Eastgate 1982

I don't have very many photos of Eastgate but I wanted to share them anyway.

I have vague memories of this strip mall being built in the late 60s or early 70s - it was well before Factoria Square.  I recall a Cut-n-Curl (I think it was called), a music store where I got a music stand when I played the cello in fourth grade, a Christian bookstore (I remember being given one dollar in Sunday School to spend however I wanted except on candy and purchasing a wood cross necklace and thinking "that's what my Sunday School teacher would want me to buy"), Albertsons, Skaggs, and possibly the Baskin & Robbins.  There was also a gas station (Chevron?) off the right side of this photo where I remember getting free Smiley Face lunch bags and glassware with fill-ups.  Many of the stores were still there in 1982.  I believe the Albertson's and Baskin & Robbins are still there as of 2012!

Bellevue Airfield is written up about halfway down this page of forgotten airfields.

This is the Bellevue Airfield about 1978


From the 1980 Historic Aerials, you can see the strip mall south of I 90 (Freeway running East-West) and the airfield on the upper right.

This is motel in Eastgate undated but I believe it's the 1970s. Artist Kenton Pies designed the look of the Longhouse Motor Inn and shared this photo with me.

Visit Kurt Clark Eastgate Walkabout for more Eastgate photos.

Fifth Birthday Party

I'm celebrating a milestone birthday today. I suppose it makes me even more nostalgic than other times when I decide to visit vintage.

My fifth birthday party. Classic games like London Bridge



and pin the tail on the tiger (?)


Bubble pipes for party favors.  The cake stand was a music box, you turned the plate to make it play. I believe my crown says "Happy New Year"

Some of my gifts:
Jumpin' Mrs. Potato Head!

and I remember the rubbery brown "wig" on top of the piano here

And I still have a book I received that birthday - Dr. Seuss' Happy Birthday to You!  I read it several years to my kids on their birthdays.

From Visiting Vintage

You can peek inside some of the pages on Amazon.

Too many birthdays to remember them all but old photos sure help.

Seattle December 1978

My favorite elective in high school was photography.  In December 1978 we took a field trip to downtown Seattle and wandered around shooting anything we wanted.  I feel a bit awkward now doing street photography and taking photographs of strangers - but being a teenager and being on assignment I guess I felt entitled to do so.  We shot black-and-white so we could process the film and develop the prints ourselves.  I took over sixty photos but most of them I had only seen in contact print size since I only enlarged a handful of them.  A few years ago I came across the negatives and took them in to be put on a CD and it was pretty exciting for me to see them big.  If these look familiar to some of you I shared them at the time with Vintage Seattle and you may have seen them there.

(Photos removed. I may post them again if I can prevent them from being shared for profit by others.)

Flak over Esbjerg Denmark

Part two of "War is Scary". 

From Maren Nielsen Andersen's album

From Maren Nielsen Andersen's album

From Maren Nielsen Andersen's album

These photos, too were in Maren's photo albums.  They are scary yet eerily beautiful.  I can't imagine what it would be like to be close enough to photograph an event like this.  Last night I e-mailed The Archives of Danish Occupation History (thankfully they have information posted in English!) to find out if these photos could be dated and already heard back from Henrik Lundtofte Head of Archives.  He wrote that this was probably April 20, 1943.  I have a lot to learn about World War II and I especially don't know much about the war as it impacted Denmark except that Denmark was occupied by Germany.  I did find this information about Halifax II JB930 crash landed near Esbjerg 20/4-1943 which once I have time to read all the pages I will be very helpful to learn about the night.

After the war, the German mines were blown up and she also had a photo of that.

From Maren Nielsen Andersen's album

Maren and Hans Andersen had been in the United States since the first decade of the 1900's but they still had relatives in Denmark.  I can assume that it was a relative of Hans that sent these photos to America.  And again, I am so grateful to Maren for keeping them.

Walt and the US Navy

Like many boys his era, my father-in-law Walter S. Robertson joined the military as soon as he graduated high school in Mount Vernon, Washington at age eighteen. It was 1936.

He enlisted in the US Navy. Training camp was in San Diego.

From Walt's Navy Photos

Walt was sent to Panama Canal aboard the USS Bushnell (more here) in 1937, Guantama Bay as a Submarine Tender and Norfolk, Virginia to service subs.

From Walt's Navy Photos

From Walt's Navy Photos

From Walt's Navy Photos

He developed pleurisy which was worse in the tropics and was discharged due to the illness in 1938 from Portsmouth Naval Hospital, Virginia.

Walt then met Vi when on a double date - Walt was with Wilma and Vi was dating Gordon Shea - both couples switched partners. Vi and Walt married August 31, 1941. Walt joined the Naval Reserve in 1943 when World War II was in full swing.

From Walt's Navy Photos

He went through Hospital Corps School at Farragut, Idaho

From Walt's Navy Photos

From Walt's Navy Photos

From Walt's Navy Photos

From Walt's Navy Photos

and was stationed at the United States Naval Hospital in Seattle (Fircrest). He received training as a pharmacist mate - the doctor in charge was Wendell G. Scott who wrote text on Radiology.

From Walt's Navy Photos

From Walt's Navy Photos

From Walt's Navy Photos

From Walt's Navy Photos

After his tour was over in 1945, he returned to Mt. Vernon to his wife and baby daughter, Judy. They moved to Yakima, Washington where Walt worked as an X-Ray technician for St. Elizabeth's Hospital and four more children were born.

From Robertson, Fey, Noakes

His career then took his family to Bellevue, WA where he became the manager of the Xonics Inc. X-Ray Co. in Seattle. He retired from there in 1982.

More Navy photos
If anyone can confirm that the beginning photos of this album are in-fact San Diego, I would appreciate it (they weren't labeled).

Old Photos of Montana

I get to be the keeper of old photographs for both Tom's side and my side of the family. I have two small neatly organized photo albums from Tom's side that have higher quality photos than most photos I have and it has me wondering if a professional photographer took them and sold these completed albums. There are no photographer markings anywhere on the albums and only a few on the photos. This is Tom's grandfather Charles A. Robertson working in the mercantile in Gold Butte, Montana

From Toole County, MT

Tom's Great Grandmother was a Fey. They hailed originally from Prussia/Bavaria/Germany (I'm still trying to nail down what it was called and when). They immigrated to New York. Then a few decided to move to Montana since there was so much land. They were pretty successful as ranchers and mercantile owners. These photos appear to be belong to the Fey side - a few are labeled Gold Butte which is in Toole County. Other known towns the Feys lived in are Conrad, Shelby, Sweetgrass Hills, Great Falls and Valier. Be sure to click on the slideshow for larger images - I think these photos are pretty awesome!



I haven't heard of any connection to Tina Fey of SNL to Tom's Feys. But I have heard that they are related to Charles August Fey who invented the slot machine. I still haven't found the connection, though.