BY MARGARET LALIBERTE, EASTSIDE HERITAGE CENTER VOLUNTEER
Mid-twentieth century America is commonly known as the era of the automobile. On Seattle’s Eastside growth exploded thanks to the Lake Washington Floating Bridge, which opened in 1940. But the area was also known as a fine area for enjoying life with a horse. According to one source, at one time there may have been approximately 3,500 horses in the Greater Bellevue area. In the early 1930s a portion of public lands between Bellevue and Kirkland was designated for the use of local horse riders (and eventually became Bridle Trails State Park). The Lake Washington Saddle Club was founded in 1945. North of downtown Bellevue the community of Diamond S was developed for families with horses. On 15 acres on Clyde Hill A.Draper and Lida Coale raised show horses from 1950 to the early 1980s. A few months after Clyde Hill incorporated as a 4th class municipality in 1953, the Coales’s Tarry-Longer stable hosted a horse show to raise money for the new city’s empty coffers. As the headline of an article about the Eastside in the Seattle Sunday Times in 1951 declared, “Days of Dobbin Are Not Done.”
Gerties around table at lunch in their clubroom (2000.015)
Certainly one of the most colorful—and long enduring—groups of Eastside horsewomen (as they were then known) were the Gallop’n Gerties. An offshoot of the Lake Washington Saddle Club, the Gerties gleefully resisted formal organization over the years. Without bylaws, officers or dues, one member said simply there was “no club anywhere more loose-jointed and such fun.” Though many members lived in the Bridle Trails area, one came from Mercer Island and another rode north from Wilburton Hill. For years a third member who lived on Clyde Hill taught local kids to ride. When one of her horses, Tony, died, he had been so beloved in the community that the Bellevue American newspaper gave him a two-column obituary.
The Gertie’s original drill team, complete with groups’ pennant at left, probably on 104th Ave NE in Bellevue (2000.015)
The group gathered every Thursday morning for a ride, followed by lunch hosted by one of the group. Eventually they got a clubroom—the “Tack Room”-- in member Mel O’Farrell’s barn. There was always a Christmas party to which spouses were invited, and the group’s drill team participated in Eastside summer events. They were part of Bellevue’s Seafair Parade in 1951, where the girls (as the news reporter called them) “exhibited fancy drills and wheeled their mounts along the parade route.” Members participated individually and as a group in the Saddle Club’s gymkhanas.
The three-day trail ride was a high spot of many summers. Over the years the group rode up the Teanaway River near Cle Elum; in the Methow Valley; the Capitol Forest near Olympia; and along the Pacific Crest Trail from Deep Creek to White Pass.
Gerties on summer pack trip on Pacific Crest Trail, 1968 (2000.015)
The Gerties maintained a robust membership of about 25 women over several decades, The hostess roster for 1980 listed 22 different lunch hostesses over the year. Inevitably though, the group’s scrapbook began to include obituaries along with the celebrations. But as recently as 1998 there were still ten Gerties living in the Bridle Trails area, and four or five of them met on Thursdays, if no longer to ride still to enjoy each other’s company and recall their years in the saddle together.
Sources:
Seattle Times, Jan. 21, 1951, Aug. 12, 1951; Jan. 29, 1963
Kirkland Courier, Feb. 1, 1998
Gallop’n Gerties scrapbook (2000.015), EHC collection
