<< Previous   of   Next >> Enterprise/CHRIS GOODENOW  (click to enlarge) Adopted cousins Norm Hansen (left), of Lake Forest Park, and Nona Pedersen, of Everett, filter for names through a 1924 edition of "The Beachcomber," Richmond Beach High School's newspaper which they came to write for nearly two decades later, Thursday, Sept. 18 in the basement of the Shoreline Historical Museum. Enterprise/CHRIS GOODENOW  (click to enlarge) Adopted cousins, Nona Pedersen (left), of Everett, and Norm Hansen, of Lake Forest Park, graduated together in Richmond Beach High School's last graduating class of 1945. The site is currently Richmond Beach Library. Here, they pose for a photograph sitting on desks recovered from the Shoreline School District during their school-age era, Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008 at the Richmond Beach Library. Enterprise/CHRIS GOODENOW  (click to enlarge) Adopted cousins Nona Pedersen (left), of Everett, and Norm Hansen, of Lake Forest Park, graduated together in Richmond Beach High School's last graduating class of 1945. Here, they sit in a classroom setting on display, Thursday, Sept. 18, at the Shoreline Historical Museum. Enterprise/CHRIS GOODENOW  (click to enlarge) Norm Hansen, of Lake Forest Park, points to a house that his grandfather built in 1902 in Richmond Beach, which was featured in a historical photo, Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008 at the Shoreline Historical Museum. Enterprise photos/CHRIS GOODENOW  (click to enlarge) Nona Pederson, of Everett, points to a listing announcing her birth in April 12, 1928 edition of "The Beachcomber" Thursday, Sept. 18, at the Shoreline Historical Museum. Enterprise/AMY DAYBERT  (click to enlarge) A copy of the Shoreline Enterprise from Oct. 25, 1961, reported news about a debate concerning the city's incorporation in Innis Arden, a $41 million 1962 county budget and an article about sewering portions of the Ronald Sewer District among other news. The newspaper copy belongs to the Shoreline Historical Museum.

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A peek at Shoreline's past

Cousins look back on 80 years of the area's history

By Amy Daybert
Enterprise editor

Norm Hansen and Nona Pedersen didn't spend much time together while they were both attending Richmond Beach School beginning in the early 1930s.

"His grandparents adopted my mother," Pedersen explained.

"So we pretty much ignored each other all through school," Hansen said.

The adoptive cousins, who graduated together in 1945, have little problem being around each other today, however. Most Thursdays they can be found at the Shoreline Historical Museum, carefully labeling and organizing things from days gone by. Sometimes, the things they work to preserve are items Hansen himself donated to the museum from his mother's and his aunt's collections.

"She was very good about labeling things," he said, mentioning a collection of his mother's old photographs.

Hansen, 81, a resident of Lake Forest Park, and Pedersen, 80, a resident of Everett, are excellent people to help in the museum's archive, according to museum director Vicki Stiles. They each have close ties to the area's history and many memories of what it was like growing up in one of the oldest neighborhoods in Shoreline.

Growing up Richmond Beach

A normal day when he was 13 years old began with feeding the chickens, checking for eggs, feeding and milking a cow if it was his turn to complete the chore, Hansen remembered. Then it was time to come back inside, eat some breakfast and head off to school.

Pedersen was much more likely to be helping her mother run her store on 20th Avenue Northwest, she said. She and her brother would pump gas -- five gallons for one dollar -- for customers. When the first school bell rang, she would run toward the school where Richmond Beach Center Park and the Richmond Beach Library are located today.

"I would leave for school after the first bell rang and I would get there in time for the second," Pedersen said.

Norm chimed in.

"She was a good runner," he said.

Outside of school, Hansen spent time joining others who would play on the wooded five-acre property owned by his family. The backyard was his playground and games of Auntie I Over and Kick the Can would occur all summer long.

"We have memories the kids of Richmond Beach (today) will never have," Pedersen said. "… My husband used to say kids don't play outdoors anymore. We were out playing all sorts of games all the time."

Changes

After graduation, Hansen and Pedersen attended the University of Washington. The number of students at the university amazed them both.

"When I went from a class of 17 (people) to thousands, it was a terrific adjustment for me," Hansen said

He earned a degree in botany after serving 19 months in the Army, while Pedersen worked for 25 years at the university business school. In 1959, Hansen began a teaching career that would take him through several school closures -- from Paramount Elementary to Meridian Elementary and finally, Parkwood Elementary, which is still in operation today.

"My first (teaching) contract was for $4,500 and I always thought the day I get to $10,000 a year, I'll be on easy street," Hansen said.

Growing up in the area taught some to be frugal, Pedersen said. But it was easier for people to know their neighbors.

"When we were growing up, you seemed to know people all over the area, not just your next two or three door neighbors," Pedersen said. "People use to visit each other; people use to talk more to one another."

Increased prices, property taxes and the sheer population growth have been the most noticeable changes in the area since then, they agreed.

"We all had pretty large lots growing up and now (homes) are packed in there as tight as they can make them," said Pedersen.

But she was happy to see the Richmond Beach Library go up in 2001 near where the Richmond Beach School closed in 1971.

"I'd rather see something like that there then if they had sold it off and put houses on it," she said. "I just thought when they selected the old school grounds, it was a good decision."

Looking back at Lake Forest Park

While growing up only a few miles east of Richmond Beach in the rural area of Lake Forest Park, Russ Dille, 59, spent time picking berries, swimming at the Civic Club and teaching himself how to fish with only a stick and a string.

"That was the fun of it," he said. "If you were real rich, your parents would buy you a fishing pole, but otherwise you would just use a stick with a string on it, bait and a hook and see what you could come up with. I don't think we ever caught much but it was fun just getting out and getting away from school."

Dille's family moved to Lake Forest Park in 1954 and he enrolled in Lake Forest Park Elementary School. It was right about the time, he remembered, when horses and farms in the community began to be replaced with more automobiles, traffic lights and houses.

"We got in there right about the time things started to change," he said.

The city of Lake Forest Park officially incorporated in June 1961. A city sign included the city's population of 1,100 people at that time, but the population expanded and the face of the quiet, rural city changed when the Towne Centre opened in 1964, according to Dille.

Although the Centre has undergone several remodels since its official opening, the original Albertson's remains today. Other original stores in the Forest Park Center included Malmo Nursery, Pay 'n Save, Firestone and Seattle First National Bank.

While many enjoy the Towne Centre today, not everyone liked the idea of a shopping center in the middle of the city in the 1960s, Dille said.

"People objected because it was taking away from our rural atmosphere, their rural community," he said. "That was inevitable; you can't stop progress or people moving out here."

Before graduating from Shorecrest High School in 1967, Dille had plans of his own to move closer to the "big city," but stayed until moving just outside the city limits to Lake City in 1997.

"Now looking back it's easy to think, 'Gee, it was sure nice living out there in the wilderness where everything was so calm and peaceful,'" he said. "I'm sure it will be that way for kids today too when they think, 'Wow back in 2008...'"