Ida's story: Kept busy in Hoodsport, buried in Shelton

In 1913, Ida Finch had only her youngest son to care for and was beginning to feel lonely and unneeded. For most of her life, activities in Hoodsport had rotated around Ida and her family. She had created the school, the Sunday School and the Literary Society, entertained, provided lodging to travelers heading for Lake Cushman (even managed the Antlers Hotel for one summer), helped with the births of babies, made trips to Seattle to bring back supplies for the school. Now, at age 47 and knowing no help was coming from [her absentee husband] Vincent, she was unsure of her resources and of how and where she was going to live the rest of her life.

By 1917, Ida was dividing her time among Seattle, Hoodsport and Lake Keechelus, happily keeping house for whichever family member needed her. Around the same time, she received notice that her son, Harry, who was serving on a naval sub-chaser in the Atlantic during World War I, was in the Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia, being treated for chlorine gas poisoning. Harry recovered and came home to marry his childhood sweetheart, Mae Hendrickson, and the couple made their first home with Ida and Robert.

In 1920, Robert left Hoodsport for Canada to join brother Albion in the automobile business. Sidney was still working with their father in the orchards. Then Harry, Mae and their new baby also left for Canada. Happily for Ida, son Emery and his family were living nearby, and Hazel and her family were at Potlatch.

In 1921, Ida was finally able to take a long-desired trip to California to visit the relatives she had last seen in 1878. The reunion was happy but short-lived, and not at all what Ida had expected. Her life had been so different from the rest of the family's that they had almost nothing in common. The heat was hard on her, and the shades in the house were always closed to keep out the sun. Used to the great outdoors, Ida found conditions nearly intolerable and was eager to return to her home.

In 1924, Emery Finch built a new house for his mother, with some of the building material coming from the old store that her father had built so many years earlier, and Ida again had a permanent home in Hoodsport. Son Robert had returned, as had Harry, his wife and two daughters, who lived with Ida while he looked for work, and daughter Hazel and her family had moved to Hoodsport from Potlatch. When a cousin in Maine signed off a letter to Ida with "I must end my letter as the maid has announced dinner," Ida's return letter concluded with "I must end my letter. If I don't build the fire and cook dinner we won't eat."

On her birthday in 1929, 15 guests gathered to celebrate Ida's 65th year. Games were played until midnight, when a buffet and birthday cake were served. It was a good time in Ida's life - she had her health, her home, her family and her friends. But in 1930, she received the sad news that her son Albion, manager of a silver mine in British Columbia, had been killed in a mine accident. Robert and Emery went to Canada to attend the funeral, and while there were called home to attend the funeral of Hazel's husband, Burke Bleecker, who had died following an operation. Two deaths in her family in one week was quite a blow to Ida. Now she had a widowed daughter with no income and five children to care for, at a time when the Great Depression was beginning to be felt across the country.

Times were hard and money was scarce. But Ida came up with a way that Hazel could earn a living - she set up a telephone exchange in the home, with Hazel as operator. This required that Hazel own the house, so Ida deeded it to her and moved to Shelton to keep house for Robert, who was working at a car dealership. In 1935, she received word that Vincent, age 83, had died in Penticton, Canada. The news had little effect on Ida, who had considered herself a widow for many years.

In 1937, Ida was living in Tacoma, in a small house that her son Emery had built for her next to his own. She made occasional trips to Hoodsport to visit Hazel and her children, which always made her realize how much she missed her former home and her friends. Even harder on her was the death of another son. Harry, whose lungs had been affected by the exposure to chlorine gas during the war, died of pneumonia at the age of 48.

In 1939, Hazel, Robert and Emery took Ida to visit Sidney in Canada. Neither Ida nor Hazel had seen Sidney - who had three sons and two daughters - in 26 years, and it was a happy reunion.

In 1948, still living in Tacoma, Ida sent a renewal request to the Shelton-Mason County Journal with a note stating that she hadn't missed an issue since the first one in December 1886. That same year, she suffered a loss from which she would not recover. After a short illness, her daughter Hazel died at the age of 58. Ida had now lost three of her children, and her own health began to decline rapidly. She spent the rest of her life living with various friends and relatives, not wanting to stay in any one place for long. In 1950, she spent some time back in Hoodsport with the Oscar Ahl family before returning to Tacoma, where she died at the age of 86. She was buried in Shelton, next to her daughter Hazel.

■ Jan Parker is a researcher for the Mason County Historical Museum. She can be reached at [email protected]. Membership in the Mason County Historical Society is $25 per year. For a limited time, new members will receive a free copy of the book "Shelton, the First Century Plus Ten."