| Anecdote |
- Thomas was raised on a farm near Kokomo, until his mother died on the 19July, 1896, when he was 14 years old. He left home shortly after and lived with friends in Ohio on their farm. A few years later he worked his way to San Francisco doing odd jobs and riding the rails. He was twenty years old at the time. He signed on a sailing ship and sailed to Australia in about 1899. He sailed into Seattle around 1905 and went to work for the Pacific Coast Coal Company. He started work on the docks sewing coal sacks and worked his way up in the company to bookkeeper, sales manager, and to vice president by the time he retired in 1946. He had only an eighth grade education, but studied independently and earned a Teaching Certificate when he was only about seventeen years old. When he and Clara were married, they moved into a new home they built at 3934 S.W. Southern Street in West Seattle. They owned a fairly large piece of property and Tom took great pride in his yard, and when his daughters were small, he built a fantastic playground for them which rivalled those in most public parks. Many trophies and awards were won during the depression years in the 1920's and 1930's when Backyard Playground contests were popular. There was a merry-go-round with four horses, a huge chain swing, a horizontal bar, a set of six rings, a monkey ladder, trapeze, sand box, teeter-totter, balance beam, and a slide. There was a twelve foot by twelve foot playhouse with electric lights, running water, cupboards, bookshelves, and casement windows. There was a tether ball game, a checkerboard game inlaid in cement in twelve inch squares in the driveway with big wooden checkers. There was a fish pond that had a waterfall running into it. A miniature golf course with nine holes was laid out around the entire yard. The side lawn had room for croquet and as the girls grew older, a badminton court was added and the merry-go-round, sand box, and the slide gave way to an outdoor fireplace and picnic area and lawn swing. Garden parties, Company picnics, P.T.A. teas, church circle luncheons were all annual spring and summer events. And the church young people sang choruses at night around the fire after hamburger feeds cooked on the grill. Flower beds were in profuse bloom from early spring until late fall and a vegetable garden provided fresh produce for months. Tom always rose at dawn in the summer and worked in the yard until time to get ready for work. And every evening saw him again in his garden until bedtime. It was all a labour of love and a time of mental relaxation from the strains of his responsibilities with the fuel business through the Depression, and then the War years. During the long winter evenings of the 30's, Tom spent planning trips to be taken each summer with the family. In 1934, it was Crater Lake, 1935, Banff and Lake Louise, 1936, California, 1937, the East Coast, (including a family reunion in Indiana with over one hundred relatives in attendance, 1938, the Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion Parks and Mesa Verde, and in 1939, all the way to Mexico City. All wonderful and never-to-be-forgotten trips for the whole family. Tom and Clara lived in their home for fifty one years, until Clara's death on the 11th of July, 1963. Tom then sold the home and moved to a retirement home where he lived for two and a half more years. He passed away on the twentieth of December, 1965. They had two daughters by this marriage, Barbara Jean 'Jean' Reeder and Mary Phyllis 'Phyllis' Reeder. This was contributed by Mary Phyllis 'Phyllis' Fletcher -- March 1978.
|
1882 - 1965 (83 years)
[2]