WALLACE COMES TO COEUR D’ALENE

The Eagles' Nest, The Women of the Rathskeller Inn

Rathskeller Building, Current Day - 1324 Sherman Avenue

CHAPTER 12

My mother passed away on November 10, 2001. In a subsequent visit to Coeur d’Alene after mom’s passing, my girlfriend and I drove over to 1324 Sherman, where the Rathskeller had once stood. Standing across the street, staring at what was now a bicycle shop, I wished time travel were possible. I would have loved to have returned to 1963 and changed the course of history, just like Michael J. Fox did in the movie “Back to the Future.” Unrealistic, but a nice fantasy to briefly entertain. My best friend and I went into the store together. I introduced myself to the owners, who graciously welcomed and showed us around.

Nothing looked vaguely familiar; the restored ceiling beams were the only evidence left of the old Rathskeller, and time had erased what had once been. It had vanished without a trace. There would be no excavation of artifacts to find, no broken Stein with only a part of someone’s name. It was a dream-like walk, accompanied by unseen ghosts, through what had once been hallowed ground for our customers and family.

I closed my eyes, trying to visualize the once 7000-square-foot beer garden that it once was. I felt the heat of the fires that had burned. My grandmother was always under that delusion about aunt Lolly’s worst tendencies. Even though grandma Ann had the faith of a thousand angels, no single person can put out a raging fire with a glass of water.

I had no idea about the arson, and it would be thirty-eight years before I knew the truth. As a child, my mom protected everyone, fearing that the truth might leak out. My aunt must have been terrified after grandma’s threat, but how she kept it a secret while drinking is a mystery, never to be answered. As a kid, I may not have known the facts, but I did know the adults around me were acting differently.

I wish I could say I remembered a lot of hushed voices and whispers behind closed doors, but I don’t. At the time, I wondered why we were moving from the big house so suddenly after weathering so many storms, but my joy and relief overrode my questions.

I realize now how many bullets my grandmother dodged over her life, but arson is a big one. She had nerves of steel, able to ignore the agonizing sorrow she had repeatedly faced over time. The customers and most staff assumed she was a hip senior citizen with a charmed life. Sometimes they called her Annie, other times mama Ann. Grandma loved the endearing nicknames. But no one knew the depth of her grit or the level of pain she had and could endure, not just emotionally and mentally, but physically. Years earlier, while living in Wallace, she had visited her doctor on her lunch hour and told him to cut off a toe that was causing her pain. He removed and bandaged it, telling her to go home and elevate her leg. She doggedly rebuked his advice to go home immediately and returned to work. She ignored the pain; it would pass. Her toe had been giving her pain for longer than she could remember. It was finally gone.

I will never know if she ever overcame the painful sorrow her heart must have felt during arduous times. If she had deep regrets, no one ever knew. Her wicked sense of humor, playfulness, and positive outlook hid any remorse or regret. Her personality shone through to the end, even in the care facility where she spent the final years of her life. She was the captain of our ship in the middle of more than one tempest. Regardless of the threat of capsizing and ending up at the bottom of an abyss, she kept her cool and asked, “What’s next?” She knew the storm would clear and was confident we would all survive. We always did. She performed her job with precision, evolving from matriarch to monarch. She was our queen.

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In the fall of 1963, the complexity and diversity of the world began to penetrate the idealistic life that had been taken for granted in Coeur d’Alene since the end of World War II. When President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 23, 1963, everyone was in shock and mourning, regardless of their political persuasion. The Catholic academy dismissed students from high school and grade school so the sisters and priests could pray in the sanctuary for our first Catholic President.

Norman Mailer spoke for everyone when he wrote:

“It is virtually not assimilable to our reason that a small, lonely man felled a giant in the midst of his limousines, his legions, his through, and his security. If such a non-entity destroyed the leader of the most powerful nation on earth, then a world of disproportion engulfs us, and we live in a universe that is absurd.”

In an instant, it became clear to everyone living in the United States that the President could be assassinated in open daylight. It was hard to fully accept until JFK’s funeral procession carried him to Arlington Cemetery. Terrifying thoughts led to years of endless conspiracy theories. If it could happen to the President, with all the protection he was afforded, what did that mean for the ordinary citizen and our republic? It was too frightening to ponder for long, so most people just returned to their lives and tried to make sense of a rapidly changing world. Idaho was thousands of miles from Dallas, Texas, and Washington, DC, making that shift back to daily routines easier.

As the country began to heal after the assassination and adjust to a new administration under President Johnson, most of the population was unprepared for the many Civil Rights Acts that Johnson would sign into law. He, unfortunately, also ticked up the presence of American involvement in Vietnam. Coeur d’Alene citizens could no longer ignore the shifting sands of change. It arrived on the doorsteps of local families whose sons were being called to fight in yet another war. Ann was a loyal Republican and had never been fond of the Democrats, nor had she ever voted for one. Now she found new reasons to despise the party and its leader. She hated that President Johnson was taking her now-adopted sons to fight in a war that made no sense to her. Always outspoken, she hung a cartoon on her office wall with the image of a jackass farting. Beneath the political cartoon was the caption, “LBG has spoken”.

As much as she hated the good ole boy President from the State of Texas, she might never have admitted they would have gotten along had they had an opportunity to meet. Or, they might have killed each other! Anything was possible!