Landmarks: An epilogue on the Manito Park firepit

Landmarks is a feature that has run in this newspaper for more than a decade. As stories are researched, not all the hoped-for information can be found. But sometimes information emerges after publication that allows for a second chapter, and a recent Landmarks story (“The man behind the Manito Park firepit,” March 29, 2018) about the Lawrence Rist Memorial Fireplace is one of those.

The original story told how a Boy Scout troop came to construct the fireplace in 1953 to honor its scoutmaster who died in the Korean War. It was mentioned that 2nd Lt. Rist had left behind a wife, LaVar Moon Rist, and infant daughter Andrea. The day the story appeared, Andrea Rist Kilpatrick Matters, who was once again living in Spokane, read the story and reached out to The Spokesman-Review.

From her home just west of Manito Park, she provided the rest of the story, an epilogue, and supplied an important thing that could not be located the first time around – a good photo of her birth father, along with other relevant images and details.

While her father was a Lewis and Clark High School graduate and her mother graduated from North Central, it was at Washington State College where they met. He had already served in World War II and had come home to attend college. He earned his degree in 1950 and married his sweetheart the next year. It was not long afterward that he was recalled for service in the Korean War.

Andrea Matters said she was just 3 weeks old when her father was killed in June 1952. Her mother told her later that he did know that he had a daughter. She and her mother returned to Spokane from Fort Ord, California, where the family had been stationed before Rist was deployed, and they lived for a short while with her mother’s parents on North Belt Street.

Her mother saved the telegram she received about her husband’s death, as well as the letter from his commanding officer, which noted that “near Sokkagae. North Korea, your husband was leading his platoon in the defense of a newly won hill position.” The hill was held and “your beloved husband died instantly in its defense.”

When Andrea was quite small, she moved with her mother to Seattle. “It was there that my mother met and married my wonderful adoptive father (Tom Kirkpatrick) when I was 2,” she said. Two other children were born into the family, giving her a brother and a sister.

“Grandma and Grandpa Rist visited us often, though, and we frequently came to Spokane to spend time with them and my other grandparents. Sometimes we’d feed the ducks at the pond at Manito Park and see ‘Daddy Larry’s’ fireplace,” she said.

The Rists were especially proud that their son was an Eagle Scout, she noted. A newspaper article in advance of Rist’s funeral stated that because of his lifelong interest in scouting – he had been scoutmaster of Troop 4 at Roosevelt Elementary School, where he had gone to school himself, when recalled for active duty – his parents created a fund to give to Troop 4 to erect a memorial for their son. From that, the fireplace project grew, and indeed, Troop 4 Scout mothers collected donations to help the project.

After graduating from high school in Seattle, Andrea Rist Kirkpatrick came to Spokane to attend Whitworth College, which is where she met Spokane native Rick Matters, who became an Episcopal priest. They have lived in Spokane, Oakland, New York City, North Carolina, Everett and California, where her husband served in the ministry and she worked as an RN, and where they raised their three children.

Her parents now reside in Anacortes, Washington, where her mother is receiving care for dementia, and her mother-in-law lives in Spokane. Retirement was going to take them either to the Puget Sound area or Spokane, and they opted for the Lilac City in 2015, where they live in a lovely older home which, coincidentally, is just seven blocks from the home where her birth father grew up.

She spoke of these things while sitting in her dining room at a vintage wooden 1920s table that came from the Rist family home.

Most Sundays she walks through Manito Park on her way to church at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist on Grand Boulevard, where she sings in the choir. In so doing, she passes by the Lawrence Rist Memorial Fireplace. She provided a photo from the 1950s of the fireplace as it originally appeared. Gone now are the wooden benches that extended past the basalt ends of the fireplace. Also gone are the large redwood rounds that had been shipped in from California and laid in front of the fireplace to serve as something of a patio.

“I know my grandparents would be so happy to see people using the fireplace, enjoying that spot. For the rest of their long lives (both lived into their 90s), they were the best grandparents anyone could wish for. Sometimes when I see families there, I stop and talk with them and tell them about the memorial fireplace. I am happy to do that.”