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Ruth Phillips English Oral History

   For medical facilities we had Doctor Maves and he’s the only one I know about, he was next to the Masonic Lodge on152nd. Dr. Noble, the dentist, lived on 152nd across from the lake somewhere. He wasn’t too up to date on his equipment. There was a barter system in Burien where we bought everything on tab at the grocery store and they’d get gas from my dad. Dr. Noble would buy gas and then we’d have to go to him for dental work. Finally Odd Valle came in and he did us a good service by coming to town. He was the second dentist; he built a little office right across from the garage. Georgette was his nurse-receptionist. My husband got a bad treatment in the navy, so I couldn’t get him to a dentist. So we invited Odd and Georgette out to the beach, so he met them socially. I didn’t tell him that Odd was a dentist.

   The tin shop was in one of those side buildings on 9th. They’ve moved from there. Mr. Eder was so nice. There was a certain smell to the shop. Odors are something that is very strong to me. He would make me mirrors out of metal. I knew I wasn’t supposed to go in there and bother him, but I’d go in the shop and he’d get a little piece of metal and polish it up for me. They lived over nearer to Sunnydale because both Rosie and Ernie went to Sunnydale School. I didn’t know them until we went to high school. And, you know, their clothes carried that smell. It was something about the metal working.

   We walked to school at Lake Burien. We got school buses about the fifth grade, about 1937. Until then, when it rained my dad took us to school cause he didn’t want us to sit all day in wet clothes. He would pick up any of the kids along the way, and we’d be just packed in the car. It didn’t matter if we walked home in the rain because we could always change our clothes. I can remember the radiators in those rooms with the wet clothes on them, steaming. In high school we just walked.