HUCKLEBERRIES: This tale of Tom's no whitewash

Coeur d’Alene has a connection to Tom Sawyer — yes, that Tom Sawyer — through its funeral homes: Yates and English.

It begins in 1906 with the arrival of Civil War veteran Cyrus Pineo, his wife, Flavilla, and their son-in-law and daughter, John and Constance Pineo Cassedy.

The Cassedys had owned a funeral home in Campbell, Minn. They opened another here.

All this, according to the late Louise Shadduck and her local history, “At the Edge of the Ice: Where Lake Coeur d’Alene and Its People Meet.”

Flavilla Cassedy’s maiden name was Sawyer. She was the sister of Tom Sawyer, who met and inspired Mark Twain while working on the Mississippi River. And the rest is his-story.

Why am I telling you this?

Mrs. Cassedy managed Cassedy Funeral Home for decades, expanding the business to include funeral homes in Harrison, Rathdrum and Spirit Lake. In 1945, when she sold her operation to the Riplinger family, she had been a mortician for 53 years.

Along the way, she hired two apprentices: Gil Yates and Don English. After the sale to the Riplingers, the pair went into business together and later partnered in the English-Yates Funeral Chapel.

Seventy years ago this week, English bought out Yates and continued the mortuary as English Funeral Chapel, according to the Coeur d’Alene Press of Dec. 13, 1951. A few days later, Yates announced the purchase of the Riplinger Funeral Home at 744 Fourth St.

Sons Dexter Yates and Bruce English would continue their fathers’ businesses.

The two families have helped this community through its toughest times, and still are today.

Fan Mail

The item in last week’s column about the late Dr. E.R.W. “Ted” Fox saving a 4-year-old boy with liver cancer attracted many responses, including: “It was Dr Fox who delivered me, also removed my tonsils, and put a cast on my broken arm,” writes Michele Heuer of Coeur d’Alene … And: “Dr. Fox delivered my brothers and me at our grandmother's maternity home in the 1940s and my son in 1968” — Connie McGee of Coeur d’Alene … And: “Dr Fox was the first (and only, for some time) physician in CDA to volunteer at Lake City Health Care now known as Heritage Health. He was at every clinic caring for those who could not afford to see a doctor” — Sandy Mamola, Coeur d’Alene … And: “Dr. ‘Ted’ Fox was our family doctor, neighbor and friend — a father figure to us boys. He set my dad's broken arm from a fall in the early morning on ice on the sloped driveway. Dad walked to Ted's office on 11th Street so he wouldn't wake up mom” — Sandy Emerson, Coeur d’Alene.

Huckleberries

• Poet’s Corner: Like tiny stars upon the trees/they twinkle in the frosty breeze,/and throw their little rays of light/like hope into the cold black night – The Bard of Sherman Avenue. (“Christmas Lights, Sherman Avenue”).

• Help Wanted: Panera Bread took its search for employees to a higher level than mere reader-board pleas last week. Some residents received a 5-by-8-inch, help-wanted mailing from Panera. Competitive pay. $250 sign-on bonus. Free meals during shifts. Benefits. Panera had me at “free meals.” But who wants a broken-down newsman on the wrong side of 70?

• Californicated: During Christmas season 2014, the New York Times reported that 47 percent of Idahoans were born in the Gem State. The next biggest block, at 12 percent? Californians. Today, I imagine, 12 percent of North Idaho comes from Orange County, Calif., alone.

• Busted: Diana Witherspoon of Post Falls isn’t the first Facebook user to be warned about a post. But she may be the first to be cautioned by the social media monster for advertising quart Kerr and Mason jars. Seems “Kerr” is an “abusive” slang term referring to an up-and-coming anti-Illuminati gang or a “really bad guy.” Seriously. Facebook has too much time on its hands.

• Bruce Twitchell and other local educators are slogging through the toughest year of their careers. Why? It can be summed up in one word: Absenteeism. The teachers spend time catching everyone up when they should be moving on — not to mention grading all the late work. Teachers face a tough job in these COVID Times Without End Amen, even without the pouting political partisans taking pot shots.

Parting Shot

Kellogg native Bill Woolum doesn’t agree that Coeur d’Alene traffic is as bad as you and I think it is. And it has little to do with his time living in Eugene, Ore., and a Washington, D.C., suburb. It has everything to do with the intersection at Hanley Avenue and Government Way. Bill and wife, Debbie, were on the way to Michael’s on Monday when the traffic lights went out. “I loved that every single driver knew what to do,” Bill posted on his Kellogg Bloggin’ site. “Calmly, we all switched our thinking and treated the intersection as a four-way stop. No honking. No impatience. Nothing crazy.” A Christmas miracle?

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D.F. “Dave” Oliveria can be contacted at dfo@cdapress.com.