Community took care of everyone during Great Depression

Sandpoint Furniture/Carpet One, home of The Ponderay Design Center and Selkirk Glass & Cabinets (208-263-5138), sponsors this column and it will appear in your Daily Bee each Sunday.

(Interviewing the people of Sandpoint and Bonner County for the “Sandpoint Centennial” movie was an experience that will long be remembered and cherished. Erik Daarstad flew to Olympia, Wash., for this interview with Patricia Mailey. Today, she shares in her own words, with some editing due to space limitations, about the Sandpoint she remembers during part of the depression years and the start of World War II. She dispels the old idea that everyone riding the rails during the Great Depression was a bunch of “no goods” just looking for a handout.)

“I recall that anytime the Northern Pacific freight train came through Sandpoint we always knew there would be people getting off the train and coming into town looking for food, or whatever else they needed to survive. And on this particular afternoon I was with my dad in the Silver Grill, my dad’s restaurant, when a young couple came in with two small children. I said to myself, “My goodness, that little family surely didn’t have to ride a freight train.” They were real clean-cut and well-dressed but they had to ride the freight trains because they could not afford the money it would take to get them to their destination, which was Seattle, Wash.

“The young man came back into the kitchen and he asked my father, “Sir, do you know if there is a Jewish merchant in your town?” My dad told him there was a Jewish merchant and he owned Foster’s Clothing Store (J. A. Foster and Company) that was located right across the street.

“The young man took wife and two small children and went across the street to Mr. Jake Foster’s store (now Larson’s). Pretty soon they all came back, sat down at a table, and they ordered meals for the whole family. They didn’t ask to be given anything because they had the money to pay for their meal. Mr. Foster had loaned them the money to buy food and maybe even more.

“I’ve always remembered that little family because the children were quite small and I would imagine they had had some serious hardship for them to have had to ride a freight train from wherever they came from to Seattle. My grandmother said that she admired the way they acted and the way Mr. Foster quietly helped them out in their time of need. That young father seemed to be sure that a Jewish merchant would help them if they asked.

“I went to school with the Foster girls and I knew the Foster family. I recall one time, after the start of World War II, that Mr. and Mrs. Foster were driving some of us Camp Fire girls in their car. Mrs. Foster was sitting up in front, the radio was on, and they were listening to the news about Poland being invaded by the Germans. I was sitting in the back seat with the other girls and I saw Mrs. Foster lean over and say to her husband, “What do you think they are going to be doing with all those Jewish people in Poland?” Mr. Foster said, “They are probably going to make glue out of them.”

“I realize now that Mr. and Mrs. Foster knew a lot about what was going on in Europe and how the Jewish people were being persecuted. I know that it wasn’t very long afterward that they did leave Sandpoint. I always wondered if their move to Portland had anything to do with World War II. You know, they were such a nice people.”