In 2014, my landlords, an Afrikaaner couple, retired to tour the country in a Jetsream trailer. They sold all their properties to a management company, which promptly kicked us all out. It had by far been the nicest place I’d ever lived, a spacious apartment in the charming Sunnyside neighborhood, which was filled with brightly painted houses and lush gardens. I lived there nine years, and during that time, Portland’s rents had been steadily rising, and I was shocked when I started to look around for a new place. A coworker suggested I try her old building, The Imperial Arms, which was only six blocks from the museum.
It was an old, five-story brick building on the edge of the freeway. I could only afford a studio, but I figured it would only be transitional. That was ten years ago. After two years, I moved across the hall, to a unit that was the same size but facing the hills rather than the freeway, and, crucially, it had a balcony. It was an okay size for a studio and had two closets, one a large walk-in and the other long and narrow enough to hold all my paintings. It was nice, but I always longed for another room, and to move up to the top floor. I got my wish when this apartment opened up, and I was finally making enough to afford the upgrade.
The Imperial Arms was built in 1916, and at the time was one of the fanciest apartment buildings in the city. There were 54 units equipped with “disappearing beds” (also known as Murphy beds, which had been recently invented), opalescent doorknobs imported from France, and electric stoves.
When I first moved in, I did some research and found an interview in the Library of Congress archives with a woman who lived here. Her name was Henrietta D. Crawford, and she was interviewed in 1938 as part of the WPA’s Folklore Project. The interviewer describes her as “A remarkable, intelligent woman, with little thought of the past and vivid interest in the present…hates Nazis, fascists, Communists; tolerates Democrats because believes in liberty.”
Pert is the word for Etta. Well preserved features with a lovely skin. Brown eyes that dance with the merriment of life. Approximately five-feet four. Delicate hands and feet. Coquettishly tosses her head sideways and looks at you smilingly. Spry, alert, intelligent. Her philosophy of life can be summed up in two statements: "No matter haw big the hurt, it's how you take it that counts"; and "Do the best you can, with what you have, wherever you are". Her sense of humor is most entertaining. Thinks the youth of today lacks certain qualities that are necessary: courage, fortitude, ambition. Glad that she doesn't have to start out as a young person in the world today.
Etta refuses to give her age, citing a lady’s privilege not to do so, though she must have at least been in her seventies at the time of the interview. She was born to one of the original pioneer families in what was then the Oregon Territory. Her father was Captain Medorem Crawford, who moved from New York State to Oregon City in 1842, where he established the first public transportation system in the state, carrying people and goods around Willamette Falls. He was conscripted into the army, and served to escort settlers across the Great Plains before returning to Oregon to work as a tax collector and becoming elected to the newly formed Oregon House of Representatives.
Etta grew up here but lived in New York and Washington D.C. at various points in her life before returning to Portland. She never married and claimed to have few friends. She was very interested in politics and was an avid fan of the symphony. When a good radio program was on, would tap on the wall or call down the service elevator to alert her neighbors.
I wondered which apartment she had lived in. I decided to look up the interview again last night; I hadn’t read it in years. I hunted for a long time –search engines had changed a lot in ten years- but when I found it, I saw that it did indeed cite her apartment number.
It was 504. This very apartment. I couldn’t believe it.
The interviewer describes the apartment and its furnishings in detail. “An interesting mahogany table that she uses for a desk was once a melodeon.” Most of the woodwork and fixtures in these units are the same as they were 100 years ago, aside from the stoves, and the disappearing beds, which have…well, disappeared. But to think that she placed her hand on these French doorknobs, she pulled out these sliding doors! She crossed these same hardwood floors to turn on her radio. Perhaps her melodeon desk sat in the very nook where I’m writing from now! She sat out on the balcony, which the interviewer says contained several flower boxes. It must have been a wonderfully tranquil place; the neighborhood was sleepy and dotted with Victorian homes, all of which were demolished in the sixties to build that infernal freeway. I tried in vain to find out when she died. The last record I could find of her was in the 1940 census. I wish there was more, but even this glimpse into her life, to be able to grip that slender thread connecting to the past, is exciting.
On the opposite corner of the building lived another remarkable woman named Betty Steenson. She had by far the best unit in the building; two bedrooms, on the Northwest corner, sheltered from the highway, overlooking the hills. I would run into her in the occasionally and I could get her to smile but she wasn’t terribly friendly.
She died in January 2020. Notices in the hallway announced that her belongings would be given away if anyone wanted anything. I went up and looked around. There wasn’t much; old, ugly furniture for the most part. I did take a small bookcase painted with trompe l’oeil books and a couple of collections of Doonesbury cartoons inside, which struck me as odd.
One of her nieces was greeting people, and I was floored to learn that Betty had been 93, and had lived in the Arms since 1969. She must have moved in right when the highway was under construction. According to her obituary, she was born in North Dakota and moved on her own to Portland when she was 22. She worked for the Department of Veteran Affairs for forty years. She was a frequent visitor to the art museum, and to neighboring restaurant Higgins, where the staff called her Aunt Betty, and where “many patrons assumed she was an eccentric millionaire with her big wigs, glittery jewelry and wardrobe ensemble of mostly black and animal prints, leather jackets and cowboy boots.” I had never noticed her wearing cowboy boots, but then again I mostly saw her in the elevator on the way to the laundry room.
I was deeply saddened that I hadn’t tried harder to get to know her. She sounded like an extraordinary person. But after ten years, I really don’t know anyone here. The few people I’ve gotten to know have moved out, except for the sexy Cherokee woman downstairs, and she’s …a lot. The best I can do is imagine that both Etta and Betty haunt this place, the spirits of two independent and uncompromising women walking the halls in their cowboy boots, banging on the walls when a good program comes on.
