"Carl and Marie Gravseth"
Carl and Marie settled in the east section of Tacoma, moving first to 82nd and B as newlyweds in 1918. (Meanwhile, two of Marie's brothers, Chris and Al, went off to fight in WWI). Another move took the couple to their final home at 8041 East C when Marie was expecting Lillian (born at home 1925). Mervin and Evelyn had been born earlier. Later came Clarence (Lillian was closest to) and Arthur the baby.
It was a self-sufficient home. There the family planted a huge garden, tended fruit trees and berries, raised chickens, cows, and pigs, feeding the family well and often providing for their neighbors (during the Depression). Carl also fished in Puget Sound, deep-sea fished from California to Alaska every summer and took shipbuilding jobs, as well as positions in the ice plant and Sperry Flour Mill. Perhaps, Carl's more challenging job (if not fun) was the building of a fishing boat in his backyard. He once had owned a fishing boat called the "The Pearl" but sold it before Lillian was born. Unfortunately, the new boat was never completed.
Lillian says the Gravseth children often spent the evenings playing board games. Monopoly was their favorite, but so was a Norwegian game their father had made. As they played, sometimes their musical parents would entertain them. Carl had a deep baritone voice when he sang and could play the violin, guitar, clarinet, flute, and mouth harp. Marie played the guitar and also sang. Lillian loved to sing along, but it was their son, Clancy, who would carry on the musical tradition. He mastered the guitar and joined a western band in his youth, and from what I hear, he nearly made it to Nashville.
I do not remember Carl playing such instruments, although I do recall his loud baritone voice (usually in Norwegian), which sometimes startled me and added to my confusion. He'd laugh and often called me his "little Jap girl," an endearment I never really understood, until my mother explained that he admired Japanese beauty. (Perhaps it was my black/brown hair.)
It was much later that I heard Marie sing on the guitar, a beautiful Norwegian folk tune. I was awestruck. I became curious about her as a person and discovered a woman of deep Christian faith, an influence that has impacted me greatly over the years. Her passing in 1980 was a hard blow, but her presence is still strongly felt.
Tacoma was a good home for the Gravseth family. In 1920, about the time the Carlsens and Gravseths started settling there, it had a population of 96,965. The lumber business was still going strong, but it was the last decade that timber would be the main industry. The sawmills were located on the tide flats and from there the lumber was either towed out by boat, trucked out, or stacked on rail cars. Land management concerns would eventually change this, shifting the emphasis away from the generations-old industry.
Logging was what drew pioneers to the area in the beginning. In 1852 when a Swedish man built a water-powered sawmill at the head of Commencement Bay, settlers began pouring into the area. It's unofficial name was Commencement City, but it became Tacoma officially in 1868. When Northern Pacific Railroad chose Tacoma as its home in 1873 (much to Seattle's distress), luck seemed to be on Tacoma's side, but the railroad was ten years coming. Meanwhile, Seattle bypassed them as a major port, and supposedly Tacoma has been playing catch up ever since.
When the family began migrating to Tacoma in the 1910s and early 1920s, the city was beginning to see signs of modernization and change. In 1926 the Cushman Dam allowed Tacoma to have electricity on a regular basis for the first time. In 1927 Charles Lindberg flew over Tacoma skies introducing everyone to the novel idea of airmail postal service. It was the decade that Babe Ruth visited the children's wing at Cushman Hospital (1924), and President Harding made a visit (1923). And in 1928 the Puget Sound Electric Railway that had traveled from Tacoma to Seattle since 1902, made its final run. It was too slow at 45 miles an hour.
More change came in the 1930s. The beloved Tacoma Hotel burned in 1935 and in 1938 Tacoma celebrated its last streetcar ride. Crowds gathered on 9th and Broadway to watch it pass for the last time, making way for the new busses that would soon take over. Tacoma was growing fast and so was the need for additional transportation byways.
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge went up in 1940, so residents in Gig Harbor and surrounding areas (e.g. Fox Island) could cross Puget sound into Tacoma. Unfortunately, "Galloping Gertie" as became her nickname, buckled and broke in the wind that same year. Engineering students (my husband included) would study the flaws in the design of this famous bridge for years to come.
Fourteen million dollars later, a second bridge went up in 1950, but the story of the original bridge, "Galloping Gertie," was legendary my entire childhood. I still recall the film clip of a man escaping his car just in time, and of his small, black dog who ran the wrong way and went down with the bridge. I doubt if anyone living in Tacoma at the time couldn't recount the story, and repeat it over the years to their children as mine did to me. For years I held my breath every time I crossed that bridge, wondering if it would go crashing down a second time.
The Narrows bridge not only symbolizes an event most remembered in Tacoma, but it also symbolizes the great waterway of Puget Sound it spanned--that huge water expanse that attracted so many to the area. Fishing brought early immigrants to the Puget Sound region in the 1880s, especially the Slavs, Greeks, and Norwegians. (Ten years earlier another influx of Norwegians had come to fish and lend their boat-building skills to the area).
There was so much salmon in the sound, it was rumored one could support themselves with a rowboat alone. By 1910 and as techniques became more sophisticated, fish canneries began popping up. In 1920 Tacoma had nine in operation, which eventually led to a shift in the industry. By the 1930s the area had become saturated with fishermen, which might explain why Carl Gravseth went to Alaska to fish in the summers. Fishing was a fact of life in Tacoma. I would not be surprised if everyone in my family has fished, clam dug, or picked up oysters on the beach at one time or another. It's what you do it seems when you live on Puget Sound.
I do not remember Carl playing such instruments, although I do recall his loud baritone voice (usually in Norwegian), which sometimes startled me and added to my confusion. He'd laugh and often called me his "little Jap girl," an endearment I never really understood, until my mother explained that he admired Japanese beauty. (Perhaps it was my black/brown hair.)
It was much later that I heard Marie sing on the guitar, a beautiful Norwegian folk tune. I was awestruck. I became curious about her as a person and discovered a woman of deep Christian faith, an influence that has impacted me greatly over the years. Her passing in 1980 was a hard blow, but her presence is still strongly felt.
Tacoma was a good home for the Gravseth family. In 1920, about the time the Carlsens and Gravseths started settling there, it had a population of 96,965. The lumber business was still going strong, but it was the last decade that timber would be the main industry. The sawmills were located on the tide flats and from there the lumber was either towed out by boat, trucked out, or stacked on rail cars. Land management concerns would eventually change this, shifting the emphasis away from the generations-old industry.
Logging was what drew pioneers to the area in the beginning. In 1852 when a Swedish man built a water-powered sawmill at the head of Commencement Bay, settlers began pouring into the area. It's unofficial name was Commencement City, but it became Tacoma officially in 1868. When Northern Pacific Railroad chose Tacoma as its home in 1873 (much to Seattle's distress), luck seemed to be on Tacoma's side, but the railroad was ten years coming. Meanwhile, Seattle bypassed them as a major port, and supposedly Tacoma has been playing catch up ever since.
When the family began migrating to Tacoma in the 1910s and early 1920s, the city was beginning to see signs of modernization and change. In 1926 the Cushman Dam allowed Tacoma to have electricity on a regular basis for the first time. In 1927 Charles Lindberg flew over Tacoma skies introducing everyone to the novel idea of airmail postal service. It was the decade that Babe Ruth visited the children's wing at Cushman Hospital (1924), and President Harding made a visit (1923). And in 1928 the Puget Sound Electric Railway that had traveled from Tacoma to Seattle since 1902, made its final run. It was too slow at 45 miles an hour.
More change came in the 1930s. The beloved Tacoma Hotel burned in 1935 and in 1938 Tacoma celebrated its last streetcar ride. Crowds gathered on 9th and Broadway to watch it pass for the last time, making way for the new busses that would soon take over. Tacoma was growing fast and so was the need for additional transportation byways.
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge went up in 1940, so residents in Gig Harbor and surrounding areas (e.g. Fox Island) could cross Puget sound into Tacoma. Unfortunately, "Galloping Gertie" as became her nickname, buckled and broke in the wind that same year. Engineering students (my husband included) would study the flaws in the design of this famous bridge for years to come.
Fourteen million dollars later, a second bridge went up in 1950, but the story of the original bridge, "Galloping Gertie," was legendary my entire childhood. I still recall the film clip of a man escaping his car just in time, and of his small, black dog who ran the wrong way and went down with the bridge. I doubt if anyone living in Tacoma at the time couldn't recount the story, and repeat it over the years to their children as mine did to me. For years I held my breath every time I crossed that bridge, wondering if it would go crashing down a second time.
The Narrows bridge not only symbolizes an event most remembered in Tacoma, but it also symbolizes the great waterway of Puget Sound it spanned--that huge water expanse that attracted so many to the area. Fishing brought early immigrants to the Puget Sound region in the 1880s, especially the Slavs, Greeks, and Norwegians. (Ten years earlier another influx of Norwegians had come to fish and lend their boat-building skills to the area).
There was so much salmon in the sound, it was rumored one could support themselves with a rowboat alone. By 1910 and as techniques became more sophisticated, fish canneries began popping up. In 1920 Tacoma had nine in operation, which eventually led to a shift in the industry. By the 1930s the area had become saturated with fishermen, which might explain why Carl Gravseth went to Alaska to fish in the summers. Fishing was a fact of life in Tacoma. I would not be surprised if everyone in my family has fished, clam dug, or picked up oysters on the beach at one time or another. It's what you do it seems when you live on Puget Sound.
