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Now & Then By Paul Dorpat
At 101, Still Blooming
FIRST LET US attend to Loy Weathers posing with her centennial cherry tree. I found Loy this past summer while garage-sale hunting for what I call "forsaken art," one-of-a-kind creations that were once cherished. Like Loy's lawn, most of those on her block of East 56th Street in the Roosevelt district were stocked that Saturday with unwanted stuff. It was a block sale. But Loy's was the only front yard also displaying a 101-year-old cherry tree with a gnarly trunk as thick as a refrigerator. The tree still bears fruit on its high, stubby branches. But, as Loy explains, the birds get it all. This is surely because she wants them to. From the branches Loy has hung 10 fanciful birdhouses, which are both decorative and used. The visitors also appreciate the birdbath beside the tree; Loy got it in a garage sale for five bucks. In 1965, when Loy and husband Art moved in, their new old home's best historian lived next door. The then-90-year-old Harriet Neuser and her husband, Adolph, had planted the cherry tree in 1905 and also built the first room of the Loys' home for the family of five Neusers. In the first year, at least, they drew — and carted — their water from artesian wells in Ravenna Park. In 1913 the Neusers built and moved into the home next door, seen here in part on the right of both views. Loy retired in 2001 from 17 years of cooking at the Sunset Bowl in Ballard and before that 16 years at the old downtown Coffee Corral at Seventh Avenue and Stewart Street. From Loy's front porch behind the cherry tree I purchase a watercolor with a ruined barn suspended in a landscape of daisies. It cost me $3. I believe Loy found it in a garage sale. Paul Dorpat specializes in historical photography and has published several books on early Seattle.
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