Living on Maplewood Road
Posted by Tim Lyman – Published May 6, 2019 *missing photos from previous site article
Written by Patti Waitman-Ingebretsen “The Ransom girl”
In 1950, my parents, Don and Mildred Ransom, purchased a new ranch style home, built by the Orth brothers at 4608 SW Maplewood Rd., on the old Borsch Nursery property. My father hired a man with a horse and equipment to grade the embankment into a sloping front yard to landscape the property. Our parents put us children to work picking pieces of glass left from the old greenhouses destroyed during the building process. It was not fun.
Saxton-Wilson and later, just Wilson, operated a mail order nursery next door at 4600 SW Maplewood Rd., a parcel still owned by the Wilson family. Our neighbors on the west side of Maplewood Rd included Mrs. Catherine Borsch (4804), the Warren Wilson family (4600), the Eby family (7821 SW 47th) and the Eggleston/Bernick family (4763). A variety of families lived in the house next door at 4620. I recall the Fleenors, Stricklands, Butts, and Kellys in the 1950s. The families on the east side of Maplewood Rd were the Ingrahams (4559), Morris Schlaifer (4577), Joe Ehler (4611), Miss Olive Brown (4621) Donald Devine (4641) and Harry Reynolds (4719).
Multnomah Blvd ended at SW 45th until 1952, and Garden Home Rd was still the main route to Garden Home. Maplewood Rd was paved, but had no shoulder or sidewalk. The road from SW 48th to SW 51st was on the old Oregon Electric trestle. It was scary, there was a guardrail on the east side, but it was straight down on the west side of the roadway. It was a long way down from the top of the paved trestle and we children felt anxious and unsafe walking to and from school each day. A gravel sidewalk was added to the west side of the road from SW 48th to SW 51st after a young girl was hit and killed by a car while walking on the shoulder of Maplewood Rd. Many years later, fill leveled out the steep area on each side of the trestle. The familiar curve of Maplewood Rd can still give one a sense of train tracks and trestle.
In the third grade, I attended the old Maplewood School. I believe the old school had two sets of stairs going up to the second floor. The lower level classrooms were upper grades and the upper level housed the primary grades. Each classroom had a cloakroom, and the upper story had an outside stairway. Primary teachers were Mrs. Dorothea Fix, Mrs. Juanita Amspoker, Mrs. Dorothy Blaylock (later known as Miss Nelson) and Mrs. Ramona Alsman. The old school grounds included a real tennis court. An area on higher ground known as “the grove,” where the portable classrooms are today, had fir trees, picnic tables, and a large stone fireplace.
Comments from previous site
Carolyn Rust – May 6, 2019: This is fun to read. The road has always had such a nice feel to it when driving along. Thanks for sharing, Patti.
Valerie Snyder – November 24, 2020: I remember Mrs. Alsman! I went to Maplewood in the early 70s and she was still there then. Great memories!
