Skid Road reactions -- "gratuitous and unimpressive"

"Skid Road" was a big success for a regional book. Reviewers around the country praised the energy and humor Murray brought to the history of an obscure (to most of them) western city. Some Seattleites had reservations, among them Charles Gates, then 15 years into his lifetime tenure in the UW history department. Asked to look over the manuscript, he suggested Murray leave discussion of "serious cultural themes" to the grownups.

 

 

 

 

Ten years later, Gates included "Skid Road" in his syllabus, but with a caveat that Murray should have included assurances that his work was actually based on fact. Murray was not much given to academic feuds, so this testy response was his version of a duel at dawn.

 

 

Mary Brainerd Wahoske was the daughter of Seattle journalist and publicist Erastus Brainerd. Although her father was featured in Skid Road, she was annoyed that not enough other "decent people" made the cut.

Wednesday, March 12, 1952

My dear Mr. Morgan,

Alexander Pantages's daughter Carmen, 2nd from left, was unacceptable.

We have just finished reading Skid Road and I am quite disappointed. You bring the book up to date and I kept waiting for you to tell about the inhabitants that did not live in the red light district which you so vividly describe. They were many more gentle people, well born and well educated who came to Seattle for its climatic advantages and also for its industrial offerings. 

We had a real social life and would not stand for Carmen Pantages, though Dr. Matheson tried to force the decent people to accept her. 

I do not know to whom you talked but there are still many, many people that still talk about my family and admired them for their brilliancy and decency. I am crippled with arthritis and unable to travel but if you want to write any more Northwest articles, everyone tells me that I have a memory like the elephant and I know I could tell you many interesting stories.

...

With best wishes for your future success,

Sincerely yours,

Mary Beale Brainerd Wahoske

At 17 (and 14): Murray and Rosa, Seattle and Tacoma, October 1933

Murray and Rosa had noticed each other that summer at his parents' church. He was passing the collection plate, she was playing the violin. They were dating by the time he left to enter UW that fall, where he started out sharing an apartment with his best friend since fifth grade, Frank Sadler, aka Sad. Murray wrote almost daily, establishing his lifelong habit of using correspondence in lieu of a diary. At 17, he made a less-than-convincing tough talker. Rosa wrote less often, but perhaps more to the point.

October 8, 1933

Kincaid Apartments

Seattle, Washington

Dear Rosa:

Oh Boy, oh boy, oh boy! Did I get a shock this afternoon. In all my life I was never more surprised, and while it wasn’t pleasant by any means, neither was it horrible.

“Elucidate,” you cry, and so I say, “Hold on there, me proud beauty, and I’ll tell you the why and wherefore of this wild incident." (The quotation marks around the last paragraph are because it was taken from a letter of Baisch’s to me.) [Freddy Baisch was another of Murray's Stadium classmates.]

Well, to continue, or rather to start, I was sitting in the apartment reading when I heard a key fit into the door. As Sad had not made his appearance in the hour that I’d been back from Tacoma, I quite naturally supposed that it was he. I was right. Sad walked, rather haltingly, into the room, and right behind him was a dame who looked like the height of sophisticated experience. She was red-headed and her outfit was rather gaudy. I wondered just what Sad was trying to ring in on me, and that fact that when he saw me he looked rather surprised, sheepish and then turned his back to me and started to take off his coat, made me even more suspicious. Then another dame, this time a brunette, made her appearance from the hall-way. This dame was about 20 and plenty good-looking. While I sat still gaping, Sad—still with his back turned to me—introduced the redhead as his cousin, and the brunette as a friend of hers. I was just about to ask him what the devil was the big idea of taking a chance of getting us in dutch (It’s against the rules to have a dame come to your apartment), when Sad turned around. You should have seen him. Both his eyes were black, there were cuts over both of them, his nose was puffed and scraped up, a long smear of coagulated blood and medicine ran along his cheek from the right corner of his mouth to his ear, there were numberous minor scrapes on his face, and a scab was in formation on his chin. On the back of his head hair had been cut away and severe scratches were covered with a sticky medicine. His neck was swollen and his hands were scratched. In short, he was a wreck. It seems that Friday night, about ten, he decided to go to the drug store and get

Frank and Murray in the '30s

something for his cold. He took out his bike and headed down there. About ten blocks from here, he was going down hill—speeding at about 25 per—and with no lights on his bike. A car turned suddenly to the left and Sad was knocked completely out in the impact of a head-on collision. From what he was told afterwards, when he hit the car he was thrown clear of the bike, lit on the radiator of the car, bounced against the windshield and broke that, bounced onto the fender and then the running board of the car, and then fell to the street. He came to and thought he had had a bad dream, then he saw the feet of everyone standing around. A prowl car picked him up and they phoned his uncle and also his mother in Tacoma. A cop, the one in the prowl car, came up to the apartment and left this note for me: “Frank Sadler is in Harborview Hospital. Main 6886. Please call at office. Signed. Police Officer L.E.Nelson Precinct 6”

Luckily for my blood pressure, the note was taken down before I came back. I sure would have had a hemorrhage if I’d found that. Sad’s bike is a total washout, but besides from his cuts, he’s OK now. At first it was feared he had either a fractured skull or concussion. And, of course, little Murray couldn’t and wouldn’t be around to help when his pal is hurt.

I realize that this is quite an early date to be writing, having seen you in the afternoon, but I have a sneaking hunch you will forgive me for copping a sneak and sending a letter so soon…and now so long.

Love,

Murray

From Rosa

October 13, 1933

Dear Murray,

Here I was in bed wishing for something exciting to happen when they brought in your letter and I found it had all happened in Seattle. What a hard headed customer this Sadler must be to make so many landings and not be a subject of for lilys and forget-me-nots. Has he been able to attend his classes? He must look like some of the battle-scarred football players I’ve seen lately. Sure glad it wasn’t you, you might not have come out of it so neatly. He was surely fortunate, considering.

And did it cure the cold?

Write often and long only it isn’t necessary to make them so exciting. I enjoy the poetic ones just as much and it isn’t quite so hard on your friends.

…[high school football news]

Love,

Rosa