Cedar Mill Park

I was ten when we moved to Cedar Mill Park.  This was a newer housing development across the main road from Marlene Village.  I have learned that there was a large cedar mill in the area before a lot of the land was sold for new housing, new schools, shopping centres, etc...  Portland was growing and we were close to the Sunset Freeway - which led to the Oregon Coast.

We lived on Park Place, Cedar Mill Park.  My father's name was Edwin Parker Peery - and people used to joke about the word repetition.

This was the best house we lived in while in Oregon.  It was a "ranch style", had quite a lot of room and a fireplace in the livingroom that was built so one could sit on the side of it and roast hot dogs, do a small BBQ - or whatever.  It was rather deluxe at the time.

It is very easy for me to visulize the neighbourhood.  There were numerous houses and each was different than the others, not like Marlene Village where there was only a choice of three or four designs.  The houses had carports with large garages, usually in the front.  I think none of the houses were more then ten years old.

We couldn't roller skate are the road surfaces were not smooth but we could ride our bikes and we spent a lot of time doing that.

My mother was quite happy there.  She was involved in starting the Episcopal Church, did quite a few things at our school and knew all of the neighbours in our area.

Once a week the other mothers would get together for a coffee morning.  During the summer months, I ended up babysitting a lot of the kids while their mothers drank coffee.  I spent a lot of my time later babysitting for many of the families on Friday and Saturday nights.  I was paid 35 cents an hour and 50 cents after midnight.  Not many were after midnight - I was still only eleven or twelve years old.

I now realise how upsetting it was for us to move from this neighbourhood.  We left in March, 1959 and moved to Seattle.  It was a move from a small area - but close to Portland - to a big area where we didn't know anyone except my elderly great aunt and her husband.  I have tried to figure out why we made this move.  My parents were born and raised in Portland, almost all of our relatives were there and it was a place I felt I belonged to.  Seattle was beautiful city but I never felt that I really belonged there.