Velma ''Vicki'' Grayson

According to writer Mary McCarthy, ?We are the hero of our own story.? That is certainly true of Vicki Grayson. Born in 1924 as the youngest of six children, Vicki?s life was always full, but rarely easy.

Some of Vicki?s earliest memories were of her brother, only 14 months older than her, and his jealousy at her taking over the role as the baby of the family. Her father, though in poor health, doted on baby Vicki and she had fond memories of him carrying her around on a pillow. Once, when he was mopping the floor with scalding hot water, Vicki, wanting to be near him, crawled up to the bucket and spilled it on herself, sustaining a serious burn on her leg which left a permanent scar. Her father never forgave himself for allowing it to happen. Vicki?s father?s health continued to decline and he died when she was only six years old--1930 and the first full year of the Great Depression.

Those were very tough times for Vicki and her family. Her mother?s health was poor and she was unable to work to support her six children, so going ?on the doles? was her only option to keep them fed. Her mother also never learned to drive, so collecting their food each week required that all the children available be gathered to make the walk from their Ballard home to the distribution center in Salmon Bay. On one of these trips, Vicki remembered her big sister, Myrna, walking behind her and snidely asking their mother in a voice deliberately loud enough for Vicki to hear, ?Would you look at those bird legs! When is she ever going to get any fat on her'? Naturally thin her whole life, Vicki never did fatten up.

Clothing for welfare families was distributed at a different location on Elliott Bay. The clothing was new, but was what we would call ?irregulars? or ?factory seconds? today. The older she got, the more embarrassed Vicki became by the clothes and shoes she was forced to wear, often hiding her feet under her desk to keep others from seeing them.

In the midst of this day-to-day struggle to survive, Vicki kept a remarkably positive attitude as she began friendships that would last her whole life. One of her first friends was Bonnie, daughter of the town Fire Chief, who lived in a beautiful brick house that Vicki admired, but never coveted. At eight years old, Vicki and Bonnie would leave school together during their lunch hour, Bonnie dropping Vicki off at the West Woodland Grocery Store then heading home for her own lunch. Vicki would serve sandwiches to customers and count out change for most of the hour, getting paid for her daily work with a ham sandwich and a candy bar of her choosing. Rather than eating the candy herself, though, Vicki would have Bonnie pick the candy bar out and give it to her to eat on their way back to school. Bonnie never forgot Vicki?s generosity, remarking on it often over the many years of their friendship.

Probably her fondest memories of childhood were with her friend, Doris, three years her senior and filling more the role of a big sister than merely a friend. Doris? parents, ?Uncle? Clyde and ?Aunt? Martha, were what Vicki described as ?shirt-tail relatives?. Though not related by blood, Martha and Clyde loved Vicki as if she were their own, going so far as to beg Vicki?s mother to let them legally adopt her. While they were certainly disappointed when Vicki?s mother turned down their request, they did not let that affect their relationship with Vicki.

Vicki did sometimes feel, though, as if she were being pulled apart like a wishbone by the two mothers in her life. One Thanksgiving, in particular, when Vicki was about 12 years old, her mother felt well enough to cook a big family meal and expected Vicki to be there. Martha and Clyde had already invited her to Thanksgiving at their house, however, and were set on her being with them. Vicki, not wanting to disappoint anyone, did the only thing she could think of?she ate two Thanksgiving dinners!

What Martha and Clyde provided for Vicki that went far beyond what money could ever buy were the many years of happy summers with them at their vacation home on Heron Island in South Puget Sound. As soon as school was out, Uncle Clyde would drive Martha, Doris, and Vicki out to the island. Clyde would stay in the city during the week so he could work, but he would join them each weekend throughout the summer. There was plenty to do on the island in his absence. With no electricity and no running water, daily meals and chores were a major undertaking. They collected rain water in barrels for washing clothes and taking baths and they pumped well water for drinking. Laundry day required the efforts of all three of them, scrubbing the clothes on a washboard with Martha?s homemade soap, then hanging them out in the damp island air to eventually dry. Martha made play clothes?usually rompers or pedal pushers with matching bonnets--for the girls on her trundle sewing machine. In the evenings, by the light of a gas lantern, they played with ?Patsy? paper dolls, read books, colored, or played cards with a deck that the girls made themselves. During the day, they walked to the distant store each day for a gallon of milk or ran through the abundant corn fields around them. Their favorite meal was Sunday dinner, when Aunt Martha would buy a couple of sacks of fresh ears of corn, cook them up, and serve them as the entire dinner.

The end of summer always came too fast for Vicki; Heron Island was her paradise and her sanctuary. They would stay there until just before Labor Day weekend, leaving just enough time before the start of school to get their new school clothes and to can all the fruits and vegetables they brought home with them from Heron Island. Aunt Martha would take the two girls shopping together, buying each of them a midi blouse, a skirt, and a coat. While Vicki was always extremely grateful for what Martha and Clyde did for her, she remembered one year when she felt something other than gratitude. J.C. Penney was having a sale on coats and Aunt Martha picked out a black one for Vicki that had red flecks in the fabric. Vicki hated that coat, but she had to wear it all year; she had no choice. In spite of this one bad episode, Vicki remembered them as people who went out of their way to see that she had everything that their daughter Doris had.

In the decades following their summers at Heron Island, Doris and Vicki continued to feel like sisters and Vicki and Elmer became very close to Doris? daughter, Kathy. When she was only about four years old, Kathy?s father lost his life due to complications from injuries he had gotten in the war. Vicki and Elmer carried on the legacy of Martha and Clyde, loving little Kathy and giving her the strong male presence in her life that she lost when her own father died. Vicki understood that need as well as anyone could.

After Vicki?s junior year at Ballard High School, her mother found a smaller and less expensive house in Lake City, a house which better served their needs when only a couple of the six kids were still living at home. It was a tough move for Vicki, leaving behind everything and everyone she had ever known, especially her friend Bonnie. While it was only a few miles from Ballard, it may as well have been in a different state, since Vicki had no car and therefore no easy way to visit her old friends. As she struggled to fit in and tried to make new friends, Vicki?s former good grades began to drop at Lincoln High. She worked Saturday nights at Dando?s caf? in Lake City. Kids from Lincoln would come by and taunt her through the window, making fun of her for needing to work. It was a tough time in Vicki?s life, but a time on which she could look back and smile, remembering her warm-hearted boss at the caf? from whom she learned so much about life. Vicki was a master at finding the silver lining on every cloud.

By the time Vicki was finally making friends and feeling like she was fitting in at Lincoln High School, the year was coming to a close and she would soon be graduating. It was the 20th of May, 1942; Pearl Harbor had been bombed five months earlier, the war was in full swing, and servicemen were everywhere. Vicki agreed to go on a blind date, doubling with her friend, Norma and her date, a seagoing Marine who was introduced to her merely as ?Grayson?. The two couples went dancing at a honky-tonk on 1st Avenue in Seattle. About halfway through the evening, they switched dates, because Norma?s date, Grayson, wanted to dance with Vicki. While dancing, the two felt what Vicki described as an ?instant charisma?. By the end of the evening, Elmer Grayson had not just asked Vicki for her phone number?he had asked for her hand in marriage.

Vicki?s mother was not happy about the announcement that her 17-year-old daughter was marrying a man she had just met, but she quickly warmed to the idea once she met Elmer. She then happily helped Vicki prepare to marry him on June 4th, as soon as she had graduated from high school. Vicki and Elmer lived with Vicki?s mother for their first three months of marriage, then he was shipped out to Long Beach, California in September. The day he was to leave, Vicki cried all the way over to his ship in Bremerton and all the way back. When she arrived home, she was shocked to see Elmer standing there. He apparently could not bear to say good-bye to her, either. He made arrangements to stay with her for a few more nights, then he finally had to really leave.

One of Vicki and Elmer?s long good-byes during the war resulted in tragedy. In March of 1943, when they had been married only nine months, Elmer was late getting back to his ship. He was running along the Seattle waterfront, next to the trains, trying to catch a ferry to Bremerton. He slipped, one of his legs going under the train. Miraculously, he survived the accident, but lost his leg from the knee down and required ten months of recovery and rehabilitation, learning to walk all over again with his new prosthesis.

While Elmer was nearing the end of his rehabilitation and Vicki had just turned 19, they received the happy news that she was pregnant. Vicki loved being pregnant. At a time when most women hid their pregnancies and avoided going out in public more than necessary, Vicki savored every moment. She would even pose for pictures to best show off her growing belly. In February of 1944, Tanya was born. It was a breech birth and a difficult delivery, but not even that could quash Vicki?s excitement over finally being a mother?her greatest desire. Elmer was discharged from the service about the time of her birth and went to work in a bakery in Columbia City. These were tough times financially for the young family, but Vicki had learned to live on very little and made the most of what she had. They lived in their own small apartment with their new baby, but shared the one hall bathroom with the other apartments on their floor. Fifteen months after Tanya?s arrival, Vicki and Elmer were blessed again with the birth of their daughter Marcia.

To support his young family, Elmer left his bakery job and began working for Sunset Electric as an auto parts salesman. After many years in the business, he had learned that business so well that he and a partner opened their own auto parts company in Issaquah which they called Villa Auto Parts. By that time, Tanya and Marcia were teenagers, so Vicki had time to help out with the business, doing the bookkeeping for them. Like everything else in their lives, it was rough going at first, but through their hard work and perseverance, they made a success of it.

Vicki and Elmer?s two lovely daughters went on to become mothers and grandmothers themselves: Tanya with four children and four grandchildren and Marcia with two children and one grandchild. All these lives started because of that chance meeting in May of 1942, when Vicki and Elmer looked in each other?s eyes and knew that they would spend the rest of their lives together.