Life's bonny for Bonney Lake's Tidball family

Originally published Saturday, August 22, 1998

By JON HAHN  
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

Rural Bonney Lake used to be a real redundancy. When Irys and Duane Tidball moved there almost 50 years ago, the population was officially 273, give or take a few hiding in the bushes.

"They used to call this place Bootleg Hill, and they weren't far from wrong. There were some pretty busy little bootleggers out this way," said Duane.

He's sort of the owner-manager emeritus of Cedar Grove Automotive out on state route 410, a thriving car fix-it shop now run by their son, Mark. "I still go in there most mornings just to stick my nose into things and see what's going on, but most days I'm out and about before noon," Duane admitted.

Irys and Duane moved here from Kent in 1951, "because Mark had real bad asthma and our doctors in Kent said to get him out of there and up on a hill somewhere, where the air was cleaner," Irys said.

"I couldn't sleep much the first week we were here because I couldn't hear his (labored) breathing, like usual. It was like a miracle, and I've never wanted to leave here since."

Neither, for that matter, has Duane, 66, who's done everything hereabouts from being fire chief to police officer. The son of a foundry worker, Duane was born near Yakima but spent his early childhood in Kent before the family moved back to Grandview.

Irys, whose railroading father brought his family from Minnesota to Algona, said she "loved it right away, and that's even with it raining for six straight weeks after we got here."

Duane took to this side of the mountains just as easily, partly because it put him closer to saltwater fishing, which now consumes much of his spare time. Irys concedes "that's his thing . . . I don't even like the smell of fish!"

In the 1950s, Duane was living in Kent and commuting to work as a riveter and mechanic at Boeing in Renton. But one day his '35 Ford coupe pooped out and a Boeing co-worker spotted Duane hitch-hiking home and took him out to Bonney Lake.

"It was so quiet out here that you could lay down in the middle of the highway and no one would run over you!" Duane bragged. "They had one (police) officer, Fred, who didn't even have a squad car. He walked a quarter-mile beat, from (state Route) 410 down the Buckley Highway and back."

Because they were anxious to move because of Mark's asthma condition, Duane and Irys jumped at the opportunity to buy a small two-bedroom house about a block off state Route 410.

"It was built originally as a barn but the builder converted it for his son who was getting married," Duane said. The marriage dissolved and the house went on the market about the same time the Tidballs came looking. They've "about tripled its size since then," Irys said.

They needed more space for the two additional sons and a daughter who came along after the move.

"All our children live no more than 20 minutes away," said Irys, adding with a certain amount of satisfaction that it meant she also was close to their 18 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.

All the children, who went on to own and run their own businesses, began as floor-sweepers and bathroom swampers at Duane's service station.

"I'd taken over a station down in the valley in Sumner for my sister's in-laws." What then became Duane's U-Save service station became a very busy little shop.

"We only had two service bays, but we were always working," he said. "And we pumped a lotta gas back then. I remember when the pump price was down to 19.9 cents (per gallon) in 1962!"

Long before that, Duane got involved in Bonney Lake's infrastructure. He was fire chief from 1952 to 1958 -- "We had about 10 people, all volunteer." And also a $15-a-month Bonney Lake deputy police officer from "about 1954 to 1960."

"But not long after I'd begun to lease the (service) station down in the valley, my first customer one day was a man I'd given a ticket to the night before. I just couldn't do that! So I had to quit as deputy," he said.

He and Irys built the current Cedar Grove Automotive shop as a Phillips 66 service station in 1971-72. It then became a Texaco station and sold gas until the early part of this decade, when they pulled out rather than pump a whole lot of money into new underground tanks required by government regulators. About the same time, they expanded their U-Haul truck and trailer business, which runs seven days a week. Irys managed the business for 23 years, "until Mark was able to take it over," she said.

"People down in the valley (Sumner, etc.) always have thought of us up here as a sort of slum, but it's always been a good place with good people," Duane said. "As long as you don't steal anything here, you're in good shape. Neighbors will always help you out."

Irys seconded his endorsement.

"Bonney Lake is a good place to live. It's still 'rural' but next to everything. You've got the two domes and good doctors in Tacoma and Seattle, but you can go home to a rural setting. We like that."

Jon Hahn is a staff columnist who writes three times a week in the P-I. He can be reached at 206-448-8317 or e-mail him at jonhahn@seattle-pi.com