Dearborn Hill lives on through magical memories

Sandpoint Furniture/Carpet One, home of The Ponderay Design Center and Selkirk Glass & Cabinets (208-263-5138), sponsors this column and it will appear in your Daily Bee each Sunday.

(Today, Patricia Mailey gives us a delightful picture of what it was like growing up in her beloved hometown of Sandpoint. In her own words, with some editing due to space limitations, she allows us to see through her eyes a place that exists mainly in the memory of a few, but a magical place desired by many.)

“There is one thing that has changed in Sandpoint and it broke my heart — Dearborn Hill isn’t there anymore. My sister and I would take our sleds and go down that beautiful old hill. It was my favorite and almost every kid in town would go there at night, the city would string lights, and we would have a wonderful time.

In fact, I always told my husband what a wonderful place it was. A couple a years back we were in town during the winter and I said to him, “Let’s take a walk and I’ll show you my Dearborn Hill.”

Well, I found out that Dearborn Hill isn’t there anymore; to me, it’s just a flat street. My husband laughed when he saw it and said, “So this is Dearborn Hill.” It was such a beautiful old hill and it was terrific for sledding.

“I also remember the big snow banks that they would put down the middle of the street because there was no place else to put the snow. When we were quite young, we would play in those big snow banks and we would have snow ball fights.

“There was a farmer that lived on the outskirts of town and his name was, Mr. Hudon, and he had a team of horses with a sleigh.

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“The Campfire group I belonged to pooled our money and one winter, snowy evening, we hired Mr. Hudon to give us a sleigh ride through town and out in the surrounding hills.

“I recall that it was a beautiful winter evening when he picked us up and he had these huge work horses and a big sleigh. We went all over the hills and dales and down through the middle of town. Of course, all the little boys in town were waiting for us with stock piles of snowballs and we were the moving target for those snowballs. It was quite a scene — Mr. Hudon was whip lashing his horses, we were screaming, and the boys were having fun snowballing us.

“We stopped in front of Grandma Nellie’s Greenleaf Cafe and she had closed the dining room to the public. This was at the end of the sleigh ride and she opened the restaurant just for our group. She had chili and cocoa for us and we had the dining room all to ourselves.

“That sleigh ride was one of the happiest memories that a lot of us ever had because Mr. Hudon didn’t just go through town, he went out around the hills, and I don’t know where the devil he went, but it was so much fun. And those horses were snorting and blowing, and on that cold night you could see the steam coming from them. The horses had bells on their harness — it was magical.

“When I was young I never could ski because I didn’t have any skis. I couldn’t iceskate because I didn’t have any ice skates, but I had a sled. Once in a while somebody would offer me a ride on a toboggan and we would go down the hill that was in front of my grandmother’s house. That was fun. I remember that we played in the snow a lot but I don’t ever remember being cold. I guess we just played so hard in the snow we just stayed warm. And as I said, we had our sleds and we had a lot of fun in the snow. The snow and the lake I think were the best part of growing up in Sandpoint — and the Panida Theater.”

Continued on Sunday.