It has been over a 18 months since I have added anything to my Dad's memorial site. I work on our family genealogy quite a bit and found a couple of photos of homes that my father (plus his family) once inhabited. I thought these photos should take a turn in "telling stories" about Dad & his early life before I (and my sisters) entered the "scene". Thus, I have added two new photos to Dick Slater's memorial gallery today.
Dick Slater, my Dad, never talked much about his younger years in Seattle and Salt Lake City. I know, when he was an older teen, that Dick had a job, in Salt Lake City, detailing cars at a big car lot dealership............and it was also in Salt Lake where he was smitten (with love) in meeting my mother, M. Leone Fairclough. (The "M" stands for Maude--but mother despised that name and only used it when she had to officially!)
Dad mostly reminisced about living in Manitou (an outlying area of South Tacoma, Washington) and also said much about living in Spokane. It is quite obvious that those two domiciles were his favorites, in growing up. It was in Manitou where Dick first met Jess Green. They fast became "best friends" and forever remained life-long buddies--truer friends than most real brothers ever amount to--no matter what.
Jess's father, Roy Green, introduced Dick's father, J. H. Slater ("Harold"-my Grandfather), to the existence (and selling) of J. R. Watkin's products. Grandpa excelled as a top Watkin's salesman and later became a manager of Watkin's distributorships--first in Seattle, then Oakland (Ca), Spokane, Salt Lake City, and finally back to Tacoma. (perhaps not in this precise order). When the Slater family moved to Spokane, Roy Green followed suit by moving the Greens, also, to Spokane--to the delight of Dick & Jess. Adelia Green, Jess's mother, developed into becoming one of my grandmother's dearest friends. Jess's sister, Nelda, became fast friends with Dad's younger sister, Irene.
Dad often, fondly, recalled attending (and graduating from) Lewis and Clark High (Tigers) in Spokane. (I believe Dick had a dog when living in Manitou & when living in Spokane, as well. In his later life, Dad never missed an opportunity to re-visit either Tacoma or Spokane--usually both on the same journey, besides the fact that these two locations are over 350 miles apart. He wasn't one to favor Salt Lake, or other spots, over the Pacific Northwest, as Tacoma and Spokane remained his all-time favorite haunts and these two spots always were catalysts in spurning up and reviving favorite "old memories" galore.