains from our dining room. What a view. Snow capped mountains, range after range. I counted five ranges, as far as my eyes could see.

One day, the radio said a storm was coming. I could see it coming in from the Olympic mountains. I called my husband to hurry home. The storm was coming closer and closer. He had left the car in the garage under the house that morning. He took the bus and had to walk. The snow was piling up and it was hard to walk through it. It was so dry his clothes did not get wet. Someone wrote in the newspaper that it was the most perfect snow. The snowflakes were perfectly shaped.

And of course the snow piled up against the garage door and it was weeks before he get the car out to drive it again.

We had to order coal and not being able to put it in the basement, they dumped it on the hillside in the snow.

On Saturday’s we would go to the movies. Nine cents for two full length movies, cartoons, the news and a Flash Gordon serial. The theaters in those days had a glass room to take crying children into so as not to disturb other movie goers. You could watch the movie from there until the child stopped crying or you could simply stay there and watch the movie.

We had the Conradi’s for neighbors. Doris and Chris. We would go over on Saturday evenings and play cards. Pinochle or Canasta and share refreshments. We lived in White Center from 1949 to 1951. Doris remained my friend forever. We corresponded regularly. We had remodeled the house. Put tile floors and new bathroom. All baby blue fixtures and installed an aluminum garage door. Dad & I worked as a team. He painted the outside all white and dark green trim. He was painting until the day we left. We rented the house until it became too expensive to be absentee landlords. We sold the house. The house and the neighborhood is still there and looks the same. Aimee visited Seattle in 1994. She took some photos of the house.

TO LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA. 1951.
Mac began working for Northrup in Los Angeles. We found a home near the Los Angeles Coliseum. There were palm trees and the houses all had front porches. There was a neighbor family next door that encouraged their son who was the same age as John to practice KungFu type fighting on John every time he came out of the house. Another neighbor had a German Shepard that although he was behind a high fence, his owners said that he would attack anyone who so much as carried a stick.

Aimee liked to roller skate up and down the sidewalks. She had friends who lived a few houses away. They would sit on the porch and crochet. She would crochet doilies and sell them to neighbors for a dollar. And then buy more thread to crochet more.

We were close enough to walk to the Coliseum. During big events, some people would rent their driveways for parking to people who went to these events. One day they had a big rodeo. We all went to one of the events, a rodeo. Cowboys were on their horses and we walked, by all six of us, waiting to get in. One cowboy leaned over his horses neck and said "You look like a nice family" and gave us tickets to go in free.

NO TV
A neighbor had a color television. We were invited to sit and watch the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. We did not buy a television until we lived on Chapala Street in Santa Barbara. Even then, it was not a big part of our life. The children spent their days outside playing.

JULY 4TH BLUE ANGELS
We went to see the fireworks at the Coliseum one fourth of July. We were sitting pretty near the top of the stadium. When it got dark, we were all asked to light a match. Quite a sight. Then the Blue Angels came out of nowhere and swooped into the stadium and out again with the most thunderous noise one could imagine. One man had a heart attack. Michael nearly fainted from the noise. They never let the Blue Angels do that again.

SCHOOLS IN EAST LOS ANGELES
The children were just about the only white kids in the school. They seemed to adjust well. The other children were well behaved and well dressed. Aimee went to birthday parties and piano lessons with friends from the school. Michael did have a black teacher who did not like white boys. But she changed after a while.

TO PACOIMA, CALIFORNIA
We bought a home in Pacoima, in the San Fernando Valley. Very nice house on a corner lot. A grade school was just across the street. Aimee and John liked to ride their bikes in the school yard. In those days, the schools were not locked up. They even had summer events for children.

All was well until Aimee had to go to Pacoima Junior High School which was over a mile away. She had to walk the distance to and from school. This school was predominantly Spanish-American. The kids were very rough. The school allowed, or least it didn’t object, to students chasing after new students entering the 7th grade and putting red lipstick all over them. There were gangs of boys that beat others with bike chains, knives and razors after school or in the restrooms. No guns or dope yet. The girls were rough too. One girl named Josie took a dislike to Aimee and began threatening her with violence. Aimee was frightened. We moved from Pacoima to Santa Barbara. Mac was going to work for Vandenburg.

SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA
What a difference. So lovely. Beaches and mountains. A nice downtown and buses. We rented a house on Chapala Street. It was a Spanish style house which sat back from the street. The round dining room had murals painted on the walls. Wrought iron railings curved up the stairs. But no electric outlets. It was a pretty house though. Aimee and John went to LaCumbre Junior High School on Modoc Road. They took the bus or walked. Aimee liked to say "from Fats Domino to Pat Boone". Much nicer school and environment. No violence. Much safer. Linda and Michael went to a grade school nearby. We lived there until we moved to 288 N. LaCumbre Road, a little further north of town.

LA CUMBRE ROAD, SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA
What a big house. Two stories on almost 3 acres with a cemetery adjoining the property. There were lemon trees across the street, covering blocks and blocks of land. No homes yet. The shopping center down the road on State Street and LaCumbre Road was a walnut grove then. There were no traffic signals. Just a Stop sign on the corners. There were no stores nearby except for Kelly’s Corner which was a small grocery store.

At this time, Mac was working for Vandenburg. He was only home on weekends. He was also thinking of starting his own business in the aeronautics field. He had invented a device which would detect if a plane was too near. This would prove to be too expensive to sell. He and Howard Stark, his partner, would eventually lose the rights to the invention. They sold the business. There was not much profit as we owed alot of money to this project. Rather than go bankrupt, Mac paid back every cent of his debt. This took years.

The children grew up, and went out into the world. Mac and I went to Nutley, New Jersey for a year or so. Mac worked for ITT. We had a nice apartment. On weekends we took a bus to New York City and rode the subway to downtown. We really enjoyed living near New York. When the job ended, we moved to Redondo Beach, California. Mac loved the Pacific Ocean. We walked to the beach almost every day. We enjoyed each day. Mac passed away in his sleep on June 27, 1987. He is dearly missed.

I moved to Portland, Oregon
I lived with Linda for a short spell. It was too cold for me. Aimee and Richard picked me up and moved me into a really nice studio apartment near them. We had nice times together. They took me out for drives, out to lunch, etc. They eventually did my shopping for me. My legs became too weak to do much walking. It was hard on Aimee and Richard as they both worked long hours.

Friday Harbor, Washington.
We decided that I really needed to be with someone during the day. So I moved back to Linda's. She lived in Friday Harbor, Washington. She has a large home. I am well taken care of here. Linda and her husband, Tom, are very good to me. I miss Aimee and Richard but understand why this came to be.

Elizabeth Irene Bryan-McCabe passed away on January 3, 1996. She is dearly missed by all of us. She had quite a life.

If you know of anyone who lived in the Washington, D.C. area during the early days, 1914-1945, I would love to hear their stories. Consider writing your Personal History! I have begun writing mine! My children and their children will have something to read and pass on to future generations.