Citizen Journal: 3 homes in Valley have foundations in family

I was born on Sept. 16, 1926 in the house that is still sitting on the corner of Lake and Valleyway (two blocks east of Fancher Way in what is now Spokane Valley). At the time, there were no railroad tracks and Lake Road was a narrow, dirt road, extending north a couple of blocks.

My father and mother, Pete and Grace Danelo, farmed this block area with the most beautiful vegetables and melons, including Hearts of Gold cantaloupes, in the Valley.

The Danelo family was well known in the Spokane Valley and the children included my three brothers, Tony, Joe and Mike. I am the youngest.

Dad would load his long four-wheel wagon with boxes of fresh vegetables and melons; Mike and I would go with him. We would go from house to house in Yardley to sell it all with no trouble.

When I reached the age of 16, I got a job at the Diamond Match Co., chopping blocks, which was located on Fancher Road, called Hardesty Road at that time and later named Fancher. Since it was only three blocks from my house, I could walk there and started work at 7 a.m. I was off at 3 p.m. It was really good pay and close to home.

It was there that I met my future husband, Dave Hardin, when he had come home on leave from the Navy in January 1946 to see his mother, who also worked there. After I had met Dave, we started dating and were married March 31, 1946.

I kept on working until I had my first child, a son, Charles D. Hardin, born June 8, 1950. My daughter, Terra, was born on June 7, 1951.

We had purchased Empire Cycle from Stan Wagner in June 1953. Dave was the mechanical brain and I was the financial brain. We managed to get the business to be the largest in the Northwest. We had 13 Yamaha sub-dealers.

In 1964, I went to Japan with 39 Yamaha dealers to visit the factories and for a convention. I was the only woman and they treated me like a queen. We were there for two weeks.

Mother and father had given my brother Mike two lots east of the house where I was born to build a house for himself and his family and two lots to my brother Tony to build a house for himself and his family. Since then we have purchased the house from him which is where I am living now.

Since the area has been rezoned to industrial, there are only three houses still standing; the one I was born in on Lake and Valleyway, Mike’s house and the one I am living in now.