<Begin Segment 18>

JA: So your school was located near Old Bellevue.

MH: Yes.

JA: Could you describe what Old Bellevue was like?

MH: At that time, Old Bellevue was a great big school sitting right in the middle there and that's it. And then when you go down to Main Street, there was only one street going north, east and west, and on one side was the drug store and there was a Washington State Bank there, a little one which went broke. And then we had a grocery store on two corners of Main Street and then we had about three gas stations, and that was all about what was there at that time when I was growing up.

JA: And the ferry?

MH: Well, the ferry was from Medina. You had to go all the way to Medina. The early stages they used to get on the boat. We used to go out at Meydenbauer, but, see, that was before my time. But my time was in Medina. We had to go all the way to Medina and we take the boat there and then went over to Leschi and from Leschi you take a streetcar that goes up the hill and down to Yesler.

JA: And did, Beaux Arts Village was in existence at that time. Did you ever take walks to Beaux Arts Village?

MH: Beaux Arts Village?

JA: Yes.

MH: That's right down the road from -- that's where a lot of the students from Beaux Arts Village used to come to Bellevue schools. So they were our friends too so we used to walk that way and things like that. And like the Neumanns lived over there in the Beaux Arts area so we used to go there quite frequently over there, to their home.

JA: Now, that was largely a community of artists. Is that correct?

MH: (Yes), that's right. (...)

JA: So did the behavior of the parents and children --

MH: Oh, (yes). They were great kids. They were great, brilliant kids (...). Yes, they were.

JA: So that may have attributed to why you got along so well with them, they were a little more liberal in their thinking.

MH: (Yes), I think so, too.

JA: And so in general what was Bellevue like as a community?

MH: As a community? It was rather a small community and then after they built that one shopping area up there, that's across the street from the Bellevue Mall. That little corner there developed into a grocery store. And so we had a grocery store and then we had a gas station on the other side of it, on the east side of, west side of that, and the Kay Neumann Lumber Yard was near the corner there, on the north corner there. And so there wasn't really very much at that time, just small.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.