SLIDESHOW: CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO PLAY SLIDESHOW. This watercolor by Barbara Joyce depicts the old Vacca Farm stand on Des Moines Way South near South 152nd Street. The stand served as the favorite place to get Halloween pumpkins for Highline children before it was replaced by the third runway.
When Felix Vacca arrived in America from Italy in 1906 he found his way to the Rainier Valley, then South Park and eventually Sunnydale by 1926.
His son and daughter, Angelo and Angelina, were raised on the 6 acres Felix purchased along Des Moines Way South near 152nd street.
It became Vacca's Pumpkin Patch and a family tradition where for many years people would come from all directions to purchase his prized creations.
Not far from her birth home, just over the hill at 146th, Angelina tells us about those famous pumpkins and her grandchildren and great grandchildren who keep her young.
In the late '40s, Angelina or "Babe" remembers Frank Anderson who dug a large hole on some adjacent property creating a lake he named Lora after his mother Lora Anderson.
Not much more than 12-feet deep, the lake was quite popular with the kids, becoming the local swimming hole. Babe's daughter, Donna Yellam, often swam around the perimeter in the '60s. It was not to last.
Eleven years ago, the Port of Seattle bought the Vacca land and the lake to build the controversial third runway. The fish-filled five acre wildlife jewel built by Anderson was filled in and the Japanese garden down the road a piece was also demolished; rebuilt in the city of SeaTac as a duplicate of the original with the exception of the famous Koi in the ponds.
While the patch is misty history, the lake a marshy grove, the love of kids, pumpkins and Halloween is still her Vacca family tradition.
