We Rode The Portland Rose Into Mythic 1950s Idaho

 Long ago, when this old world seemed new to me, oh about 1950, my very young father and mother packed my sister and myself into the Model A Ford, and they left southern Idaho for the Seattle area and better chances in life than farming with his dad.

BTW, this vehicle is what I learned to drive in. Dad later made it into a tractor.  He just did stuff like that.

But still, home is home and grandparents are grandparents.  Both sets lived in the same small Idaho town about a mile apart.

So it was our family's custom to go back to the farm for the summer.  This meant a trip to the King Street Station in downtown Seattle to get on a Union Pacific train.

https://seattle.curbed.com/2019/7/19/20701392/king-street-station-building-architecture-history

Many times we caught the train to Portland OR there.  At the end of that ride was the old Union station in Portland OR.

All very impressive to small children.  I mostly remember being awed by the steam and heat coming out from under the engines, the noise and all.

I also remember the kind and dignified Pullman Porters.  They were the first Black people I remember.

I remember old downtown Portland as a darkish place for some reason, and a park that was set aside for women and children only.  I have no idea how to find an image of it.  Probably long gone.  I remember a gated ornate fence perhaps.

In the very early 50s the Union Pacific train going east from Portland was called the Portland Rose. https://streamlinermemories.info/?p=3645

It seems like it was always early morning, looking out the windows, trying to guess when we would be getting there.  Seeing the unfamiliar pass rapidly by.  For some reason, we children were always looking for snow. lol  The whole experience was a bit fantastical.

The station where we met my grandparents was in Gooding, ID, being the closest station to their place. http://sfcompanion.blogspot.com/2019/11/former-toponis-railway-station-fully.html

It didn't look much different by the time I got there.  No horses though.

The following photo is of my mother, her father and myself and my younger sister shot facing across the street from the station.

I begin to feel like An Historical Character, for I did taste and breathe some trailing bits of the old American West in its dreamlike and sleepy state.  Trains were a big item in the development of this country.  We all loved those train trips.

And just because it seems to me the archetypal western song:

                                                                                                                                                      pbird