Dad's Story Part 11

The Eventful year at Spokane, Washington

            Another promotion for Dad in the Continental Oil Company took our family from Lewiston, Idaho to Spokane, Washington.  Dad was the assistant divisional manager.  The house we lived in was on 28th South and about three or four blocks west of Grand Ave.  It was near Manito Park, a large beautiful park of which I have many fond memories.  In the summer time we went there for picnics, and enjoyed the beautiful “Duncan garden" that had many varieties of roses and other flowers.  I also played on the tennis courts and the ball fields.  In the wintertime we ice-skated on a pond in the park.  It also had a steep hill for sledding.  I remember showing off on my sled by riding it down the hill facing backwards, which stunt ended in disaster by running into a pine tree.

            Spokane was a beautiful city with many varieties of trees.  The Ponderosa or Yellow Pine is native to the area.  Another beautiful tree that was there in abundance was the Mountain Ash, which has bright clusters of orange berries. 

            Besides Manito Park there are many other city parks in Spokane, most of which have public swimming pools.  When we lived there in Spokane, it had a population of about 100,000 people and was a very large city compared with Lewiston and Wieser. 

           Spokane, being a fairly large city, had probably two or three hundred members of the Church living there at that time.  It was like Lewiston, Idaho located in the Northwestern States Mission.  So it was not a ward but a branch.  The Spokane Branch had a nice brick chapel that was located downtown, right across the street west of the old Lewis and Clark High School.  The only meetings I remember much about were Sunday School and MIA.

            Our Sunday School class met on the stage of the cultural hall, and our teacher was Brother Benfell, who later became a member of the Spokane Stake High Council, when Dad was a member of the High Council.  He was a very good teacher, but had a tough bunch of kids to handle.  One of the things that made the MIA meetings memorable was that on Tuesday evenings after delivering papers, I would take the streetcar downtown and stop off to eat dinner at a little lunch counter near the Chapel.  My usual favorite was a toasted cheese sandwich and a strawberry malt. 

            In those days in the mission field, membership records were slow in catching up with the members, the Branch Presidents were not very much on the ball about getting acquainted with the members of their Branch, and our family was not among the most active members of the Branch.  So I missed being ordained a deacon when I should have been.