JESSIE MAY PYLES SHELEY WILLIAMS
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I was born February 18, 1911 in my Aunt Maud’s house. Aunt Maud was my Dad’s sister. It was located where the Payless Drug store is now. My Dad built a temporary house down by the river, in Grays Addition, until our house was built. Dad bought our property from Capt. Gray.
My parents were Charter members of the First Christian Church in 1909. Some of us have been active in the church ever since. My first husband Paul Sheley, our children and granddaughters were baptized in this church.
I graduated from Pasco High in 1930. My three sisters, two brothers, my husband Paul, 2 children and my two granddaughters also graduated from Pasco High. My daughter Susan has taught in the Pasco schools for over 26 years. I remember going to Whittier school one year. They served something hot for lunch each day. I would always try and have a nickel to eat Cream of Tomato soup. I have never tasted such good soup. Sometimes they would serve a baked potato or hot chocolate.
In 1938 when I was first married, the thing to do was go to the softball games. We had such a good team and in 1941 won the state championship.
Also, people gave big bridge parties. There would be 15 to 20 tables of bridge players. I have belonged to the same bridge club since 1939. Six of the original members are still here and meeting once a month.
Starting back to the beginning. My Aunt lived in Pasco and my Dad decided to come out here to work on the railroad in the baggage department. My folks originally came from Tennessee and Arkansas. My sisters Wren and Pauline were born back east, my brother Shag also. I was born here in Pasco. My mother went back to Arkansas for a visit and Tennessee, my sister, was born back there. Tennessee was named after my Grandmother, my Dad’s mother.
The original 6 bridge club members still here are: Joanne Christianshon, Austin Colby, Leola Arbogast Umbarger Speed, Maxine Fogg Hancock, Alma Mae Kittrell Cooney, Ida Hutchison and myself.
Going back to Grade School. I went just the one year at Whittier and the rest of the time I went to Longfellow and graduated from the old Pasco High School which later became McLoughlin Jr. High. One of my grade school teachers was Mrs. Hill Williams and she was a tremendous teacher. I had a Miss Hall at Longfellow too; she was sure a good teacher too. I was on the Honor Roll that year. She made you all work hard. When I went to High School we had a Study Hall and we were all seated alphabetically and Kathleen Peterson and Glen Norling always sat next to me.
They used to have big Strawberry Festival in the summertime at the Grange Hall. Of course, I drive by the Grange Hall now and it looks so small.
My sisters Pauline and Wren went out to Wexler’s, which is Harris’s now. They would take a tent and they would stay out there and pick strawberries. We would go out and visit them while they were there. Some of us kids got to go out there and stay with them and that was really neat. Yes, they would have lots of stuff at the Grange Hall besides the Strawberry Festival. They would have Dances too. I was too young to remember who played the music for the dances at the Grange Hall.
They used to have an open air Dance hall between 3rd and 4th street. Of course, I was young and never did get to go to it.
I never liked to swim in the river because it was so cold. When we went swimming and would have to come back home the sand was so hot, you’d keep looking for a blade of grass to stand on. Of course we were all barefoot.
We lived so close to the train tracks that they were just a part of our lives. Slagles lived close to us. Mr. Slagle was an Engineer on the railroad and we always got a kick out of him because when he would come he would blow the whistle and they would all know their Dad was coming home.
In grade school we always had operetta – costumes and everything, stage settings, etc. Emerson Morgan was always my partner in the operettas. I don’t know why but they always put Emerson and me together. This one teacher, I can remember, she must have been a wonderful teacher, she taught us our parts and I can remember she always said that we must always hold our two middle fingers together as it would look so much better, more professional. She must have had ballet training since she knew this. Yes, the operettas were really big affairs. Not all of the children were chosen but I am not sure how they chose the ones to perform. I just know that Emerson and I were always chose. I don’t think it was because we were the same size because I was always tall in grade school and then when I got into High School I couldn’t believe it because everyone else grew and then I wasn’t the tallest anymore. I got my growth when I was younger.
When the other young people were walking across the train bridge – not me – I was a coward. You never caught me spending any time on the bridge. My sisters all walked it but not me. All the rest learned to swim really well but I never like to swim, the water was too cold. Tennessee was a real good swimmer. We wanted our kids to be really good swimmers and we took them to the Red Cross Swimming classes so they would become good swimmers. Both of my kids are real good swimmers. When the Pas-port Plunge was out at the Navy Basin there was this Ensign and his name was Bill Reeves and he was from Pennsylvania and he used to visit us all the time. He would take us out to swim at the Navy Base. He would practically use our house as his headquarters when he got off the base. He bought a car while he was here and it was an open car and he would pile all of us into the car and take us all out to the Base. We thought it was really something because the sailors would have to salute Ensign Reeves and we went through the gate. His mother wrote to me and said how wonderful it was for him to have a place for him to be with a family as he was an only child. We still hear from him every Christmas.
My husband Paul was born in Ellensburg and moved to Pasco later. His Dad was a conductor on the railroad. They lived in Ellensburg, Spokane and then Pasco because these were the three railroad terminals at that time. We were in the same class in school. When he was a young kid, he was a great skater and he used to skate past me and I used to think he was the cutest kid. Of course, at that age he wouldn’t look at me. We never started going together until we graduated from High School. We went together for quite awhile. I was 27 when we got married. He started working in the theater when he was just in grade school. He wanted to go to the show so he got a job sweeping off the sidewalk. Then Lawrence Minkiewitz taught him to be a Projectionist. You see Minkiewitz was the Projectionist for the theater and Mr. Minkiewitz later became a painter. But he’s the one that taught Paul. Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds owned the theater and Minkie was married to one of the Reynolds’s girls. He was married to Marion Reynolds. Then Pearl Reynolds, she played the piano for the silent films. Then later on they got the organ in the theater and they had some wonderful organist play in the theater.
Mr. and Mrs. Pence owned part of the Pasco Hotel building. They had the restaurant part downstairs. I started working in my Dad’s store and it was right next door to the Pence’s place. The little tiny store that my Dad had at that time. It was really just a stairway to the Hotel but when Pence’s didn’t have that part then they closed that off as a stairway and they just had that little alcove and my Dad rented it and we had a Newsstand there. We sold candy, cigarettes, and magazines along with the newspapers. Then I would come down from grade school to work in my Dad’s store. My sister Pauline would work in the daytime and then I would come down to relieve her after I got out of school. When I worked I would get to order something from Pence’s to eat and I really thought that was living. I would have a sardine sandwich and butterscotch pudding. The restaurant was in the back of the building on the ground floor and the candy store was in front. They owned the downstairs below the restaurant. Only the more affluent were able to eat in the restaurant. People didn’t go to restaurants like they do now.
If I hadn’t been working I would not have been able to order anything but that is the only way I would be able to get something to eat. Later on my Dad built the building right next to the Liberty Theater and made it into a Sweet Shop. Of course, it was just a small building. Then we moved his business into the new building. We didn’t have a regular restaurant, we didn’t have short orders but we did have a lunch at noon. In the evening we just served sandwiches. All of us Pyles girls worked in the Sweet Shop. My Mom never worked in the restaurant but she made the Chili. Oh we had the best chili. She made it over at the house and then they brought it down to the Sweet Shop.
Then later, my Dad sold the Sweet Shop to Noah Bailey and I worked for awhile for Mr. Bailey. I also worked as Cashier at the Theater. Howard McGee was the doorman. I went to California for a year and a half and then came back and got married in 1938. I had always lived in Pasco and I was gone to California just long enough so when I came back I was perfectly satisfied to stay here the rest of my life. My sister Tennessee and brother Shag were both in California so that is the reason I went down there.
My Mother always told the story about Pauline and Wren. Mr. Pine, of course, lived in Burbank and he had to come over to the First Christian Church and he had to come over on the ferry. Pauline and Wren went up to the Church and nobody was there yet so they put their nickel on top of the piano and went home.
Some of the kids went ice skating in the winter time. I never did but my husband Paul, he always skated. When we were first married Paul bought me a pretty pair of white ice skates but I don’t remember skating with them. It seemed that there just wasn’t enough ice the following winters to skate.
The Depression did not have any particular effect upon me. It seemed like we always had plenty of food. I can remember down at our house, we had this porch around the house and we had a big, round, oak table and my Mother raised chickens and we had a garden. Dad raised corn, and other vegetables and I never remember not having enough to eat. But when I was in high school I alway think about Glen Norling, he sat in back of me, and of course you wore the same dress all the time. I can remember this one dress, my Aunt sent us the material, and it had cherries in it, and my mother made me a dress out of it. I’ve laughed about that dress as I bet Glen Norling sure got sick of seeing that dress every day, looking at those cherries in that dress That was the thing that just slayed me when my daughter got in school. She had to have a different dress every day.
We didn’t have any money during the Depression, but nobody else had any either. I remember hearing people who came from the Dust Bowl and they swore they would never eat soup again as that is all they had to eat. It struck me funny as I don’t ever remember feeling deprived or anything.
Gong back to my Dad. He worked, I don’t remember how many years for the railroad but not too many. He soon took over delivering the papers in town. He had a horse and buggy and he had every paper, like the Seattle P.I., The Oregonian, and the Seattle Times and had every paper. That is how we got in the New business when he opened the Newsstand.
I can remember the winter weather when he was delivering the papers. Sometimes the snow would be so deep he would say to us kids, “You kids deliver the papers down here in Grays Addition”. The snow was so deep it was really hard to deliver it. I can remember my mother saying one year it started snowing the first day of February and it snowed every day the month of February. My mother’s brother lived with us and he worked at the Beanery, in the Railroad Station, he made lunches and sold them on the train. He would make the sandwiches and when the passenger trains would stop he would go on the train and sell them. He was such a clean, tedious guy and once in awhile we would go down to see him but we couldn’t get up to see in the window. He would look out and see us. He would say, “What do you kids want?” and act real gruff but then he would end up giving us candy and we thought that was the greatest. Every morning, during the big snows, he would have to get up and clear a path from our house across the street to Miss Olivers. Years later the Railroad Station was torn down. The American Legion was across the street from the Railroad Station and the American Legion later burned down.
For years the Christmas decoration were never displayed until the day after Thanksgiving. It just drives me crazy to see all the decoration put up so early nowadays. Another thing that upsets me is the children – my brother used to say, “Let the kids play ‘Kick the Can’ for a few years, don’t push them ahead so fast.” Down there in Grays Addition we played ‘Run Sheepy Run’ I can’t remember exactly how we played it but one group would hide and then the other group was supposed to find them. One would call out different colors and that would tell them where they were. They’d like call out “Blue” and then we’d run and gosh, I’d be so scared I’d get caught. ‘Kick the Can’ was where there were two sides and a line was down the middle, the can was set on the line and each side would try to kick it without getting caught. It was sort of like soccer. We used to play down there under the street light. The whole neighborhood used to play. That’s the thing that I think is too bad. There are several generations that have never heard or played any of those games. I feel badly about the children of today not knowing about all of this but I supposed if they don’t know anything about it they won’t know what they missed. You see, when my children were small, this was all vacant lot out here and they played ball out here. I made both my kids help with the dishes and I thought a boy should help as much as a girl. I remember one time I called outside and said “Come Paul and help with the dishes”, and he came in and said, “Now Mother, the whole neighborhood knows I have to help with the dishes”.
We had most of our dances in the Bungalow, which was located in the basement of the Liberty Theater. The special dances like the Junior Prom and Senior Ball were always held in the Bungalow. One year I was on the Decorating Committee for the dance and we put vases of yellow daffodils along the wall. Of course Graduation was always in the Theater. They also had Public Dances in the Bungalow. The thing I remember about the dances, being right next to our store, we could run down, dance a couple of dances and come back upstairs to work.
My son lives in Spokane and he is an electrical lineman. He has two sons. My daughter Susan is a teacher and she has two daughters. All of my sisters each had a girl and a boy child. My brother Shag never had any children. My brother Charlie died at a young age. My Dd’s name was Levi Pyles and my mother’s name was Jessie Mae.
This was retyped from a letter that Jessie May Pyles Sheley Williams wrote herself. It is not dated. This letter was found in the archives at the Franklin County Historical Society and Museum
