The Van Cleave Years at Copper Creek Lodge, 1951-1966 continued
Glenn and Roy with tractor breaking ground for the pond, at right.
Guests fishing in the pond below.
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Ann and Vernon Van Cleave and their two daughters, 2 and 6 months lived at Copper Creek in 1958 and 1959. They stayed in cabin 3 right behind the Copper Creek Lodge. Vernon worked on construction of a bridge in Mt Rainier National Park while he commuted to Tacoma for barber school. He set up a mini barber shop on the porch off the kitchen and cut hair by appointment at night.
The Van Cleave's sold a small piece of land along the highway in December on 1962 to Richard and Betty Lou Nagley. It was known as Mamalou's Chalet. ( Fred Oldfield the famous western artist also lived on the property. He painted the mural at Copper Creek Inn.)
The VanCleave family spent many summer days at the Lodge. The main room served as a gathering place for family and friends, but the kitchen was the favorite spot. It was equipped with a big gas range and a trash burner for heat. Pearl's 1944 white porcelain table, with black trim and pull up side leaves was in the middle of the floor. Someone was always at the roll-out table, cooking, skinning and cutting meat, preserving food or preparing the next family meal. Right outside the back door of the kitchen in the breezeway there was a big screened cupboard where they kept food that wouldn't fit in the refrigerator. You could usually find a fresh pie in the “cooler”.
Pearl never wasted anything. She would even “can” leftovers in baby food jars. The freezer was always full, but you never knew for sure of what. She raised chickens for meat and eggs. The eggs were preserved in gallon jars filled with lime and salt. The solution would seal the eggs and keep them for months.
A neighbor shot a bear one day. The meat was brought to Pearls table, skinned and cut into steaks. Pearl immediately put on the frying pan and the family had bear steak for dinner. It had a sweet taste.
At that time there was a bridge connecting Copper Creek Inn and Copper Creek Lodge. One cold January day, about 1954, grandson Dick Madsen, slipped off the upper bridge that went across the creek to Copper Creek Restaurant, falling some 30 or 40 feet into Copper Creek, breaking his leg. Roy waded into that cold water and carried him to safety.
They used the porch all the time. Pearl had her desk out there, somebody was always sleeping out there. Board games were often played at a table, and the barber shop was there for a year. The door into the kitchen was always open. Ann Van Cleve wrote. . . "When my second daughter was not yet walking, Grampa Van made her a "walker" out of an old kitchen chair - he took the back off, cut a hole in the seat and nailed canvas straps in the hole for a "sling" for her to sit in. She whizzed it all over the kitchen - one day she went over the threshold into the porch and tipped over cutting a gash under her chin. We had to rush her to the doctor in Morton for stitches. She still has that little puckered scar - her memento of Copper Creek."
At 61, the trek up the hill to the laundry and shop was slow going for the Van Cleaves. They were early birds and worked all day. Roy sat down after supper, but Pearl worked from dawn to bedtime. There were always linens to be mended, bills to pay, letters to write, catalog's to read, grocery lists, bookkeeping. They didn't have much education -- maybe third or fourth grade. Roy rolled his own cigarettes because she wouldn't buy him store bought, so he always had a sloppy cigarette hanging in the comer of his mouth as he worked. He was a kind "gentleman" -- Pearl was a good Mother & Grama, but a taskmaster -- she always had the last word. She watched every bite of feed he put in his mouth. She would sit a stack of pancakes in front of him and then give him hell for eating so many.
The Van Cleaves liked having family around - of course everyone was put to work, it was a good way to make fast progress. Ann Van Cleave spent May and June 1954 at the Lodge - her husband Vernon was in the Navy overseas (Korean Conflict) and ahe was pregnant with their first daughter. Pearl bought ten yards of white flannel and made baby clothes - gowns, nightgowns, short sacques, and receiving blankets. She crocheted and embroidered on all of them.
Roy and Pearl's daughter, Vera Madsen, and her kids lived there off and on - her husband was in the Navy and then they divorced. They were there in the early 60'. When Dick Madsen was asked about the names of places up the road he answered: "Let's see, there was a place about a quarter mile up the road called "The Logs." I was friends with the owners children, David and Peggy -- last name of Jones. Use to poke fun of David, because of his name, Davey Jones and of course his locker at school was..."Davey Jones' locker".... Then just a little further up the road was Papajohns (that was their last name) (I think they call it Alexander's today) -friends with their daughter Rita. At the park entrance was a place called "Gateway." I believe the owners were the Barnett's--friends with their daughter, Monica. We all rode the bus to high school in Eatonville which was made enjoyable by the fact the bus had a radio with a big speaker and the driver always listened to a radio station that played all the latest rock and roll music. I seem to remember the Cedars, but may have it confused with the Logs. It seems that the Oldfield's were at Frontier Village - they gave stagecoach rides. It was before Fred Oldfield became famous for his paintings."
Rural life of Copper Creek brought back memories of homesteads and hard times in Montana. In the 1920s, many were the times that Pearl had to take her four small children and her rifle out on the prairie to shoot something for dinner. Roy liked to tell of making biscuits over a campfire after stirring water and baking powder into the flour at the top of the sack - with no bowl.
Pearl and Roy met and married at age thirty. They raised her children and two of their own. Vernon, was born when they were 42 years of age, so grandson, Howard, was the same age as his "uncle". Although Pearl had previously run boarding houses, Copper Creek was too much of a challenge for them. They couldn't adapt old ways of thinking to a new public. They really were in way over their heads. They stayed out of debt, but never did make a profit. The traffic whizzed past bumper to bumper to and from the Park without stopping. It was easier to rent the cabins by the week or by the month to men working in the area After they sold the Lodge in 1966, they moved back to Kennewick."
Roy died at age 77 in 1968. Pearl died at age 81 in 1972.
Thanks to Ann Van Cleave - Kennewick, WA ( daughter-in-Iaw) of Roy and Pearl Van Cleave for much of this information and use of the photos.
"Copper Creek isn't just a place, it often represents a state of mind. Those who stayed there went away refreshed. In our brief historical involvement, eternal memories were made. I occasionally sneak up the logging road behind the Lodge and go up to the old head gate on the flume, smell the cool air and remember...! close my eyes to see"
Richard "Dick" Madsen ~~ Issaquah, WA (Grandson who fell off the bridge)
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