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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Lois Imogene Bark 
April 28, 1983 
Cassette 1, Side 2 
 
 
Lois Bark  00:01 
Record.  
 
Mary Giammona  00:02 
This is side two of tape one, and we're still interviewing Lois Bark on April 28, 1983. You were 
talking about your grandparents and what you remember. How close was your family, just your 
immediate family, between your parents and you and your sister? Did you do a whole lot of 
things together, besides the camping experience? 
 
Lois Bark  00:22 
Yes, we, until we were probably, oh, a little older, like in the eighth grade and, my sister in high 
school, we then began to go involve our friends and so on. And I took dancing lessons, and, oh, 
did a little bit of that, you know, well that tap dancing was popular then. And of course, we lived 
in the north end, and we used to do a lot of roller skating and it's, now it's popular again, but it 
was very popular at that time. And then, when I went to high school, my, the fellow that I 
married was involved with the deMolay and the-- I was not a rainbow girl, but we went to all 
those very nice dances out at the, I think Ballinger Country Club and the Yacht Club and places 
like that, with a large group of young people. And they were always very nice. And I have very 
pleasant memories of that. I have a whole box full of the dance cards. They-- very elaborate 
dance cards with a pencil and, you know, fill in the names and so on.  
 
Mary Giammona  01:43 
Yeah? I've never seen one. 
 
Lois Bark  01:45 
I'll have to show you those. Yeah, they were, they were, they were beautifully made of suede and 
very elaborate things. I did more things like that than my sister did. She, not being terribly 
strong, I think the difference in my sister and I is that, because my parents had to take care of her 
more than-- I was more independent and on my own, because I sort of had to take care of myself 
a little more. And I know my mother always said that I was able to entertain myself, for she 
always had to entertain my sister. And so, probably, I enjoyed and had a little better time doing 
things that she wasn't able to do. Perhaps she outgrew it as she was, got older, but during her 
school years, it was difficult. And then, of course, later on, they understood what the allergy was, 
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and she didn't have the problem anymore. But after we were both married, then I think we were 
closer together than we had-- being almost six years difference in our ages, we weren't that 
compatible, you know. And growing up, I would want to be with her friends, and she didn't want 
me to be and so. But as we grew closer together, as we grew older, and I think this is typical of, 
in families, but we were always a very close family, together. My mother was the one who really 
was the one who disciplined us, and she was very Victorian lady, and we always said mama had 
an iron fist in a velvet glove. She was very sweet, everyone loved my mother. She was a dear 
lady, and she was one of those people who smiles at babies and old people, you know, and 
everyone responds to her. The-- but she was the one that really ruled the roost, and my dad was 
quiet and, but they were, they were a dear couple, and just everyone really admired them. And 
over on the island, when we left there, and some, we have pictures of them as young people 
together, and they were just awfully cute. They're both tiny people. I think my dad was about 
five feet six, and my mother about five feet two. And he worked for Skinner and Eddy for 45 
years, when he finally retired, and he had heart difficulties in later years. But they celebrated 
their golden wedding anniversary in 1958 in August, and I gave them a nice party at that time, 
my dad was quite, had been very ill, and he lived just about two months beyond that. And I 
always felt that he had just hung on so that he could be with Mama, you know, for the 50th 
anniversary. And my mother died, let's see, three years after that. And I knew, you know, they 
would not be too far apart, but she just went to sleep one day, just nicely, she was never ill. And 
I've always been very strong and like her, I think too, not, I've never been ill, ever, or any major 
illness ever in my life, thank heavens. And I always tell my son how lucky we are that we have 
never been ill, and we should appreciate our bodies and take care of ourselves. And he was a 
just, when my husband died, Roger, Roger was just 11, and so we just had to make it together. 
And he never gave me any, ever, trouble. And we just, I just said, Rog, you and I have to make it 
together. So, you know, that's the way it's got to be. And he never, ever did any, you know, got 
into trouble of any kind. He's just a wonderful boy, a young man now, but he did follow in his 
dad's footsteps. And he's, he's a very brilliant young fellow. And he attended the University of 
Washington and but he has always worked for himself, almost always, just had several jobs, big, 
with several companies. But he's always-- now, he just has a real good job, but he does it on his 
own. And he enjoys outdoors and mountain climbing and that sort of thing. And, so he seems to 
be pleased with his life and is happy, so that's fine. But, yeah, he's very enjoyable. I, I think, you 
know, there's a time, I think especially with boys, they aren't involved with their mothers, you 
know, very much. And just about the time when he left the university, then he lived by himself 
or with other fellows. And I didn't see him very often, but he always knew I was here and, you 
know, that sort of thing, and then. But lately, now that he's a little bit older, somehow he, there's 
an appreciation or a feeling of coming home, always, and I, so, we have a very nice relationship. 
I just enjoyed being with him, and he seems to like to come and just talk too. So, yeah, so lots of 
very nice young men and girlfriends, so they come too. So, it's kind of a circle again, but he's a 
nice fellow. So, I guess that I-- the museum, I'm, of course, I'm 67 now, but I've spent a lot of my 
life at the museum, and it's changed considerably, in kind of sad ways and different, under a 
different regime now, different attitudes. The people who come are, the people on staff are quite 
different. I'm really the last one there now, entirely, because we've had so many people leave, 
just in the last few months, that remembers the things that were there and and the people who are 
involved in Seattle history. The new people are not from this area and, from the east, mostly, 
they have a little different attitude about the northwest. I think you have to have lived here a 
while to understand people in the northwest. They are different, have a lot of energy, I think, and 
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just a different outlook on the world around them. But I've lived in, or not lived in every state, 
but I've traveled almost in every state in the United States, but this just seems to always be the 
place that I'd want to stay. 
 
Mary Giammona  08:59 
What was your home like on Bainbridge island, I guess later on here too, in Seattle? 
 
Lois Bark  09:05 
Well, I, when we first, when we lived in Port Blakely, it was what was called a mill house and 
they were very nice houses. They had two story houses with a big porch on the front. And when 
we lived there, electricity had just come to the island. In fact, my dad put in the electrical wiring 
in the house, and did other people's houses there too. And they had a, I guess, generator of some 
sort because every once in a while, the lights would go out, you know. And but it, it was, in fact, 
the house we lived in is, is one of the only ones that are left in the little line of houses on, in Port 
Blakely, and it recently was purchased and has been remodeled into a lovely home. And they 
kept most of the part of the old house itself, which was, I was pleased to see that they did. They 
asked me when I did that segment on PM Northwest, we were able to meet the people and to see 
the house, which was-- it's always interesting to go into a place where you grew up because, of 
course, the rooms seemed so large when you were small, and then to see that they were tiny, 
little stairway that went upstairs. There were two bedrooms upstairs, and it was nice. And we 
lived, when we moved here in the north end, it was just a small cottage-type, five room house. 
And, my dad always worked in the yard, and was, I think, just a typical middle class household, 
because my mother had the things that she did, and my dad had the things he did, and then they 
did things together. But my father didn't have hobbies, he just, it was just family, it seemed to 
me, that was all. They were just complete, and they didn't seem to need so much, you know, 
going out, other than just their immediate family. I hadn't really thought about that until just 
recently, but my mother had lots, of course, lady friends, and my mother always had tea in the 
afternoon for her friends. And I think one of the nice things that she did, and it was probably 
from a long time ago, but she always bathed and changed her clothes in the afternoon, always put 
on a new or a pretty apron, and then her friends would come for coffee. I suppose this was a 
Norwegian thing to do. And they would visit one another, her friends in the neighborhood there. 
And that was something she always did. And even when she lived alone after my dad died, she 
always did, she just continued doing that every afternoon. But those are kind of nice things to 
remember. I never ever remember any harsh words or any difficulties between them, so, that's a 
really foreign thing to me, and it's the same, when I was married to-- I enjoyed being a 
housewife, and, you know, annoys me a little bit, like women's lib and all that. There's certainly 
nothing wrong with being a good, you know, home keeper and I provided, you know, my 
husband and son with the things that made them comfortable and happy, and there's certainly 
nothing wrong with that. So, I like to cook and bake, really just enjoyed that part of being home. 
So, I've never really wanted anything. That's why I still stay in this house. I've lived here, of 
course, since 1953. So, when we came back from Baltimore, then we bought this house, and I've 
just been here. You can see I'm not one to move around much. My mother and dad were in their 
house for 45 years in Seattle, and then I was here all that time too. So, I just, I guess, we're 
people who have roots and just kind of stay in one place. 
 
Mary Giammona  13:26 
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Did you have responsibilities of your own as a child that you had to do, any chores or things that 
were assigned to you?  
 
Lois Bark  13:34 
And yes, I think my sister and I divided some things. Of course, we always had to keep our own 
rooms. We always had a room, we always had a, one room together. I think the house, yes, even 
in Port Blakely, when we were small, we had what was called a trundle bed. It was a large, like a 
big crib with sides, my grandfather had made it, and we slept together. And then when we moved 
to Seattle, we had just one bedroom, because it was a two bedroom house, and we had our things 
there so, but we always had to take care of our own thing. And my mother taught us to cook, and 
so we did dishes, just like most girls do, I guess, and ironing. And my sister-- my mother was a 
very, very neat housekeeper, and she ironed everything, and my sister said, "When I grow up, I'm 
never going to iron the dust cloths," because my mother always ironed dust cloths. She thought 
that, my sister thought that was the epitome of neatness. But that's, yeah, we just did I, really, our 
household tasks, I think. But my mother also enjoyed, I think, being in the home and doing those 
things too. 
 
Mary Giammona  14:57 
Did you go to school? Did you have favorite teachers or-- 
 
Lois Bark  15:00 
Yes  
 
Mary Giammona  15:01 
--people you were close to very much? 
 
Lois Bark  15:02 
In Port Blakely, my earliest school teacher there, of course, it was a little one-room, well, it 
wasn't a one-room schoolhouse, it was, had four rooms that had eight grades, and there were two 
grades in each room, first and second. And then, when I came to Seattle, I started in the third 
grade here. But one of the teachers there was one of my very favorites. I've always remembered 
her. And here in, at Greenwood school, I enjoyed, I think elementary school teachers, perhaps 
more, you have a little longer relationship with them. And I enjoyed the sewing teacher. And I 
guess they called it foods then, or cooking and sewing, I enjoyed doing that. And we, in the 
eighth grade, we did, our exercise was with Indian Clubs. And at the museum the other day, 
someone had given us a set of Indian Clubs, so, I demonstrated my skill at doing the Indian 
Clubs. They'd never seen them before, but now, remember, that was our eighth grade exercise to 
do with the Indian Clubs out in the hall and bang each other with the things. We played softball. 
And in high school, the first couple of years, I was terribly shy. And then, I guess by the time I 
was a junior, I was in Girls Club, and then I became, you know, spread out a little bit, and I was 
in a lot of school plays, and I enjoyed that a lot. And we had a little group of, in fact, I have three 
girlfriends that I still, that went to grade school with me in Greenwood, that we're still friends, 
and just, you know, just like family, almost. So, it was, it was fun growing up there too. 
 
Mary Giammona  17:17 
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Did the, were the boys and girls treated any differently? While you were going to school there, 
were there any obvious differences? 
 
Lois Bark  17:24 
Well, I think in, in our household, we, I was never very much at ease with boys, because I just 
really didn't know boys at all growing up, just, you know, an occasional one. So, I never felt at 
ease with them to talk or, so as, that was probably one, a difficult thing, because I was shy with 
boys, and I always envied the girls that perhaps had brothers that could just talk easily with them, 
but I never, well seemed to be able to do that. But we did-- It probably wasn't until high school, 
much that that we, ever, you know, went out or even went to parties where boys were, the boys 
then seemed, there wasn't similarities, as much as there are now. And there were boys clubs and 
girls clubs, and girls gym and boys gym, and the girls that would have dances, and they would 
dance with girls and the boy, the boys didn't have dances. But I remember that, which seems a 
little odd, but they had dances for just, the girls dance together. But I wasn't terribly much 
involved in that change. I didn't, wasn't into sports at all in high school, and perhaps if I had done 
that, there would have been a little, you know, more togetherness with the two. But I enjoyed, 
you know, attending games and all of that. But it would seem to be more just after high school 
with a group from university students, and that group that we went in with a lot, even though I 
wasn't involved in the school itself. But I've always been associated with it, I guess, all my life 
living close to it, I've always attended classes there as an adult for years, and have enjoyed that 
very, very much. And I have always read a lot, never so much for entertainment, but more for 
knowledge. I've never spent much time on novels and that sort of thing, just more for 
information. And I still do that. The things I enjoy reading about are animals, you know, 
whatever, costumes, things like that. I don't really spend much time on novels. 
 
Mary Giammona  19:59 
Did you have favorite clothes or, what were they like when, when you were dancing at the 
deMolay functions and things like that, did you have favorite dresses? 
 
Lois Bark  20:07 
Yeah, we, course, we all those, we dressed up, you see, for the dances, and you had to have, you 
know, four or five evening dresses. And in the '30s, of course, the dresses were bias skirts and 
cut low in the back, usually because tan skin, of course, was coming into popularity in the '30s, 
you see. And so we had lots of long dresses, and the dances were really quite formal. They were 
always sponsored, you know, and had hosts and hostesses, and, so, they were always quite nice. 
And then we'd usually have, go someplace afterward to eat. There was never any drinking or any 
of the smoking or any of that kind of thing when I was in high school, of course. I suppose there 
were some who did that, but they were really, I remember just one girl in high school that 
smoked and of course, we thought she was terribly tough, but you just life wasn't like that, then, 
it-- they did, the boys had cars and little kind of Fords and runabouts and Roadsters, open cars 
like that. But I don't know it wasn't quite as wild and crazy, at least it didn't seem to me. And the, 
you know, when I talk about changes in fashion, when I speak about the flappers of the '20s and 
how difficult it must have been for the, the mothers, who had been raised as Victorian women. 
And that generation gap must have been tremendous at that time. Of course, I was just a young, 
very young teenager in the '20s, but I don't remember any problems with that, of wanting to be-- 
I can remember the short skirts, and I can remember, I probably gave my mother some problems 
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with certain kinds of clothes that I wanted to wear, that she would want something more, more 
conservative, I guess. And I remember buying a coat that, there was one that I wanted very 
badly, it wasn't over on the side, it was just, you know, typical '20s, with a cloche hat that came 
way down on one side. I thought I'd look just swell in that, and my mother had something else in 
mind, but I won out. I don't remember, you know, the problems, but I remember I got it, and my 
mother didn't like the coat, but I was just, went out on that when I did. My sister and I were both 
quite small, and we always had trouble with getting shoes because we had very small feet. And 
we had one store, [?Turl's?], in Seattle that carried shoes for, you know, odd sizes, sort of. And 
we always had trouble with that, but. And then, of course, I did have two, two cousins that were 
about 10 years older than my sister and I. And they were daughters of my dad's aunt, and they 
had, were quite wealthy, and we would get a lot of their lovely dresses. And I remember when 
my cousin graduated from Queen Anne High School, she'd had, they wore graduation dresses 
then; and then she had a dress for that, and then a lovely dress for the party after the graduation, 
which we thought was just wonderful. But we wore dresses too when we graduated from high 
school, and I graduated from the old Meany building in, on the University of Washington 
campus, which was unusual. But we didn't, we just sort of, you know, was just mild things we 
did. We went skiing then and that was before there were any kind of, you know, really resorts 
and ski resorts at all. And we had to hike, we would ski down Paradise, so, we'd have to walk 
three miles up from Narada Falls before you got to Paradise to ski. The roads weren't open then. 
And we skied at Snoqualmie a lot, too, I did a lot of that. And I used to ride horseback, mostly all 
in early, you know, high school, and as a young, a young adult, we did those kinds of things, but 
not a great deal. But we did probably more skiing than anything else, but I haven't skied as an 
older person for a long time. I wouldn't want to take it up now, I guess. Learned to bicycle, I 
guess, when I was in high school, and, because over on the island, we didn't have, you know, any 
place to ride, so, because of wooden sidewalks and so on, nobody had bicycles. So, I learned to 
do that later when it became a fad again, here in, you know, in part of the '30s again, for a short 
time. But other than that, I wasn't involved too much in sports, I guess. 
 
Mary Giammona  25:56 
You still have your clothes at all or are they in the museum by now or? 
 
Lois Bark  26:02 
No, I didn't save any. I don't think,  
 
Mary Giammona  26:04 
Just curious. 
 
Lois Bark  26:05 
Yeah, I, it's funny that when you, you think of the things you wished you had saved, and I guess 
we all do things like that that we've given away or thrown away over the years, and you think, 
why didn't I save that? My sister had some lovely dolls. And when my mother passed away, we 
sold her home. And I remember this wonderful, beautiful bisque doll that must have been very 
expensive and would now be worth a great deal of money, and we gave it to the Goodwill, you 
know, that. But it's just a matter of not knowing about things, you know. I suppose everybody 
does that. I'm not much of a collector of things myself, you know, which is strange being in a 
museum, but I don't collect things. 
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Mary Giammona  26:53 
Do you ever see things that were almost yours? I mean, do you ever say, oh, I almost had that 
one, sir. 
 
Lois Bark  26:59 
Well, I certainly see things in the museum that, you know, I know about, and it's interesting. I 
have kept lots of pictures, and I hope when I retire, to be able to put them into kind of a history 
of the family, because I have-- for my son, because I have family pictures of his, my, my 
husband's family, his mother and father. His father was Russian and his mother was the English 
lady, so I have some interesting pictures of their early lives. My mother in law was a very 
famous English nurse, a surgical nurse. And when she had, I just met her, just briefly before we 
were married, and she passed away. And my husband's father was Russian, and he had come to 
this country from Russia during World War One and became a citizen. He was very, bright 
fellow, he was a mechanic. And so Russians are kind of dour, you know, but he was very 
humorous, he could tell very funny stories. And I remember when he finally accepted me, he 
gave me a beautiful gold brooch, a star burst that had been given to his wife, as a surgical nurse, 
by Mackenzie King, who was the Prime Minister of Canada, she had nursed a couple of his 
children. And so I wear that on special occasions, it's very, very nice, and I have a lot of gold 
medals from her as a surgical nurse. And so my husband was an only child and, but he came 
from two really, rather extraordinary people. They were an odd family, odd couple, really, 
because of the difference in their nationalities. And she was a very dainty, very particular, real 
ladylike woman. And Mr. Bark was a big bear-like, very genteel man, but he liked to be, he was 
kind of macho, you know, that kind of thing, show his strength and how much work he could do 
with the thing, that he seemed to think was the best way. So, my husband was torn between the 
mother and the father. He had some problems.  
 
Mary Giammona  29:37 
Well, I'm coming to an end again here, so I'll stop this, before it cuts you off. 
 