WOW Ladies

I just had to post this photo of my mother and Marilyn Chambers. It was taken by Kathy Chambers (Marilyn's daughter-in-law) this past Sunday during the Women of Wisdom (WOW) fall luncheon at the Sandpoint Elks Club. Mother had a wonderful time visiting with lots of her sorority of WOW honorees. My thanks to Kathy Chambers and Jacquie Albright for seeing that Mother had a wonderful experience at the luncheon.

She thought her "bling" (that's all the sparkles on her denim jacket) might be a little too much but felt quite comfortable seeing lots of other bling-wearing WOW's among the crowd. Mother's only regret was that they moved the microphone from her end of the room to the other end when Hazel Hall (who's also hearing impaired) showed up. So, Mother didn't exactly get to hear everything, but that did not stop her enthusiasm toward what she termed a fun afternoon.

Women of Wisdom, in many situations, are longtime Sandpoint women who have contributed to the community through their good works and good examples. The sponsoring organization, Women Honoring Women, likes to tap the honorees' brains as often as possible. So, Sunday the women each shared some golden nuggets of their own learning about life.

Speaking of learning, I'm going to accompany another long-timer, Alice Coldsnow, on a mission today. We're accompanying the Leadership Sandpoint class around town. I guess they want us to talk about what used to occupy all those real estate offices downtown. Well, there are some other stores too.

And, while thinking of Kathy and her association with Tomlinson-Black Sotheby's and Seasons at Sandpoint, I'm thinking Bonner County School District 82 administrative offices, Harlan Walker's Cabinet Shop and Pacific Power and Light. How's that for starters?

We're starting our tour at the Cedar Street Bridge Marketplace (Is that what they call it these days?). I'll tell 'em about how that piece of real estate marked the preliminaries for my being germinated and planted in Sandpoint. My mother's first view of the town came on a dreary Christmas in 1945 when she got off the train from Chicago with my older brother Mike and our English Setter Peggy in tow.

There was also a bunch of soldiers coming home from the war, and I learned just a few years ago that one of them was Joe Rogers. I learned that cuz Murle Rogers told me about her memories that night of the young mother, the little boy and the dog as she waited to see her husband.

Murle had no way of knowing what Mother was thinking as she stepped off that train and saw the back side of Sandpoint and, later, the wild and crazy town with all the bars as she headed from the Cedar Street Bridge down First Avenue to her first home at the Rowland's Hotel (That was an ez money mortgage place last time I walked by).

Mother's first impressions of Sandpoint on that soggy night were not quite what Murle or anyone else would want to hear. Fortunate for her and all the rest of us, those thoughts have changed fairly dramatically in the last 62 years----along with the town.