An endearing thing about the ‘Burg is our abiding love of things old--whether they be people, houses or trees. We like our history, take pride in it. Barbara Tuscany blogs about interesting old houses, dubbed Healdsburg’s “old ladies.” I prefer to write about interesting old people, dubbed Healdsburg’s “old timers.” Through Neighbors I have met some of Healdsburg’s grandest and finest. Here are a few memories (in my voice, unless otherwise noted)...
A Strange Introduction: After I first saw him burst through the door of John and Zeke’s, I began having Bill Wendt sightings all over town: Bill crossing Healdsburg Avenue on his three wheeler, Sparky. The tricycle parked in the doorway of Cosmic Copies. Then a sighting of the trike unattended in the Raven lobby. I swing into action, scribbling a note asking for an interview. I place the torn sheet of paper prominently over the John Kerry bumper sticker, fastening it down with one of the many bungee cords in Sparky’s full basket. He can’t miss it.
A few days later I’m awakened by the ringing of my phone at 7:15 a.m. 7:15! I’m rarely up before 8:30 or 9:00, so it has to be an emergency! I rush to answer it.
“Hi, Shonnie. This is Bill Wendt. Can you meet me at Starbuck’s at 10:00?”
Remembering a Grandmother: Mary Lou (Eddinger) now shows me a photo of her mother Rose (Pavoni) teaching grandsons, Nick and Joe, how to cook. “Rose made these aprons for them,” Mary Lou tells me. “Nancy had to look all over to get the chef caps.” She hands me a crayon drawing of a heart within a heart bearing the signature of third grader Joey Madarus (Nancy’s son). A school assignment about his grandmother--Rose Palmieri Cattalini Pavoni. It reads, “She had to make me happy everyday.... That was her goal!”
A Secret Revealed: “During Prohibition we were allowed to make 200 gallons of wine for personal consumption,” Ernie Palmieri recalls. “But the government officials were always coming around looking for illegal booze and there were some stills up in those hills. The officials parked their 1930 Chevy sedan down in front and walked up to the door with suits on. They checked the hay loft and the basement. While they were looking around, my dad poured water in their gas tank. The next morning I went by on the school bus and saw their car pulled over and deserted down the road. I never said a word to anybody.”
Still a Character at 100 and Counting: “I sold squirrels for spending money during the Great Depression,” Mary Barry tells me. “People’d say, ‘Mary, you climb a tree and act like a nut. You are some kind of nut!’ My family lived in Washington state and had a jerky little hotel on the coast. I was the fourth child of six... Shortly after my birth in 1907, we moved to Warrenton, Oregon... Daddy nightwatched at a mill, and, after Mother died of double pneumonia in 1916 at age 38, Daddy raised us five kids single-handedly.”
No comments:
Post a Comment