Wallace Theater Troupe Loses Founder To Cancer

The Sixth Street Melodrama lost a pillar of strength and a well of talent Wednesday with the death of Pat Grounds, one of its four founders.

Grounds, 59, died at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane after a long battle with cancer and post-polio syndrome.

“Pat was such an inspiration, with her determination and iron will,” said Don Springer, who worked with his wife Joan, Pat Grounds, and her husband Sherrill Grounds to pull together the Melodrama’s first season in 1984.

Springer convinced Grounds to write her first play.

“We were always short of money, and she knew how to put words together,” Springer recalled Thursday. “I told her, if you’d just put an hour’s worth of nonsense together, think how much we could save on royalties.”

Grounds obliged, producing two plays virtually every season thereafter. Patterned after traditional melodrama and loosely based on local history, there were consistent crowd-pleasers.

“Pat was a wonderful writer,” said Melodrama board member Kelley Cook, who further described Grounds as “pretty strong stuff.”

“She was quiet, but you always knew where she stood. She was the Melodrama’s engine, really.”

The fact that polio confined Grounds to a wheelchair at age 15 never reduced her stature in the eyes of the young people she worked with. She taught English, speech and journalism in Idaho schools for 28 years, landing in Kellogg in 1973. She stayed in the Kellogg School system until her retirement in 1988.

“The students regarded her very highly,” said Kellogg School Superintendent Larry Curry, who was principal at Kellogg Junior High when Grounds taught there. “It’s kind of hard to believe she’s gone, she was so doggone tough.”

Cook said Grounds remained realistic but optimistic to the end.

“Pat knew exactly what she was facing,” Cook said. “I have no doubt that right now she’s running and leaping. And it’s time.”

Grounds is survived by her husband of 39 years, four children and two grandchildren, as well as her mother and sister.

The family suggests that memorials be made to the Sixth Street Melodrama. A gathering of family and friends will be held later on the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River.