Posted on 06/18/2008 7:34:08 PM PDT by XR7
Edith Macefield died at home, just the way she wanted.
The Ballard woman who captured hearts and admirers around the world when she stubbornly turned down $1 million to sell her home to make way for a commercial development died Sunday of pancreatic cancer. She was 86.
"I don't want to move. I don't need the money. Money doesn't mean anything," she told the Seattle P-I in October.
She continued living in the little old house in the 1400 block of Northwest 46th Street even after concrete walls rose around her, coming within a few feet of her kitchen window. Cranes towered over her roof. Macefield turned up the television or her favorite opera music a little louder and stayed put.
"I went through World War II, the noise doesn't bother me," she said in October. "They'll get it done someday."
Macefield's stubbornness was cheered by Ballard residents tired of watching the blue-collar neighborhood disappear under condominiums and trendy restaurants. Her story was picked up by the national news and spread around the world.
In the last year of her life, she forged an unlikely friendship with a kindred soul, Barry Martin, the senior superintendent on the construction project engulfing her home. They met when he started working at the site.
It started with an offer to drive her to the hairdresser, then a doctor's appointment. He made sure she had food, ran to get groceries for her, picked up prescriptions, cooked her dinner.
She had been ill off and on for the last year or so, recovering from a serious fall, and bouts of the flu. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in April.
During her last days, Martin said he made sure that she was comfortable at home.
"She got to do it the way she wanted to do it," Martin said. "She had already made up her mind, and that's the way it was going to be."
He still wonders what drew him to the cranky, stubborn woman who seemed to do all she could to discourage friends or visitors.
"I think we were a lot alike. I am stubborn and so was she. We had some incredible arguments," Martin said. "She was amazingly smart."
It's unclear what will happen now to the tiny two-bedroom, two-story house built in 1900. Macefield said she doesn't have any relatives. Her only child, a son, died of meningitis at 13.
Martin isn't holding out much hope for the old house. It leans seriously to one side, he said. "I straighten the pictures every time I come over," he said.
"Eventually it will all go to progress."
Macefield planned her burial, picked out a casket and made it clear she didn't want a funeral or fuss or flowers. People can donate to the Humane Society, she told Martin last week.
With her attention to detail, it seems likely Macefield left a will, but in respect for Macefield's privacy, Martin doesn't want to talk about it, and isn't saying where she will be buried.
When Macefield's story first ran in the P-I, her home was swarmed by news reporters from around the country trying to get her to open her front door. Word of her death brought another crush of cameras to the street in front of her house.
Her aged blue car is still parked in front of the house, her collection of glass animals still lined up on the windowsills.
People remembering her said they were inspired by her spirit and spunk; by her choice to live simply in her small home, the way she wanted.
Others suggested that the lot where her home stands could be turned into a small memorial park, a pocket of green among the concrete.
Her life story is as intriguing and curious as the sight of the concrete parking garage rising around her home.
Some wonder at her stories, hinting at being a spy during World War II and touring with some of the most famous big bands of the day. She talked about attending teas and dances, once finding herself in conversation with Adolf Hitler.
Her friends never doubted a word.
Macefield said she was born in Oregon, and raised in Seattle and New Orleans, by her mother and two doting godfathers who shared their talents with her. One was a writer, the other sang and danced, and taught her French. She later learned German and several other languages, she said.
Macefield's stubborn streak led her to join the service while still in high school. She told her mother she was going to college. The young woman was already in England when officials figured out she wasn't 18 and threw her out of the service, she said.
But in love, she remained in England where she cared for war orphans. She returned to the U.S. to care for her mother until she died. She worked at Washington Dental Services, when its office was on Market Street in Ballard.
She loved opera, national politics, writing and old movies. She adored animals, and could be seen almost every day standing outside her front yard tossing out seeds for the birds.
"Once she told me it felt as if she had lived three lifetimes," Martin said. "It is interesting that one person could do so many things, then come to Ballard and live so quietly."
But in love, she remained in England where she cared for war orphans. She returned to the U.S. to care for her mother until she died.
Rest in peace dear lady.
RIP individual Edith Macefield.
Wouldn't budge, rest in peace dear lady!
I remember as a kid going to the Seattle Public Library and seeing the picture of the remaining house on Denny Hill. Everything was gone around it, it stood ~75 feet above the regrade, and had a wooden ladder going precipitously down below.
I guess some things, such as a deep stubbornness at selling property, never go away.
I wonder if she left her million dollar house to Martin?
RIP.
RIP, Edith.
Thanks to the Supreme Court, you can still be forced to sell your home to developers.
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I remember this story and good for her. May her soul rest in peace.
I just heard on the news about a land grab back East several years ago. To this day the land still remains vacant.
Left alone in Seattle? Dream on
Ballard holdout Edith Macefield wasn't a hero.
She was a victim of modern Seattle and its values.By Knute Berger
http://www.crosscut.com/mossback/15148/
Edith Macefield has died. She was the Ballard resident who wanted to be left alone. She refused to sell her home to a developer who then built around her bungalow, surrounding and overshadowing it. She's entered Seattle lore as a symbol of old Ballard, which itself stands as a symbol for old Seattle, a place that's being turned into a playground for the haves.
Macefield did not want to be a hero. She simply wanted to live out her life her way in her own home. The city is full of such people. They're not standing firm to make a statement, but they are resisting the pressures and temptations of change in order to live life their way. That stubborness is not simply an old Scandinavian trait, an impulse of old Ballard's squarehead culture. It's a human one: People grow into places, become part of them like the rocks and trees and hills.
But we live in an era where place isn't supposed to matter, except as a backdrop for a condo view or on a postcard. Our mobile society can live, work, play, and pursue the American dream anywhere. People bound to place — people with accents, regional loyalties, people with a skepticism about rapid change, people with deep roots — are seen as holding America (and Seattle) back. We live in a time when simply being isn't enough; we have to be moving up and forward and fast. Mobility is our obsession. Change is out mantra. Growth is our lifeblood.
People like Edith Macefield who want to live quiet lives and be left alone are now the equivalent of squatters — they occupy space that has a destiny, a "highest and best use" that doesn't include people who want to live their lives in peace. Steamrollering over them is justified by the notion that we're fulfilling our civic mission to create a denser, more urban city so that we won't pave all of nature. The Edith Macefield's are seen as standing in the way of progress.
A few might cheer her on, but only a few. Seattle's policies and laws, its tax breaks and incentives for developers, its frontier city DNA all call for the displacement of the Edith Macefields.
A new report underscores how large the pressure is: Many Seattle neighborhoods have hit their 20-year housing growth targets in only three years (Ballard is at 174 percent of its target). Even so, the city continues to look for ways to speed up the process, and indeed encourages more and faster growth. These targets don't reflect anything so natural as the birth rate of the local population. They are set to meet job and economic targets. They are driven by prosperity goals. Money.
Sadly, we haven't figured out how to live in a denser city well — why do we think growth is going to save us? We can't clean up Puget Sound now — are we really going to be able to clean it up more readily with another one or two million people packed in here? Growth is often what drives our problems, not solutions. But slowing growth? Un-American. You can't deny or defy the all-powerful market that rules American life like a bullying demiurge.
The problems of growth aren't the only ones.
Edith Macefield wanted to be left alone. But that's hard today even if a developer doesn't want your property. Seattle is putting up surveillance cameras in city parks. The Puget Sound region is contemplating widespread road tolling that would allow drivers to be tracked. The state is putting micro-chips in some driver's licenses as part of a larger national pilot program to make sure every American has — and carries — a traceable ID card. The feds are stopping U.S. passengers on the San Juan ferries to look for drugs, terrorists and illegal immigrants — stopping and questioning Washingtonians who have not crossed a border. In Seattle, your garbage is being picked over to make sure you've sorted your recycling properly. If not, you'll be fined.
Edith Macefield may find what she wanted in the afterlife. In Seattle, fat chance.
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