Remembering

Grotto, Skykomish and The Great Northern Railway: 1955 to 1968

By: Robert Free

In 1955 my mothers sister got married. My new uncle had recently been in the army, in a stateside artillery unit. Upon release he had gone he had gone to school, telling me once that he had been in the last class which taught telegraphy. He was hired by the railroad and assigned as agent of the Grotto depot.

   The newly wed couple moved into a simple home along highway 2, opposite from the little hamlet of Grotto. My aunt was lonely in the new place so I was sent to keep her company for a week or so. This would begin an annual ritual that would last until I was seventeen years old.

   Their new home was previously a tiny old workers house, built when Grotto had a logging mill. It lay next to an identical house right next door. Both houses were one bedroom, white, with blue trim.

   My first visit was my most remembered, despite my youth of only four years old. Mornings I would awake to the sounds of my aunt and uncle, and the light at the bottom of the door in the room I slept, it was the sounds of my uncle getting ready for work. I slept in a small closet, store room, on a cot next to my uncles golf clubs. The closet had a little window, too high for me to look out of. They were both young and fun. I would get up, hustle into the tiny kitchen, and steal my uncles breakfast. My aunt would make his food that I would share to the point that she would have to make him more, but she never minded. It was there that I experienced my first grapefruit. I loved it with sugar, however it took me some time to master eating it without wearing it.

   Outside huge feathery snowflakes could be seen floating by the little panes of the kitchen. The table sat next to the window, so I could look out by standing on a kitchen table chair. It was a blizzard, and snow was so deep it came up to the outside window sill. My aunt would often put out some toast crumbs luring little birds that would eagerly snatch up every crumb. Early birds get the crumbs. I had never seen birds up so close, only inches from the outside of the window glass. My aunt would pack my uncle a morning snack stuffed in a sack in his coat pocket along with a thermos of hot coffee. My uncle opened the door to several feet of snow that had piled up during the night. This was all high adventure for me.

   I could tell my aunt was happy to have me there to fuss over, everyone knows that children are time thieves. (Ha ha) Just before lunch I would get bundled up good, along with my aunt. The lunch pale latches would snap closed on my uncles black lunch box, filled with more food and a fresh thermos of hot coffee. Out the door we would go, to bring it to my uncle at the train depot. The clouds and falling snow was so heavy that even though it was only noon it seemed dark outside. The snow had fallen so heavily that it was piled several feet up against the houses, covering them thoroughly along with all the surrounding trees, to the point of looking like a picture postcard. Part of the road had to be cleared using a tractor. My arms were sore by the time we reached the highway, from being picked up out of the snow so many times by my struggling aunt. The snow was deeper than I was tall, no fooling.

   Even in bad weather you had to be careful crossing the highway. The Stevens Pass highway was dangerous, and the cause of many deaths throughout the years, killing skiers, loggers, travelers, and railroaders.

   I could see that there was a stopped at the depot. The two, tall, cylindrical fuel tanks at the transfer station next door resembled two huge, frothy top milkshakes in silver glasses.

   We arrived at the depot by way of a deep trench between the two buildings. Several units of E-7S 2000 Hp Diesel Electric Freight engines stood idling in front of the depot. The Engine was bigger than the depot and almost as tall. I could feel the power in the sound of the huge whining engines, begging like sled dogs to be let go. My uncle was up at the top of the access ladder on the side of the engine, talking loudly with the engineer through the cabs open side door. The engines headlight shot a huge, strong beam of light down the tracks revealing the millions of snowflakes as they fell upon the tracks ahead. My aunt and I stood in the doorway of the depot watching the snow fall, partially covering the top and sides of the orange engines with the green stripe down it’s length. Finally my uncle climbed down from the engine with his paperwork in hand, and with a smile, waved to the engineer as he idled up the engine. At full power the horn called out into the storm as if to say, “This train is leaving the station.” All of the box cars strained under the weight of cargo along with the additional, untold weight of snow that had piled up on each car. The lights of the crossing guard reflected red across the snow and the side of the passing train. The head lamp lighting the snow swirls on the tracks ahead of it. The clickity clack went from slow to fast as a cloud of snow particles blew off of the fast moving cars only a few feet away. All being lost in the distance, eerily lost in the fog of frozen water. 

   I loved the depot the minute I walked across the threshold into the little waiting room. Grey bead bord walls and bare wood floors through out , clean and warm as morning toast from the centrally placed oil stove. It was warm and tiny, like their house, and had a friendly feel about it. The place had what every depot had, but to a lesser degree due to it’s small size. Light fixtures hung down on long cords as there was no room ceiling. The yellowish white light bulbs gave the room an additional warm feel. For lunch my aunt and uncle would have coffee and visit while I would coffee and cookies, short bread with chocolate stripes, my uncles favorite. I would eat mine and as much of his as I could get away with, which was most of it.

  I got along well with both of them, and was allowed to stay for the rest of the afternoon, playing with the typewriter and all the rubber stamps hanging on the desk tree, with permission, of course. My uncle was usually sitting in the front of the depot near the little bay window looking out onto the tracks. That is where the radio phone and telegraph keys were. I also found fascinating the great black handles and gears of the semaphore flags in front of the depot. My uncle would move them from handles above his head on the wall, one red, one black. They were used to give information to the engineers as they approached the depot.

   In future visits he would move them purposely so that I could watch. My uncle was very circumspect, a “no monkey business” kind of guy. Even still, I was always allowed to come down and spend my  afternoons with him throughout all the years I came to visit. I would always ask to sweep out the back room and the waiting room, using the depots original broom, metal dustpan, and fox tail brush. I used the fox tail brush to sweep the dead flies off the window sills and to dust the cabinets in the back baggage room. I also had an old turkey feather duster that was absolutely worthless due to the feathers being so big and stiff. I liked it only because it had a cool wooden handle that had been turned on a lathe.

   My visits usually came in the summer, at my behest. They eventually had children of their own, my cousins. Along with my cousins I made friend with many of the children and families in Grotto. I enjoyed spending a week in Grotto every summer. The locals always teased me and called me a “Flat Lander”, because I wasn’t from the hill country. Occasionally my mom would want to visit her sister, and that would give me additional opportunities to enjoy visits to my aunt and uncles home, even during Thanks Giving a couple of times. Grotto was my home away from home, like no other place.

   The depot had no running water, or indoor toilet, in the way of today’s modern toilets. It was my first experience with an outhouse. In the back of the transfer station, next door, near the tracks was an emergency outhouse, made all of wood. One time I needed it my uncle put me in the little box, and stood outside waiting for me to do my bushiness on my own. It was a hot day, and the sun poured through the cracks in the wall like little search lights as dozens of flies buzzed around like planes in a dog fight. Suddenly I heard a noise, a sort of rustle that came from the pit bellow my young tail section, hanging in space. I didn’t panic but I did get a start when I looked down to see a porcupine looking back up at me through the hole. I pulled up my britches and slowly backed up right into a big nest of spider webs. My uncle quickly came to my rescue and hustled me safely back to the depot where he placed me in front of the typewriter with a shortbread cookie in my little hand. I have no idea what ever became of the poor old porcupine that had fallen into the outhouse hole.

To be continued.