When I lived in Seattle for the first time in 1959-60, I lived in Magnolia on 28th Ave. NW opposite the school. I shared a house with 2 young teachers, Jody and Mary Ann. Jody handled matters relating to contacting the landlord who owned the house. Jody told us that the landlord had been a judge at the Nuremberg Trials. During that year in Magnolia I didn’t get to know any of the neighbors.

When I returned to live in Seattle in 2010, we bought a house in Ballard on 12th near Ballard High School, and also near Ballard First Lutheran Church. I wanted a neighborhood church, hence my choice of BFL. At Ballard First Lutheran I got to know Leota-Gail and her husband Gordon Kramer. Lo and behold as our friendship developed I learned that they lived in Magnolia on 28th Ave NW near the school in the family home where Gordon had grown up. Hmm……I paused to think – had we been neighbors all those years ago?

I began to dig deeper. Well, it turns out that in 1959-60 when Gordon was in 9th grade, the family home in Magnolia had been rented and the family lived in Olympia. But…..Gordon delivered newspapers to a judge who’d been a Judge at the Nuremberg Trials. It all fit together!!

Now Gordon and Leota Gail really are our neighbors here at Ida Culver Broadview, albeit about as far apart as possible in the buildings here. Nevertheless, I feel we really are neighbors this time, 60 years later.