The decision to leave their comfortable city apartment for a precarious existence in the wilderness had not been made impulsively. Until 1919, when Jim was thirty-four, he was the the owner of a successful garage business in Seattle. But beneath the surface of this prosaic existence, there burned in each of them an intense love for mountains and forests. They took every opportunity to flee the city and roam the woods, and all the time Jim nurtured a deep desire to live in grizzly country and become intimately acquainted with the strange and, to him, fascinating beasts. As a youngster he had seen a few grizzlies from far off, and listened to many “tall tales” about them.

He had never forgotten the years spent in the wood: with his foster father, Evan Evenson, the only real parent Jim ever had. Jim’s own father, a railroad construction engineer, had been killed in a work acciden tbefore Jim wasborn; and his mother had died in childbírth. There were few orphan homes at the turn of the century, and Jim was passed around casually from family to family. He learned to saw wood and clean cattle barns on farms. He washed endless stacks of dishes in town houses. A crippling bout with rheumatic fever, followed by an year in bed, had left him undersized, with a “runt’s” terrifying inferiority complex. There were sporadic sessions in school, where he didn’t get along with either teacher or classmates. In his own words, he was “a mean little devil, always itching for a fight.”

Even Evenson offered to take the unruly boy when he was nine years old. Jim was wiry and tough, and the Norwegian bachelor, who trapped each winter in the foreste of northern Washington, needed help on his trap line. Each fall Evan bought old horses for $2.50 apiece and packed up into the mountains. When the freeze came, he shot the horses and used them for bait. He would trap marten until after Christmas, then start cruising for black bear; in the early spring he trapped for beaver. Jim still vividly recalls the misery of the days spent wading through icy water. Although life on the trap lines was hard, Jim found it exciting.

Each spring, when the trapping season was over, Evan came out of the woods, bought Jim a new outfit of “store clothes,” and left him with some family to earn his keep doing menial chores. Then Even would disappear until fall. This was always a hurtful letdown for the sensitive youngster who hated the coming of summer, and was bewildered by Evan’s disappearances. Come fall, and trapping time, however, Evan would reappear from nowhere, pick up his boy, and set out for another grueling winter in the woods. The third year, when Jim was twelve years old, Evan failed to show up. Jim never learned what became of him.

At the age of fifteen Jim was expelled from school for smoking cigarettes, and, his education being abruptly ended, he went to sea.

One day while on shore leave in Seattle, he happened to drop into Scott’s candy store, where Laurette De Nourde [sic] was employed as a clerk. Immediately he became as familiar a fixture as the gumdrop display.

Laurette, like Jim, had been orphaned early in life. but she finished public school in Seattle and then went to work. When her foster parents moved away, she was befriended by the Scotts, who owned a candy store. Laurette helped at the store, learned housekeeping and cooking, and took piano lessons. She had a naturaliy sweet and clear soprano voice and eventually began singing and playing professionally. That promising career ended at the age of twenty-two, when she met Jim Stanton. Finally, Jim gave up the sea, bought a garage, and, not long after, they were married.

In time, they bought a small, powered rowboat and spent many long, happy week ends fishing and exploring the countryside. They dreamed of the day when Jim might give up his garage and leave them free to explore the wildemess together. Finally the time came when Jim sold his business, pocketed the money, and headed for the north Woods. In Vancouver they bought a boat and supplies and embarked on a long fishíng trip.

They have never come back!

~ from “Grizzlies in Their Backyard” by Beth Day, ch. 2 “Two crazy people” [Buy on AMAZON – Preview on Google Book]