The following article is quoted from an article by Marie LITTLE, historian for the Alderwood Manor/Lynnwood area which has been very familiar to me and has much meaning. This copy of the article is by permission of Marie Little, who reserves copyright and must not be copied without her permission. It is found in The Third Age January, 2004 issue. Her article reads as follows, followed by my Comments as I can relate to this article, its author, and many of the place noted in the article. In the Perspective On The Past, Marie Little writes: On November 25, 2002, Janice Tutmark and Mary Wickstrum shared a golden shovel at a ground breaking ceremony for a park designed to interpret the heritage of the rural community of Alderwood Manor and the City of Lynnwood. Perhaps, as the two women pushed the shovel into the ground, they were reminded of the many shovels full of dirst that had been turned on the property over the last 65 years. In 1934, Mildred and Albert Humble moved to Alderwood Manor with their daughters, Janice (14) and Mary (11). They had traded their five room house in the Ravenna District in Seattle for a two-room house on five and three quarters of acreaage located on Popular Way. "Dad wanted to live in the clountry where he could have a cow and some chickens and Mother loved gardening," recalls Mary Wickstrum of Edmonds. Joseph R. and Harriet B. Holt were getting along in years and wanted to live in town where it was more convenient and there was less work. It was common for people to trade rather than buy or sell a house during the depression when money was scarce. Janice Tutmark, who lives next door to her sister, laughted as Mary said, "We moved out on May 5th, and it was the god-asful rainiest day you ever saw." Leo Echelbarger moved everything in his truck. The furnishings from the Humble's five room house which included a piano, large leather courch that follded out to make a bed, an overstuffed chair, sewing machine, and a big Monarch kitchen range filled the two room, 12 x 24 ft. house to capacity. Two double beds and a dresser overflowed into the well house. The beds were stacked one above the other bunk-bed style, and the girls slept "overhead." They had to climb over the top of the dresser to get to their bed, and scramble over it to get to the outhouse in the middle of the night. But by the time they creawled out the next morning the sun was shining and they realized their new home was in a truly beautiful setting. Although they felt as if they were living "way ou in the country," it was a 45 minute train ride from Seattle. Mr. Humble rode the Interurban to Seattle where he worked nights as a janitor at the Alaska Building. Janice, who was a freshman at Roosevelt High School, stayed in town with a friend, riding the Interurban out to Alderwood Manor on Friday afternoons to spend weekends at their new home for the few weeks that were left in the school year. The Alderwood Manor Grade School was just a short walk for Mary as she followed Poplar to Filbert, then crossed the bridge over the Interurban tracks to Beach near the Alderwood Community Church, pas the Magnolia Feed Store and the Alderwood Mercantile which some people called "Wicker's Store." Mary enrolled in the fifth grade; although she was just completing the first semester of the sixth grade in Seattle, because the country school operated on a September through May schedule. It worked out for the best," Mary recalls, "because they were working on arithmetic problems that I had never seen before." That first summer was a busy one as everyone pitched in to work on the farm, takiing care of the animals, building chicken coops, and working in the garden. They remember helping their father harvest filberts on the Demonstration Farlm which was just across the road. They spread the nuts out to dry on racks in the basement of a building where baby chicks had hatched, before the Puget Mill Company got out of the poultry business. The building had originally been built as a hotel where prospective landowners could stay while they looked over the opportunities offered by the Puget Mill Company to own a little farm where they could raise chickens, live off the land, with hard work, become rich. The Humble family didn't realize they had moved into a community on the brink of change. Norm Collins had taken over the Central five acres of the 30 acre Demonstration Farm and had started the Washington Breeders Hatchery. Within five years, the remaining 25 acres would be subdivided and sold as one-acre "ranchettes." Even the Community Hall would be remodeled and sold as a residence and the Interurban train made its last run in 1939. Albert Hujmble was a skilled carpenter and both girls helped him add on to the little house. Janice especially remembers helping put up rafters, but with a job in town and all the other farm work to do, the family spent the first winter sleeping in the unheated well house. They would warm granite rocks in the oven of the big Monarch range, then wrap them in newpaper and a towel for carrying out to their beds. The rocks would still be warm in the morning when they woke up. Bathing was done in a galvanized wash tub in the kitchen. When they finally could move into the house with closets in the bedrooms, the girls felt as if they were living in a castle. Still, they were truly on a farm. There were chickens to feed, eggs to gather, and a cow to milk. Janice was responsible for milking the cow at 6 a.m. before she went to schoo - even if she had been out on a date until 2 a.m. Mary said she couldn't milk the cow because her fingernails were too long and the cow wouldn't cooperate; however the goats didn't seem bothered. She also had to chase the pig whe it got out. Janice remembers the pigs as well. It seems the sow began giving birth to a litter of piglets just as they were getting ready to go to her bridal shower in 1938. She married E.A. (Skeet) Tutmark on September 24, 1938, the year after they graduated from Edmonds High School. They bought a little house from Bill Geltz who operated the Magnolia Feed Store. By the time Mary graduated, the Interurban was no longer running, so she moved to Seattle to work after completing a busi-nes (sic - CC)school course. In 1942, she married Dale Holtcamp, an Ed-monds (sic CC) High School classmate, who had joined the Merchant Marine. In 1947, they returned to Alderwood Manor and settled on an acre at the sothwest corner of her parents propery on Poplar Way. They had a 32 x 24 ft. house moved on the property from Bremerton. Formerly used as navy housing, it cost them $1,750. It was nice to be living right next door to her parents and a short walk from her sister in the community of Alderwood Manor. The Humble house continued to bea work in progress. Over the years Albert had dug out a basement by hand, added a dining room, and builta deck in back that overlooked the well house that was now used for storage. When Mary and Dale put a fireplace in their house, he had a fire[lace put in and coordinated remodeling projects with their until it was difficult to tell that the house originally built in 1919, and finished during the Thirties hadn't been built in the '50s. Over the next 20 years, the neighborhood became more suburban than rural as acreage was subdivided, more houses were built, and there were more and more cars on the narrow country roads. In 1952, Janice and Skeet's house was taken out when construction was begun on Interstate 5. The Humble property was subdivided again and the Tutmarks built a new house on a lot created from half an acre of Mary's property and hald an acre of their parents' property. Albert Humble continued to work on his place in the country until he died in 1976 at age 85. His wife continued to live in the house until the mid /80s. When construction moved forward on a new freeway interchange that wiped out all but three acres of the old Demonstration Farm, Mary said, "It was time to move." The City of Lynnwood purchased the property as a site for a heritage park where they could display the restored Interurban car #55. The now historic "Wickers Building" has been moved to the park as well. A water tower built at the center of the Demonstration Farm in 1917 has been moved to the back yard of the Humble residence and The Alderwood Manor Heritage Association has been reconstructing the Superintendent's Cottage that was also located on the farm and will renovate it as a heritage resource center. Mary reminisced, "Mother was a 50 year member of the Alderwood Garden Club. She kept the gardens looking so nice that people would come over to see it as if it were a park." It seems fitting that the Humble residence will indeed be in a park, and the Alderwood Garden Club has adopted the park as a community service project. Janie Tutmark and Mary Wickstrum are also pleased that the City has prop[osed that the house their father built will be renovated to serve as the Sno-Isle Genealogical Library as construction of Phase 2 of the heritage park gets underway. (A photograph of the house described which is to be the loc. of the Sno-Isle Library is shown as a B/W pictured titled: House shortly after the humble (sic. CC)family moved in - photo courtesy of the humble (sic.) family End of article not to be copied w/o permission by author Mary Little who wrote this article for the Perspective On The Past section of the January 2004 issue of The Third Age. COMMENT: Having lived in Alderwood Manor when it was still known as Alderwood Manor with its own Post Office, I can recall several items of this article. I rented a house on Spruce Way after having grad. from Western WA Univ. in 1958. I knew some of the Echelbarger Family - in fact I had and Echelbarger son/grandson at the old 1908 Alderwood Manor Grade School (mentioned) when I taught 4th grade there 1960/61 school year, about a year before the School was decommissioned as a school and became the school district administrative offices. We had genuine SLATE blackboards in that old school which I loved - and a great gym in the very center of the building. The classroom encircled the gym in those days and the chalk was truly "dustless" until one or more enterprising student decided to clap the old felt blackboard erasers together in the room rather than outside. White chalk was the chalk of the day, not the dusty yellow stuff that was to come later disgnated as "Dustless Chalk" on the wooden box. - which was yellowish and anything but dustless. I'm still coughing the stuff from back then! What great students they were!! Yup, I surely do recall the old Monarch Range stoves that were wood and or coal fired. That's where one could stand to get dressed on those cold mornings in Snohomish (my home) - between the kitchen stove and the tall galvanized hot water tank that stood nearby. The living room stove, also wood/coal would only keep one side of you warm, so the kitchen was the place to get dressed - close to the good smells of food in preparation. There was the joke about the Three Main Parts of a Stove (of that era) but it would not be appropriate here, so I will squelch further reference to it. I guess I had gotten the idea that "The Wicker's Store", or Alderwood Mercantile, was the depot for the Interurban for that was what we saw when we stopped there, but a tiny ticket shed was actually the Interurban depot, but the wainscotting of the building was so impressive that we got the idea that this was actually the Interurban Depot as we stopped there from Everett or Seattle depending on which way you were travelling. People and baggage were exchanged there producing the appearance of a Main Depot when it was actually not. I saw a picture of the actual tiny depot that Marie Little showed on a slide and I did recall seeing at when I was a very young kid, but it surely wasn't much of "depot" as I saw it !!! This article by Marie Little, with its mention of the chickens, and the hatchery, etc. all bring back the fond memories that I found when I moved to the Alderwood Manor area from Bellingham college years. I met many great persons, students, at a setting that was soon to CHANGE from the rural setting to the monstrous growth and disfigurement of freeways that erased those old landmarks, and created a whole new exchange of o l d nostalgic era to the n e w grotesque land changes that it has become, choked with traffic - the place just doen't look the same at all. Thank goodness that some of us got to see it all in a different l i g h t and at a different point in t i m e . I plan to contribute generously to the new Library facility describe above so that others can research their ancestry in an old quaint house that if it could talk it would have many great stories to tell - a part of Heritage Park uner construction. Carroll in Snohomish * * * 30 * * *