Florence from Bayside

Editor’s note: Originally published October 7, 2017. Republished March 19, 2020.

My name is Florence Brandt Troia. I was born in a house in an alley between Lombard and Oakes.

My dad had a gas station on 19th and Wetmore. His specialty was motorcycles. Mill workers would drop off their Harley Davidsons before walking down the steps at Grand Avenue. Pops would tune them up, wash ‘em down. They’d all be shining in a neat row by the time the day shifts let out.

Me and my sister Frances held it down at the shop. When pops went out for ales we’d fill the tanks, check the tires, take cash and make change. I was six, she was seven.

One day pops got it into his head that we would be a family band. Our mother used to make us practice instruments all afternoon and evening. We didn’t go out. She kept on us and I learned how to play harp, saxophone, clarinet, and piano. I could sit in on drums, too.

My dad called us the Red Tops. We wore matching outfits and played everywhere in Everett: the Commercial, The Central, Roma Hall, VFW, Normanna Hall, Colby Hall, and more.

We gigged all the dance halls during Prohibition. You could get a drink most anyplace we played. Everyone would go into the bathrooms and check the toilet tanks. There would always be a bottle of something in there. Or, you could just go to any old bootleg joint. In the house behind Stowell's Lumber on Broadway they'd mix you gin and soda pop, whiskey and soda pop. There was no dancing, no cards at these joints. Two or three tables. Just stop in, pay your money, get your drink and duck out.

The best whiskey came outta Granite Falls.

All the people would come to the dances, especially once the Depression hit. They’d pay with canned goods. People would bring string beans and pickles from their own garden in glass jars with lids, everybody was so poor. And the canned food we raised went to the poorest of the poor. The Red Tops never saw one red cent of money for the music we played.

Well, I got in with a fast crowd. My boyfriend Johnny figured out how to buy cheap grapes in bulk and ferment them. He had buckets in his basement, making batches of wine. There would be thirty gallons ready to go by September and it would all be gone by the time Christmas was over. Our neighbors made the worst booze, Italian grappa, on the stovetop. Knock you off your feet. You could smell that three blocks away so they were always frying cod to cover the smell. Like that was any better.

Johnny got some money together and I married him. We were voted most popular couple in the city and got married on Colby and Hewitt on the fourth of July, 1937. We rode home in a White Top Cab.

By then Prohibition was off. We decided to open a tavern. Those days in Everett, the tavern competition was as stiff as the drinks.

There was the Dock, the New Deal, Joe King’s place, the Sport Center, the Hanger, the Milwaukee, the Castle, the Rainier, the Dog House, the Blue Moon, the Seven Seas, the Pennant, the Totem, the Kentucky Stables, and the Anchor.

We opened the White Elephant on the corner of 19th and Broadway. We got started at 6AM serving up beers for the workers coming off shift at Weyerhaeuser. They’d start shooting pool, first thing in the morning. Now it’s not like that, but it was back then.

Johnny and I opened up another bar, Smoky’s in Marysville. I worked there, too. First shift in Everett, second in Marysville. I had an hour to get from 19th and Broadway across the flats to State in Marysville. I didn’t drive and the busses didn’t go there directly. I hitched with beer truck drivers and was never late once. All the beer truck drivers knew me from working the tavern.

And that was Everett back then.

I fixed bikes, I blew the sax and beat the drums, I brewed wine in the basement and danced in public.

Nobody has lived longer in this neighborhood than me and I know all the stories.