What Would Mr. Vergello Think Now?

There were always a few black families in Kennydale and we usually had one or two kids in our classes. I went all through what is now known as K-12 with Carmen Bradshaw and knew some of the Gutter girls from a family living on the other side of Devil's Elbow - no snickers, please. We kids pretty much didn't know there was a race problem. Some of the grown-ups around us did, though.

Mr. Vergello and his wife lived across what is now Meadow Ave. No. (then 106th Ave SE in King County) from our back field in those days when our property ran all the way from Park (104th) to Meadow. Their place is still there on the north side of the east stub of 38th No. What had been his very extensive garden is now a parking and storage area for construction equipment and fill overseen by a large , probably "volunteer", English Walnut tree. We had a basically friendly, sometimes crusty relationship with the decidedly old school Vergello's.

In the early 1950's my dad was offered, and for awhile took a position at the Weyerhaeuser Snoqualamie Falls Timber Company as Superintendent of the planing mill there. He was looking to possibly sell our Kennydale place and move on a 10 acre farm in that area the company would help him buy. When Mr. Vergello heard we might sell, he was concerned and decided to make that known.

Vergello came to our front door (a first; all neighborliness previously had occurred in the field or garden; he hadn't ever been in our house nor we in his; much later, I was invited in when collecting for the paper). He was worried about n...... moving into Kennydale and he wanted my dad's assurance that "you wouldn't sell to one would you?" Now my dad turned out not to be a perfect human being , but what with his communist friends and aquaintances and a gay nephew he really liked he was a pretty open-minded guy. As far as I ever knew he hadn't a racial attitude anywhere in his mind. He also was a McNeely, though, and "being a McNeely" according to my mother meant, among other things, he wasn't above pulling folk's chains. So when Mr. Vergello asked this insensitive question Pa replied, "Sure. I'm even going to go look for some and sell to the first one that's got any money!" History doesn't record how taken aback our neighbor was. Must have been a bit.

As it turned out, pa left the Weyerhaeuser job after a few months , mostly because he didn't like the idea of being boss over so many old buddies and relatives. Presumably they didn't want him "being a McNeely" in that role, either. Kennydale and Mr. Vergello got to keep us. Our neighborhhood has , of course, become considerably multi-hued since. I wonder if Vergello had a concern now, whose nearby door he would knock on?