644 N Seventh Street,
Walla Walla, Washington 99362
46.07182° N, 118.34825° W
Google Maps® Street View (2012)

"An older woman who remembered pioneer days lived across the street."

I grew up in a Walt Disney movie. After all those generations preceding me, I became the fortunate son of the inheritors of all that history, Bob and Bonnie Schmaltz (nee Wallace.) They met and fell deeply in love in Condon, Oregon, marrying in 1945 amid a controversy of their own making. Bob had been born Catholic. Under the ever-watchful eye of his grandfather and grandmother, he was raised Old Catholic, the kind tempered by ample suffering for the faith. His grandfather ruled with an unforgiving iron hand. Had he not died by then, he would have been appalled when Bob agreed not to be married by a priest in the Catholic church. My mom would not consent to catechism classes. After centuries of her family practicing what probably passed as Calvinist faith, she was indifferent, even skeptical of religion in general. The priest insisted that no Catholics attend the nuptials, which meant the groom's family could not attend. Nobody could go anywhere in such a small city without bumping into somebody. They began their married life in controversy.

They were doting parents, delighted with their fate. Their children brought them genuine joy. They fixed up a little shack next door to the bride's parents, where they settled in, childless for the first three years. The bride's mother contracted breast cancer the same year Bonnie first became pregnant. Ruby Kenniston Wallace traveled to Walla Walla seeking treatment, where she died on Christmas Eve, 1948. Bonnie had followed along and bore her first child, a girl, Ruby Carol, there a week later. They returned to Condon and settled in, bringing two more children into the world over the following two and a half years, Robert Allen and David Arnold, both born on the kitchen table of the local doctor. Eight months after David (I) was born, the family relocated to Walla Walla.

Bonnie had been hovering close to her Daddy, protective of him in his grief. He was inconsolable. It might have been better had she not witnessed his descent, for there was little she or Bob could do except see that he didn't freeze to death when he passed out in his truck. Elza finally married a rebound wife, someone after his meager pension, my mom insisted. She stayed around until it was apparent Elza wouldn't make her rich. We never heard from her again.

My folks rented a series of starter places, a tiny box on Modoc Street I do not remember—a larger place with a little creek trickling through the front yard on Hope Street. Then, finally, they bought a ramshackle place out toward the penitentiary at 644 North Seventh. The house was tiny, with the main floor featuring a kitchen in the back and a small bathroom attached. I remember my great-grandmother chasing a frog down into the toilet with her cane. A dining room connected the kitchen with a living room, which connected to the master bedroom. The second floor was a single large room we used as the kids' room. It featured an old couch within which our cat had kittens. I was small enough that I was able to crawl down inside and fetch out the kittens. It was dark and warm in there.

A single oil-burning standing heater between the dining and living rooms warmed the house. There was a trash burner stove in the corner of the kitchen. We hung around the heat sources in the winter. There was no heat upstairs. We slept beneath heirloom quilts. We had no idea who'd made them. Our heritage kept us warm. We played outside in the snow. One year, a photographer for the local paper snapped us and a neighbor out in the cold, and we were featured on the front page—our first brush with notoriety. We had a neighbor down the street who complained whenever one of us would ride our trike over his garden hose. An older woman who remembered pioneer days lived across the street. I remember disappointment when my brother got to go to school, and I didn't. My parents bought me a Trigger lunchbox as a consolation prize, but two big mean guys stole it from me in the alley when I was out practicing carrying it to school with hot soup in the thermos.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Fambly, #PureSchmaltz