Grandmother’s brass lamp inspires writer

Growing up, Christina Pollock remembers reading by a brass floor lamp in her grandmother’s home.

“I don’t remember ever not seeing it,” she says of the lamp, one of several nostalgic pieces that belonged to her grandmother and mother before Pollock acquired them several years ago.

“Grandma always had them in her home,” she says of the beloved family treasures, which include a cherry wood side table from her grandmother’s dining room.

But the lamp is especially dear.

Married to a Great Northern Railway official in the 1920s and ‘30s, Pollock’s grandmother spent much of her time alone at home.

“She learned how to do a lot of things for herself,” Pollock says, including how to rewire light fixtures. “The lamp is still going on grandma’s wiring.”

Now a grandmother herself, Pollock uses the lamp in her writing study.

“It’s by my desk – I use it every day,” says the Spokane writer, who is penning a book on female physicians working in mid-century Spokane.

“It was really a very historical time for women physicians in Spokane,” says Pollock, whose mother worked here as a registered nurse for the female doctor who later delivered Pollock.

As a writer, Pollock says she finds inspiration in having her grandmother’s things close by.

“My grandma and I, we were best friends, so I really do treasure these things,” Pollock says. “I have them with me when I write – it just kind of keeps grandma there with me. I think about her every day.”