We have known Norma Somers for over fifty years and last week I found that she once lived in downtown White Center.
At the time, the town was only about two blocks long but it was a busy crossroad. She was a young mother with two kids; she and her husband both worked at Boeing and rented a house from Art Mullen on 15th SW.
Mullen was somewhat of a pioneer, having arrived there around 1915, accumulated some acreage and opened a business.
When I arrived he was chairman of the Southwest suburban sewer district and instrumental in building the first sewage treatment plant for the Highline district at the mouth of Salmon Creek.
Norma went to Cleveland High and at age 18 she worked for Boeing as an Aero Mechanic, working on the B-17 airplane at Plant Two in a shop under the approach to the bridge crossing the Duwamish River. She was assigned to work rust proofing landing-gear assemblies.
That bridge is now closed but will hopefully reopen when King County and Seattle find the money.
I was working as an electrician in Shop 206 on the second floor right above Norma where we assembled instrument panels for B-17 bombers. I had no inkling she existed one floor below.
But she also had no inkling that one of her fellow workers was me sailing paper airplanes out of a window that often crashed on the bridge. (On lunch hour, boss.)
And I doubt the paper planes ever did damage the structure. That bridge just plain wore out.
I did not even meet Norma till years later when she was working in a Des Moines market her husband had built with his own hands and I tried to sell him advertising. The store was on the main drag and recently became a sports bar.
He went on to build a much bigger store in Des Moines many years later that is now a Red Robin hamburger spot.
She knew John Somers long before they went on to build and operate their successful bunch of supermarkets.
Each drove a bus for several years after the big war. She drove for Suburban Transportation and he drove for competing Furze Bus lines.
After she had divorced her first husband, Johnny talked her into marriage and together they built a successful Thriftway stores grocery chain.
They operated the stores for many years in Kent, Auburn, Federal Way and Smokey Point and sold them and retired.
