My parents, Carl Thomas Moser and Helen Louise Felton, married and immediately started a family. Dad was a WWII veteran, serving in Patton’s Army in Germany. After the war, he returned home to the Snohomish area. He met my mother through a mutual friend, Margaret Hegeman, and they were married in 1946. I was born in 1947 in Seattle, where I believe Dad was attending the University of Washington to obtain a degree in education. He later transferred to Washington State College in Pullman, which is my earliest memory. Dad built a house while going to school, and I recall the house and a neighbor who was studying to become a veterinarian. After graduation, Dad got a teaching job at A.C. Davis High School in Yakima, a position he never left in the Industrial Arts program.
After graduating from WSU, Dad bought a white 1950 Dodge two-door, which may have been a used car, and I may have the model year wrong. I recall sitting in the Dodge as Dad drove it off the dealer’s parking lot. We moved to Yakima into a rental house on South 10th Avenue that would play an essential role in my life. It was a one-story, two-bedroom, one-bathroom bungalow with a coal furnace in the basement. The working-class neighborhood was within walking distance from Davis High School and close enough to McKinley Grade School, where I would later attend.
Looking back, I realize we lived in a “Catholic Enclave” of the city; many of the neighborhood children went to the nearby parochial school and the Catholic church. On one occasion, my parents were out of town, and I stayed with a family that lived across the street. On Sunday, I went with the family to mass, which was celebrated in Latin. Trouble began as I innocently walked past the Holy Water font at the front door of the church and was pulled back by an attentive, not to mention helpful, priest and was given a sign of the cross with my wet hand. My next faux pas was getting tangled in the pew-mounted pivoting kneeling rail, a device with which I had no experience. If the idea was to get my attention during prayer, it worked.
Lifelong friendships were formed on South 10th Avenue. Mom took this 1953 photo of the neighborhood kids in our backyard: Jerry Iriarte with his dog on the left, Tom Moser standing in the center, holding up his brother A. Todd Moser, and Billy Manty on the right. Jerry and I have been lifelong friends for over 70 years.