Mr. Barron’s Day At Spokane Club Maitre D’ And Wife Retire Together
He wore three uniforms a day, white gloves in the morning, a maroon jacket in the evening, 16 brass buttons polished bright.
He lined up at 4:30 every afternoon for the manager to inspect his hands and nails. When the ladies descended into their dining room at the Spokane Club 40 years ago, this much was clear: Society ruled.
There’s no question who has ruled the dining room at the Spokane Club since: Will Barron Jr.
For 51 years, every Christmas, every Easter, every Fourth of July, he has been there, working.
Thursday, more than 400 club members saluted the retirement of the award-winning wine steward and maitre d’ and his wife, Reho Barron, the club’s social director.
Friends who’ve golfed with Barron and eaten at his home spoke in his honor.
But he still won’t call them by their first names.
In nearly 80 years of combined service, the Barrons have never eaten in the club dining room, accepted a lunch invitation or planned on using the club once they leave.
It is, and always has been, work.
Work - three jobs at a time - was how Barron survived in Spokane. Work was how he bought a house when no one would rent to him. Work was how a nondrinker wound up a wine expert and how a black man became the essence of what was once exclusively a white man’s club.
For 30 years, whenever Spokane Club member Bill Erwin considered dropping his membership, he was lured back by the dignity and tradition of Barron.
“To many, many members, Will is the Spokane Club.”
When Barron began work in 1946, the Spokane Club was one of the few places in town hiring black people. It was open to white males only, but black bartenders, maids and waiters staffed the place.
Barron knew nothing about food service. He spent six years as a busboy trainee, another six years as a busboy, a job few workers now tolerate six months.
In a strict hierarchy where some staff members stayed for decades, Barron worked up to waiter trainee, and then waiter. His training was as formal and elaborate as the three uniform changes required daily.
Standing at the elbows of the smart set and not-so-smart set, he learned to serve from the left and clear from the right, do 15 different napkin folds, set tables with two tablecloths and 27 pieces to each place setting. He mastered flaming dishes and gracious intervention, advising with soft directness to follow what the hostess did and please don’t drink from the finger bowl.
“I learned more about human relations than I would have in four years of college,” Barron said.
“He had a knack for making everyone coming in feel important,” Erwin said.
Barron met Harry Truman and Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. He met Bing Crosby, Count Basie and 10 governors, including Dixie Lee Ray, who liked a hamburger deluxe.
Service was the club’s hallmark, but the staff practically had to give it away. Pay was as little as $50 a month during the 1950s, with annual raises of a cent and a half. Barron became maitre d’, but he was also in charge of the janitors, orchestrating the parties and then cleaning up, 18 hours a day.
Club members say that even now, they’d have to double the salaries of both Barrons to pay what they’re worth.
For Barron, work found was work kept. He grew up the 14th of 16 children during the Great Depression, a child with no clothes. One sister died of malnutrition. In the Pennsylvania winter, the family walked the railroad tracks picking up coal that fell from the trains to heat the house.
During his working prime in 1957, there were no black people working in sales, administration or clerical jobs, no black mechanics in any major auto shop, no chefs in any major restaurant or hotel, no repairmen, airline workers, meter readers, bill collectors or even elevator operators anywhere in Spokane, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People reported.
At the Spokane Club, he always had a job. He also always needed another.
He afforded a house by moonlighting as a landscaper, buffing and cleaning floors at night and waiting and bussing tables at the Manito Country Club.
For 22 years, he’d serve breakfast and lunch at the Spokane Club, then leave for the White Pine and Sash lumber mill where he finished after midnight. One night he drove through a railroad crossing, past the blinking lights and clanking bells, just missing the train. He’d fallen asleep.
The routine left him with high blood pressure and a stone face. A photographer posing him for a Spokane Club portrait recently found one smile in 30 shots.
The smile was for his wife, Reho.
“She’s my lifeline,” he said. They were almost 40 when they met at the club, she as gregarious as he was reticent. They quietly dated 15 years before marrying 15 years ago. He was reluctant to do so earlier for fear she’d be hurt.
The couple have drawn what Barron calls “the long stare,” but never at the Spokane Club. People knew them so well no one ever reacted to the interracial union. Member Bette Parr remembers being floored at the idea that they could be a target for racists.
“It never even occurred to us,” she said.
Reho’s schedule was as loaded as his, organizing crab feeds, ladies’ luncheons, etiquette classes, singles barbecues, fashion shows, book clubs and most recently, an investment club. She works so far ahead her replacement has activities scheduled until January. Away from work, the Barrons nested, their home and massive garden flawless, their dinner parties distinct.
Mostly though, they worked. They earned reputations for unflappable fairness, no favorites. Reho relished the game.
“You have to like serving people and not feel it’s demeaning to you,” she said. “Even the stinkers are just a challenge.”
Barron shakes his head. “I love her dearly but she never wants to see anything but the good.”
For every member like Erwin who became a close friend, there is one who threatened Barron’s job for not getting seated immediately or being refused admittance for improper attire.
“Every day I was on stage proving myself. Everybody likes to test you.”
His position also set him in the gray zone between his black neighbors and white customers. He was denounced in his neighborhood after firing one black worker and was sued for racial discrimination. The case was dismissed.
Outside the dining room, Barron shares a cubbyhole of an office with chardonnays, Beaujolais and a picture of Jesus. The ceiling is water-stained and half-collapsing.
Over the years, Barron attended wine school, developed the club’s noted cellar and in 1992, won the Wine Spectator magazine’s Award of Excellence. All without touching the stuff. He tests wine by smell and the feel of the cork.
“I’m a priest,” he laughs. “I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I just talk about it.”
“He’s like an actor,” Reho Barron said. “He’s on stage down here. He loves talking to people, seeing people and making them feel important.”
During his tenure, the club has grown from 500 white male members to 3,500 members, mostly families. After the federal government began actively enforcing anti-discrimination policies in 1974, the Spokane Club was among the downtown private clubs whose membership changed. Women have been full members in their own right since 1977 and minorities began joining about the same time.
The club, managers and members changed. Even Reho relaxed a bit, but Barron is constant.
“He’s from an era that can’t be replaced,” said Duane Costa, front desk manager. “You just don’t find that kind of professionalism. If someone said, ‘I’m Charles, I’m your waiter tonight,’ Will would go out of his mind.”
Two years ago, a car accident badly injured Reho’s back. Barron needed shoulder surgery and lacks feeling in his right hand.
Both cut their hours. But at 69, Reho is tired of working days and nights. She’d like to spend Mother’s Day with her three grown children and grandchildren. She’d like more time to make jewelry, pottery and paint. One of her oils hangs in the club lounge.
She talked her husband into retiring. He’s been a bear ever since.
Years ago, he had 57 new pairs of shoes in his closet, four freezers full of food. He knew he was struggling with his impoverished past and got counseling. But work will always mean survival.
“All I know is work,” said Barron, 68. “Without work, I’ll probably dry up and blow away.”
Last night, he retired. Today, he’s back in the dining room to finish the week.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 photos (1 color)