Helen Steele is a woman in her late eighties who was the co-owner and operator of Freddie Steele’s with her husband, Freddie Steele. At their restaurant in Westport, they hosted not only thousands of fisherman but esteemed politicians such as governors Dixie Lee Ray and Albert Rosellini, Judge George Hugo Boldt and Senator Warren Magnuson. Helen’s husband was the middleweight champion of the world and in several Hollywood films. While Helen let him be the star of the family, she certainly became the Queen of Westport as well as a proponent for women’s individualism and rights.
I was raised in Seattle and went to high school there. I have two sisters and I had a brother. He died. Time flies, doesn’t it? Six years ago, maybe. Maybe it was ten years, I don’t remember. I do not remember dates at all. I remember December 7, 1941. I remember 1942. I don’t remember the day, but it was June because I got out of high school. I can’t remember when I got married and never could. It’s in November I do believe. Well, dates have never meant anything to me and I put them out of my mind.
[How old were you when you got married?] “Too old to know better. I should’ve known then! I was about 27. I was against marriage before it was in style. The first fight I had with my mother was because I didn’t want to get married. “Why don’t you get married?” “I don’t wanna get married! I’ll be a nun before I get married!” I felt women were above equal and could do as they pleased long before it was fashionable. So that was that. My mother was a little old fashioned lady. You’re supposed to get married. If you’ve got daughters, marry them off and let them be miserable like you. My mother and father divorced but my step-dad was a real nice man. And my dad really was too. So it was rocky for about a year there but that’s all. They got a divorce. It was all right.
I didn’t appreciate my mother until just lately when I hear other people talk and find out how stupid they are. My mother came over here from Greece. She could not say “hello” in English. She didn’t know yes from no. She went to work in one of those factories back there making cloth. That’s what they did, and it was all immigrants. She was there a couple, three years and then some relatives knew my dad. Anyway, it was fixed and arranged and everything and they met and decided they wanted to get married and they lived there in Hartford for maybe two years.
My dad had been to Washington and he wanted to come back. He went back to Connecticut because he had cousins there and while he was there he met my mom. But my dad had been out here in the Navy for two years and he wanted to come back out here. So finally that’s what they did. And we went right to Seattle and he went to work until he racked up about $20, then he opened a restaurant. And that’s the way that went and we’ve been here ever since.
By the time she found out that my dad was having some on the side, she still couldn’t talk English, but by now she said a few broken words, but she was not an American. She went to a lawyer and got a divorce anyway, even though she couldn’t talk, had no trade, didn’t expect anything. She threw him out – she was not going to be treated that way. So I have no sympathy for these gals that won’t leave their husbands for one reason or another. I love him but, or I hate him but. My mom did it and she made it. And she was the one that couldn’t talk. You don’t turn a blind eye unless you’re a fool.
My mother had my two sisters by then and my brother too. She’d work all day at her job, at what she did, and then she’d come home, cook our dinner, clean the house. Every Saturday you’d rip the house apart to clean it. You had to scrub floors in those days, you didn’t just run a sponge mop on them, you’d scrub the floors. She did all the hard work. She’d wash clothes by hand because you didn’t have washing machines, and scrub boards, and clean the house. And that was her Saturday off.
After high school, I went straight to work. I fiddled around with college too but I wanted to be a glamour girl. I wanted to live on Fifth Avenue. So I went to work for this furrier on Fifth Avenue. I lived in downtown Seattle, a couple of girlfriends and me. We got an apartment for the three of us – it was a real good time. It was right downtown. I’d say it was glamorous. You had to dress all up. Everything was different. About then the war broke out, so you know I didn’t suffer. There were always a bunch of guys around and we’d go dancing. There was a ballroom and all the big names came.
I was about 25 when Freddie and I met. By 27, I decided we were gonna get married – I decided it was a good idea. They weren’t planned pregnancies or
anything. We were married a couple years first. You know, liberated women are a little obnoxious. I never met the man that I thought was my equal, never. Some I’d treat like they were because for one thing or another, but they’re all stupid, as far as I’m concerned. Not stupid – I don’t hate men, but I don’t think they’re one bit above me on the social ladder or thinking.”
Girlfriends in Seattle, they fell away finally. I didn’t form too many close relationships. One gets married, and once one gets married, you can forget it. They’re gone. That song “Wedding Bells (Are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine)?” That’s true, and finally we came down here. Freddie and his dad got together and they bought a charter boat. He had the boat less than a year and they decided they should be by the boat. They came down here, they bought this boat, they got a skipper, and then the restaurant was for sale. The old man thought it’d be a good idea, and Freddie didn’t have any trade or talents. He had been a fighter, but that doesn’t make you for anything else. That’s how come we came to Westport. They got here and the first thing they did was sell it.
I didn’t have too much of a say in it. “We’re going move down there and you’re gonna love it!” My father in law was a con. “You’re gonna love it,” he says. “It’s real busy in the summer and everybody holes up in the winter. You can take the kids and go to Hawaii all winter long. Put ‘em in school over there and just live on the beach. You’ll make so much goddamn money!” My father-in-law was a character. “You’re gonna love it! All you gotta do is pound that cash register all summer as fast as you can and Hawaii in the winter – a wonderful life.” That doesn’t sound bad, does it? That’s what I thought I was heading for. It was so busy. You came to work and you didn’t have time. My waitresses were pulling down close to $100 in tips. That’s not much today, but when you know that a steak was $5, you can imagine how much money that is to get in tips. There was us and the one across the street, Sourdough Lil’s – we were the two growing concerns. I’m tellin’ you, we were busy!
So we got down here and I had never heard the surf. You know that surf sounds like a train. Every night I’d hear this darn train go by and I couldn’t figure it out. “Freddie, where’s the train?” He would never tell me – I figured out myself years later. He knew, dirty dog. Westport is the same as it was, but different. It’s funny – it hasn’t changed much. In the years I’ve been here, we got a new supermarket. The original one was a skating rink that had been converted into a supermarket with a soda fountain. And we didn’t have a stoplight. When we got the light, it was a big deal in the ‘70s – we became a city! I had moved from Seattle to not even a one-stoplight town. Talk about pioneering!
When we moved down here, I had 12 cocktail dresses and no pants. If you look at my closet now, I have 12 pairs of pants, no cocktail dresses. Not one. That’s the difference in my life. When styles changed, I didn’t have anything to wear. In my day, I was a clothes horse, but I’m not anymore. Weekends I thought we’d go up. But then you get stuck with the kids. Kids really put the kibosh on a lot of things. We managed a couple of vacations without them, but it was difficult. But I didn’t get back to Seattle as often as I thought and when we got there my mother wanted me to see her. We always lived in west Seattle and my mother thought I went crazy when we moved down here. This is the hinterland! She didn’t wanna stay at all, “It’s so quiet – no airplanes, no nothing! No cars – what is this place?” She was a city gal, she couldn’t handle this.
It’s very soothing. When my husband had his stroke and I sat up there with him and it was hot, sweaty, and smelling of old people and I’d come home and have to go to work, I’d go to the beach first, and I’d walk for about an hour. It was so relaxing – everything goes out of your brain. I wasn’t thinking about anything – it just left and it felt good. I wish I could still do it. I loved it down there. Yeah, I like the beach. You become a convert.
~Interviewed & transcribed
by Siobhan Peterson
