I worked for two years at the Portland Hotel, starting at three in the morning
and working till three in the afternoon, sweeping the sidewalk. This was the
lowest position but jobs were hard to find, especially in the hotel business. I
would start sweeping on Fifth and go up Yamhill, then Broadway, and
finally Morrison.
After this, I had contacted friends who knew about a job washing dishes at
the Seward hotel in Portland, I worked for three months there as a
dishwasher. Henry Lee was the cook. He was a lovely man. His father was a
Chinese merchant who sent his son to Paris. He was in Paris for five years,
where he learned the art of cooking. Henry put up a fabulous meal. It was a
famous place to eat. They couldn’t feed the people fast enough There was
always a waiting line out into the lobby at the Seward. They had to give the
people numbers and call the people by number to seat them.
This man who was driving the bus and doing janitorial work in the lobby
had a Chinaman give him $1,100.00. The Chinaman was a gambler and had
hit the jackpot. They had the Chinese lottery all along Sixth Avenue. He hit
the 7-11 combination which was $1,100.00. Portland was too small for the
bus driver now. He came to me and he said, “Hey, kid, how would you like
the job driving the hotel bus?” “Well,” I said, “I’m sorry; I never had any
motor vehicle. I didn’t know how to drive it.” “Well,” he said, “You’ll learn
something. I’ll take you out and teach you.” He took me out to
Eastmoreland, which was a wheat field at the time. You couldn’t go around
in a circle there. You would be backing up and turning and going ahead. I
was a fast learner and so in no time I had it down pat.
The hotel buses were an unusual sight in those days. They were the biggest
vehicles in town then. There were Studebakers and Whites and other models.
These buses were generally built on a motor truck. The body was built the
length of the truck very fancy and beautiful, very ornamental so they would
attract people when they came off of the train. The inside of the Seward
Hotel’s bus I remember was red and the outside was grey with blue trim.
They held twenty-five to thirty people. The seats were sideways, not the way
the streetcars have them. The luggage was on top and the fare was twenty-
five cents. It was something.
We had a contract with all the visiting baseball teams that came to play the
Portland Beavers. I’d meet them at the depot and take them out to the game.
When it was over, I’d go back out, pick them up and bring them back to the
hotel.
The owner of the Seward Hotel was the nephew of the Secretary of State
when we bought Alaska from the Russians. The Seward Hotel had one of the
most beautiful lobbies in the City of Portland. It was just beautiful. It was
designed with mahogany pillars and hanging chandeliers; they were
enchanting. And it had a tile floor. The tile was laid by a specialist from
Italy in a rug design, different designs in different sections, you see. The tile
was not finished and the floor had to be scrubbed. The Alder Street and the
10th Street sides were all windows and they had marble balustrades and
brass rails and fifteen brass spittoons which I had to clean out and polish.
There were red upholstered chairs with a brass foot rail which I scrubbed. I
was the handyman, on the go day and night.
