Wilson Creek, Washington,.......Ever Been There?

 

Twice a year, Nancy Curry drives from her home in Cheney down to Wilson Creek, Washington, to put flowers on her parents’ graves. It’s a beautiful drive through flat Palouse wheat country. She explained that the little towns were purposely built every twenty miles or so along the railroad for hauling both people and produce. I was delighted to be included in her October 2022 jaunt.

We drove south from Davenport, through Harrington, roughly paralleling Crab Creek, past Krupp-Marlin (originally was Krupp but that was too German sounding during World War II so it was renamed Marlin). We slowed through Odessa (remembering the October German Fests we’d attended there in the past), and on to Wilson Creek and nearby Stratford.

Nancy recalled fond memories: at about age 7, and with her brother and cousins, walking the 3.6 miles one way from the farm to the little store in Wilson Creek, with a dime tightly clutched, to buy a popscicle. The dime was earned by digging dandelions: 100 for 10 cents. Her parents had grown up together in nearby Stratford (big old 1902 brick school house) and had retired in Wilson Creek. The house where they lived was built in 1909 and once was white with green trim but still has the green metal roof over now a blue-with-white-trim façade. Nearby lived Nancy’s grandparents. Memories of her visits there are still vivid in her mind.

Her father grew up in Stratford and told her how he played, fished and sailed boats on Stratford Lake. (The family had an apple orchard and her father told how he carved his and her mother’s initials in all of the trees.) Other cousins walked down from the top of the coulee down into the Crab Creek drainage to where Stratford was to attend school. A 2-3 mile walk one way to school, outdoors in all weather, never fazed students in those days.

The Wilson Creek cemetery rests on a bluff above town and appears well mowed and cared for. A recent fire had blacked the area around the cemetery but was mercifully stopped at the perimeter. A few scattered pines frosted the grass with needles; Nancy wished she had brought a whisk to clean off her family’s grave sites but happily used her hands. She brought and placed stems of yellow-and-orange fake flowers to replace the pink ones from last spring. She pointed out that her plot is next to her mother for when her turn comes.

Just a mile down the road from Stratford, and in the middle of a corn field, is a square plot of cemetery where two of Nancy’s uncles (who died as babies) rest. She always remembers them too. The cemetery is just plain dirt, not a green blade of anything growing. Nancy thinks the ground was poisoned for some reason. We agreed; it was a sad, sad sight.

Happy to leave that sad cemetery, we drown past Ephrata to Lakeview and Soap Lake (so close together as to seem one town). We lunched with her cousin, Sharon, at the Lakeview Golf Course café where the Chicken Taquitos were delicious. Was fun listening to them swap and share memories.

Thank you, Nancy, for sharing your family trip with me.