June 2024 email exchange between Warren Park (WP), Robert Park (RP), and James Park (JP).
Subject: Re: Memoir story

RP: Warren,
Thank you for the story. That was a 1950 Nash that Dad bought (not 1951).
I don't recall ever being on a return trip to Deep River with our parents. Perhaps James has a different recollection. If it was during the school year I expect we were left behind (with the housekeeper providing meals).

JP: Thanks for this little trip down memory lane.

WP: Thanks, James, for the added info.

JP: Yes, it was a 1950 Nash, which had seats that converted to a bed.

WP: I remember all of us sleeping in the reclined seats in the Nash sometimes when we were on the road stopped for the night. And sometimes we were in our own tent at a campground. Do you remember if the Nash had its own roof rack? I think the rack Dad used was an add-on that was clamped somehow to stay put. Lots of equipment was carried up there.

RP: See the photo here.

WP: I remember on one occasion not far out of the Twin Cities, Dad got pulled over by the highway patrol for speeding a little. Dad’s famous non sequitur still sticks in my mind. When the patrolman came up to his car window, Dad told him, "I’m a doctor." Perhaps he thought this would gain him some additional respect, and not call for a speeding ticket. The cop looked at all the gear, tents, sleeping bags etc. on the top and us kids in the back of the car, and asked, "Are you on a call right now?" It was obvious that being a doctor was no excuse at all for speeding in this case. We ended up with a warning ticket (no charge).

JP: This was our first car in the USA.
The green Olds was left in Canada with Douglas for a while.

RP: The pale green car we had in Deep River was a Pontiac, shown here.

JP: I was present when Warren fell out of the garage attic.

WP: You mean you were home at the time? You do not see me fall out, did you? Only my two friends were up in the garage loft with me at the time, I’m pretty sure. Were you up in the garage loft too?

RP: I was in the garage attic with Warren when he fell. I had my back turned when he was doing something in the doorway. When I turned around he had disappeared. I asked "Where's Warren?"

WP: Wow, I had forgotten that. I was a disappearing act, while in the process of pulling my scooter up to the loft.

JP: He was actually kept mostly awake for those three days, to prove that he did not have permanent brain damage. (He did fully recover, as we all know.)

WP: I don’t recall being awake at all during those days.
I’m still scared of heights.

JP: I was the one who took Warren to his music lessons at MacPhail School of Music by bus. It was then in downtown Minneapolis, in a building that still stands. The new location is near the Mississippi River. And I did pay some attention to the music books he was using. But I never got beyond the stage where all of one's fingers stay in one place.
I agree that he did give up on these early musical efforts. Warren was not motivated enough to do any practicing between lessons. But later (as he tells us), music became one of the major themes of his life.
It probably helped that he lived in the basement with the piano. But that is another part of his story.

WP: Well, at the Humboldt Ave. house, I had my own bedroom, on the second floor, near you two, but I sometimes spent time down in the basement in what we called the ‘rec room’. The old piano at Humboldt always was kept in the back porch/TV room next to the dining room on the first floor, just under your bedroom, James. At the house on Edmund Blvd by the river, the upright piano was in the basement where I had my room. Evelyn’s own spinet piano was kept in the more respectable living room at Humboldt Ave. and in the piano room off the living room at Edmund Blvd.

RP: Interesting to hear that Warren's bedroom at Edmund Blvd was in the basement, and that he had a piano down there. Of course I never lived there, and only spend a night or two on a couch in that basement when visiting from grad school in Wisconsin. Was Warren still living at Edmund Blvd after James went to New York for Union Theological Seminary and did he move upstairs to James' bedroom before he left Minneapolis for UM-Duluth?

WP: Yes, when James moved out (and Robert had already left) I claimed the bedroom upstairs, where I stayed until I went off the college in Duluth. I still stayed there in the summers until 1966 when I got married and we had our own places to live.

JP: Our trip without Warren was to Texas---not Mexico. We spent only a few hours in Mexico, across the border from Brownsville, Texas.

WP: Right, I know that, but the fact of crossing into Mexico for a few hours always seemed to be the most egregious wrong to me. I didn’t get to see Mexico (for half a day) until I took a trip when I was between marriages.

RP: As I recall we only spent about an hour and a half in Mexico before going back across the border. There is a paragraph about our Mexico visit in my Vacation Memories story.

WP: Okay, not much of a visit, but it was symbolic to me how special that was. Mexico! Another country. Wow.

JP: Mr. Jackson was a violinist for the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, which played at Northrup Auditorium, on the campus of the University of Minnesota. One of his sons---Billy---was a good friend of mine.

WP: There were other Jackson children too— Donny was younger than Billy by a year, and baby Susan was younger than me by a couple of years. There may have been an additional girl after that, too, but that was a while after they moved to a new house a block from Lake of the Isles. Also, I remember a crawl space in one of the bedrooms upstairs in the Jackson house which was very small and dusty. This was accessed through a little door beside the bed in Aunt Rose’s room. You two boys, with at least one Jackson son, crawled into the access space to a small nook where people could stand up. And one time, after all you bigger boys had gone back out, I was left behind for a moment by myself in that space. Mr Jackson tried to come and get me but he was too big to use that short access area right under the roof. I told him that I was fine, and that he should back out of the tunnel, so I could come out. Everyone was standing around in Aunt Rose’s room, even Mrs .Jackson, and I wanted to get to the other side of room so I could head out, and I thought it would be a good idea to crawl across the bed to escape. Bad idea! By the time I had made my way across the white bedspread there was an amazing trail of dust from my clothes left behind. Mrs. Jackson chased everyone out of there, and immediately took the bedspread off so it could go into their washing machine in the basement. What a lot of trouble I was. I didn’t think about how dusty I had gotten.

JP: Later this orchestra was renamed The Minnesota Orchestra. And it now has its own home in Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis.
I do remember the early visit back to Deep River, soon after we moved to Minneapolis at the end of 1949.
We have a reunion picture I believe, with Douglas's motorcycle and a whole line of kids from the first block along the river. There is probably a date associated with this picture. Robert will probably be the best person to re-discover this item.

WP: I don’t recall this photo.

RP: I recall a photo of Beach Ave. kids lined up in front of our house with our mother and other mothers behind them, but I believe it was before Douglas had a motorcycle. I don't recall any photo of Doug with his motorcycle in Deep River.

JP: Thanks again for these good memories. Warren obviously has a stronger memory for some details than the rest of us who lived thru the same times. For example, I did not have such strong memories of Amal and the Night Visitors.
Yes, I agree the green car was a Pontiac. A good correction.
And yes, both Robert and James were in the Garage Attic when Warren fell out. I was the one who brought Mother out to fix everything. And I was impressed about how calm she was concerning this news of Warren's fall.
Warren's memories of the Jackson family are more complete than mine. I did not remember the other kids. The Aunt Rose he refers to was the owner of the house. She lived on the first floor. The Jackson family lived upstairs, as renters, until they moved to another duplex near Lake of the Isles.
Best wishes to everyone who reads these responses,

James         Warren         Robert