After Bushels Of Moves, Family Claims A Home

Bayview’s forested Salee Creek Valley played tag with Al Peck’s family for generations. But Al finally won the game.

“I’m sure this place will stay in the family,” Al says now, as snow settles over the frozen clods of his alfalfa field. His wife, Edith, nods in agreement, never lifting her eyes from the doilies she’s crocheting.

From their living room window, they can see the houses where their children and grandchildren live. They expect a sixth generation of Pecks to sprout on the 250-acre ranch soon.

It’s the ideal life Al thought he’d never have each time he lost his valley. It burned in 1918, a year after Al’s Grandpa and Grandma Peck had homesteaded it. They moved into town and lost the land. Other people moved in among the charred red firs.

Al’s parents took the land back in 1934 to log. But Dad Peck had the wanderlust. He moved his family and lost the land as he followed logging work throughout Washington.

Al and his brother begged their father to move back near their grandparents in Bayview. Their dad finally bought the Bayview timberland in 1940 and developed it into a ranch.

But 14 years later, Dad Peck itched to roam again. He sold the Bayview valley. Newlyweds Al and Edith sadly prepared to leave their small house on the ranch. They’d planned to raise their children there.

But Dad Peck changed his mind. He asked Al and Edith to stay. They said they would if he put the ranch in their name.

“We just wanted to stay in one place,” Edith says. “If Dad had kept it, it would’ve been up for sale every year.”

Al and Edith recently marked 45 uninterrupted years on the ranch. They raised their two boys there. One stayed; one joined the U.S. Navy, saw the world and returned. Both boys are raising their boys on the ranch.

Al and Edith incorporated the ranch a few years ago in the family name.

“It belongs to us all,” Al says. “Anyway, the kids would’ve shot me if I’d sold. I want them to have security.”

Gift gaffe

Politicians usually are linked with glib tongues. But one former state senator from Kootenai County couldn’t talk his way around the mop he gave his wife for Christmas. And it wasn’t even the one she had admired when she saw it in a TV commercial. It was a cheap imitation. Care to guess who-dunnit?

Hair-raising

Coeur d’Alene High School senior class president Kirk Leichner spent years growing his unruly blond curls shoulder-length. But he’s offering to sacrifice them for his class’s graduation party and the Nez Perce Tribe’s quest to buy back its artifacts.

Kirk is raffling off chances for $1 each to cut his hair. The winner will choose the style at a Coeur d’Alene/ Lake City High School boys basketball game Feb. 3. Hope no one mistakes Kirk’s shaved head for the ball. …

High schools are great for weird events. What’s happened at yours lately that’s good for a laugh or a gasp?

Shoot the news to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; or send a fax to 765-7149 or call 765-7128.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo