Guy Goldsworthy left the living room for a few minutes and when he returned he brought with him a weatherworn photo album and set it on the wooden coffee table. Immediately, the room smelled of a campfire.
The corners of the album were singed, some of the photos inside stuck together. Goldsworthy's fingertips blackened from turning pages. Yet it was, in his words, "a treasure."
It was one of the few items he was able to salvage from his mother's home at 1930 Clise Place W., which erupted into flames shortly after 5 a.m., Thanksgiving Day, turning books and magazines into kindling, tables into ashes and a small T.V. into a melted blob It also took the life of his mother Alice Goldsworthy. She was 91.
Now, three days later, Guy Goldsworthy, who lives a mile east just off Thorndyke Avenue West, tenderly flipped through the pages of the ancient album as his wife Mary Lou looked on and their hefty and playful English bulldog Rugby played with a tennis ball on the living-room throw rug.
The pictures were of a generation ago. There was dad, then a young man in uniform getting ready to head out to the Aleutian Islands during World War II. There was his mom on horseback along with friends at the University of Washington campus. And there were their friends and neighbors helping to build the home on Clise Place West, where they would raise a son and spend the rest of their lives. It was a solid home, forged with cement, cinderblocks, brick and wood. Alice documented every stage of its construction with a photo. Guy beamed with pride as he looked on. It was something to hold on to, when just about everything else was gone.
Alice Codling grew up in Queen Anne. Her father left when she was 7-years-old, and it was up to her mother Rose to raise her during the hard times of the Great Depression. For years they lived in an A-frame attic of a duplex they rented out which provided income. The A-frame was no more than 4-feet tall at its highest point, which made walking upright impossible. But the two made do.
Alice attended Interbay Grade School and later Queen Anne High School where she would graduate in 1936.
At the University of Washington, Alice took an interest in pharmacology -- her cousin, John Codling, nephew of her estranged father, was the chief resident at Providence Hospital and may have been her inspiration.
"She was quietly determined," Guy said. "If she decided to do something, then she would do it."
She earned a masters degree in pharmacology in 1941. By then, she had already met her soon-to-be husband, Robert Goldsworthy, and they would marry on Oct. 4, 1941. As the United States entered World War II, Robert joined the Army and was sent to the Aleutian Islands for two and a half years. Alice stayed in Seattle where she served as part of the Coast Guard Reserve.
When Robert returned, the two would begin building their lives together. They bought a plat of land in Magnolia that was covered in trees - what is now 1930 Clise Place W. With some friends and family, they began building a home from the ground up. During its construction, they lived at a beach house at 1602 Logan Ave., (where a handful of homes are still perched along the beach at the southern tip of 32nd Avenue West).
When the Clise home was finished, they moved right in and shortly thereafter, Guy was born. The Goldsworthys lived in the house for nearly 60 years. It was a strange thing for Guy, years later and with adult children of his own, to have to pore through the charred wreckage searching for memories. The windows of the home were blown out and Seattle firefighters had propped up the eaves with two-by-10s. Sheets of plastic were draped over the walls and entryways were boarded up to protect it from the outside elements and potential looters and squatters, according to the fire crew from nearby Station 41. Fire fighters Randy Devitt and J.R. Wolfork came by the house Friday morning to check for hot spots, the lingering embers capable of reigniting a home. Neighboring homes were untouched by the blaze, though the heat was enough to scorch part of a backyard fence 20 feet away from the home's eastern wall.
The fire was caused by a baseboard heater in the den, Mary Lou Goldsworthy confirmed. Outside the home on Thanksgiving morning, a detective with the Seattle Police Department comforted Mary Lou telling her that Alice likely died peacefully in her sleep. It was good for Guy to know, too.
Guy was an only child and his mother doted on him. She and her husband were very intellectual, big readers and enjoyed political and philosophical discussions. And they encouraged Guy to join in. They treated him as the third adult in the family, taking him to museums, lectures, art exhibits and foreign films. He remembered going to a Japanese movie with subtitles before he even knew how to read. She would read children's books to him but then would venture right into historical non-fiction.
"She constantly read to me," Guy said, his eyes starting to shine. "She would read everyday to me -that's something she did for me that I should never forget."
The Sunday before Thanksgiving, Guy spent the morning with her and did the same on Tuesday as her caregiver could not make it through the icy roads to Magnolia. They spent Wednesday morning together, too - their love not expressed so much verbally but through acts of service. Alice was to spend Thanksgiving in West Seattle where her grandson and granddaughter-in-law were hosting their first Thanksgiving. A grand-child is expected in February. The West Seattle couple would drive to Magnolia later during the somber evening with plastic containers of food for their parents.
Always independent, Alice wasn't much of a churchgoer (though she made sure Guy recited the Lord's Prayer every night), was a strong believer in science. Yet she found lovely the view of the birds, waves and boats at the beach at Magnolia Park where she once shared a beach house with her late husband. She liked it there. The Goldsworthy family, honoring Alice's wishes, will not have a service. Instead, they may go to the beach at the end of 32nd Avenue West and in her honor take in the view.[[In-content Ad]]
