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Della Utterback Schmitz Oral History

   Were you born in this area?

   Yes, I was born in my grandparent’ home located at S 176th and Des Moines Way South. I went to Highline High School where they had eight grades. I graduated from Highline in 1938….

   My grandparents had forty acres and we had ten. They had horses and cows and geese and chickens and pigs. Then on our place we had a horse and a cow and goats and chickens. After my dad retired from the navy he built a big chicken house and we had about 20,000 chickens. We sold to Washington Poultry and Egg Co. in Seattle. They had to be all cleaned and candled.

   Our closest neighbor was about six or eight blocks away. One family that lived near my grandparents was the Burton family. Mrs. Burton was the sister of Mike Kelley’s wife. She passed away before I knew her. Her son, Harry Burton lived there a long time, and had raspberries and blackberries and loganberries. We used to go there and pick them when we were in grade school. To the south of us on 200th, I think it was, Picketts had their big chicken farm. We had 20,000 and grew ours for eggs. Down on Ambaum the Yeisleys had cows there and they sold and delivered milk in his wagon.

   The old street cars were called the Toonerville Trolley. I rode in on that thing. My mother had a cousin in White Center. Sometimes my dad would drive us into Burien and then we’d take that trolley to WC and, boy, I’ll tell you, that was worse than any amusement ride today. We held on for dear life, even just from Burien to White Center. It wasn’t a trolley that you’d want to go on if you got seasick, because it would wiggle back and forth. You bought tokens, 3 for 25 cents. They never took money, just tokens. We put the tokens in a little box and the conductor would sit there and twirl the little handle around and around. Then, of course, if the trolley jumped off the line he would have to get out and put it back on the line again. It went down the middle of the street, so you had to walk out to the middle of the street to get on and off. We didn’t know anything else.

   Des Moines Way was a brick highway when I was a kid. Then they had planted elm trees all the way from the city limits to Des Moines. Each tree represented a soldier from Washington State that was killed in World War I. And on Memorial Day the families would put flowers around the trees. There were two of them in front of my grandparents’ place and they always made sure there were flowers around the trees, because a lot of the families were from eastern Washington and could not make it over very often. Now most of the trees have become diseased. There is a memorial in front of Sunnydale School. The trees grew up so big, and they were not so attractive, and then they got the disease. My family was lucky that nobody was killed in the war. Two of them served in France.

   When we were kids they put 99 through to Tacoma. My dad had this Overland car had he had these big tanks of gasoline, and my mom had fixed a picnic lunch and we drove ALL THE WAY TO TACOMA. It was a big day. We never saw a thing on the way, except cows in the pastures, no houses, no buildings, nothing! Then we turned around and drove all the way back. We were so glad we made it all the way back.