After W. S. Robison died in 1941, Mabel bought (in 1942) a nearby house at 5210 Brooklyn Avenue NE, where this picture was taken at Thanksgiving in 1945. The house had six bedrooms and three baths. Most, if not all, of the children were probably still with her when she moved in, although by 1945 Keith and Bill were already married and must have been present only for the holiday. In addition to children, Mabel took in boarders during the war (and ran afoul of the wartime office of price controls for not keeping rates at prewar levels). Sam told me that Keith and Vern lived in the downstairs apartment for some period (before the war?). Mabel’s much older brother John Hiram Bass had apparently already come to live with her (he would have been 74 when this picture was taken; Mabel was 56).
From left to right in the picture: John Hiram Bass; Mabel; David; Phyllis; Darrell; [Keith’s wife?]; Keith; Bill; Bill’s wife Martha; and Vern.
Where was Sam? There seems to be one place-setting (nearest to the camera) with no dinner guest. Could Sam have taken the picture? This seems unlikely, as both Bill and Vern were photographers, and Vern looks like he’s holding in his hands a concealed cable-release to trigger the shutter, which he often did for formal portraits (instead of a timer), especially those he was in. Or could Sam still have been in the South Pacific?
Around 1950 Mabel bought 4131 California Avenue SW, in West Seattle, but kept 5210 Brooklyn Avenue as a rental, and in 1951, she bought the Clark Hotel.
Although now surrounded by new construction on all sides, we found in August 2019 that 5210 Brooklyn Avenue is, amazing to say, still standing and recognizably the same place. The front porch has been enclosed, and four mailboxes indicate it’s getting a lot of use. Sam, Wendy, Liane, Elena, Ryan and I did I drive-by and took a few pictures.