Golden memories of the Silver Valley

KELLOGG — Ever wonder what it was like growing up as a Silver Valley teenager in the 1940s?

Kellogg All-Class Reunion grand marshals Bob Sepa, Lee Holland and LuElla Nearing shared recollections of youth and what life was like during WWII.

Grand Marshal Bob Sepa

Class of '47

Bob Sepa, 95, wound up leaving high school early to enlist in the Coast Guard, but would have graduated with the class of '45.

If you had told him as a kid he would stay in Kellogg his whole life, he wouldn’t have believed you.

“I’ve been here 62 years in this house. You can’t move me out of this valley,” Sepa said.

During his high school career, he kept as busy as he could, playing sports and staying active whenever possible.

“I played football, but it was only for one year. They discontinued it because of all of the traveling and gas rationing,” Sepa said.

Sepa was originally supposed to graduate in 1945, but he was eager to enlist in the Coast Guard and left Kellogg High School early with a single course left to complete.

"It was American history, of all things,” Sepa said.

A startling truth about his birth certificate awaited his Coast Guard entry and he found that his legal name was “Bobby E. Shipa” rather than Robert E. Sepa. Having to go by the wrong name for most of his service was an annoyance he hadn’t anticipated.

“My father came here in 1910 and spoke broken English. He was Austrian, and the symbol over Sepa in Austrian and his accent led to the birth certificate mishap,” he said.

Sepa eventually updated his military documents to reflect his true name, using an “also known as” notation, but never got over the shock of having to answer to the wrong name during much of his service.

When released from the Coast Guard in 1946, he petitioned the KHS principal to complete the course and graduate with the Class of '46. Initially refused, a lucky change in staffing helped him walk the stage and graduate the following year, in '47, after making up coursework through North Idaho College.

He returned to Kellogg, striking a new balance between home and seeing the world. He always had an itch to travel and see new sights. He and his wife did just that, until her recent passing. They were married 70 years.

A lot has changed over his lifetime in the Silver Valley and he notes the environmental changes to be a better sign of safety practices at work than how they used to be.

“Years ago, we got all of the smoke from the smelters blowing into the house in the morning and now the river is running clear,” Sepa said.

Sepa will be among the grand marshals in the All-Class Reunion and said that it’s nice to be honored, but he misses many of his classmates.

“That’s what you get for getting old. They’re saying that Lu Nearing and I are the oldest and I don’t know who else is left of our class,” Sepa said.

Sepa never really slowed down. He sold mining equipment for a living after his time in the Coast Guard. He credits his activity as a cornerstone of his longevity and good health.

“I hiked, I biked, I skied and I played golf,” he said.

His advice to everyone for living a long life and staying healthy is to “Just keep moving.”

Grand Marshal Lee Holland

Class of '47

Lee Holland, 93, took up the mantle of grand marshal in this year’s Kellogg All-Class Reunion reluctantly. Being one of the youngest in her graduating class of 1947 at 17 years old, she said that it should have gotten her out of having to be a figurehead for the festivities.

“Everybody tells me that I am a grand marshal, but I was a year younger than everyone else, so I keep telling them I shouldn’t have to be marshal, I’m too young,” Holland said with a laugh.

She said high school was a very social time among the three towns; Mullan, Kellogg and Wallace.

Doing so during WWII made for a very different experience.

“We could go from town to town on the trains. No one at the school really had a car because gas was rationed. Because our schools were all in the same leagues, we could ride the train and see all of the games,” Holland said.

The big part of the Kellogg teen culture at the time was the dances. It was a highlight for the whole school when a dance was drawing near. Though dances are still social outlets now, she doesn’t see them as having quite the same impact that they had in the 40s high school scene.

Holland, then Lee Meier, always kept busy and did a lot of extracurriculars at KHS.

“I was in the chorus and the color guard of the band, and then I was on the drill team for a while,” she said.

Graduating in a class of about 70, she went on to marry a man from Mullan who wound up eventually teaching at KHS, so they remained in the area.

“I had seven children and all of them went to Kellogg High School,” Holland said.

Over the years, it’s gotten harder to keep in touch with all of her friends, so the fact that the Wildcats have the tradition of hosting an all-class reunion is a great relief.

“I’ve kind of lost track of everybody, but Kellogg has such wonderful class reunions,” she said.

Grand Marshal LuElla Nearing

Class of '46

When LuElla Nearing, 95, moved to Kellogg in the '40s from Seattle, she didn’t realize the Silver Valley was the place she would settle down in. She worked a lot of jobs and didn’t have time for school sports and activities, so she always felt like she was flying from school to work.

“I would just hurry up and get out and go to work,” she said. Pickwick’s and the sweet shop were among her after-school jobs in Kellogg.

With one parent in Seattle and one parent in Kellogg for the later high school experience, she wished she could have spent summers in the Silver Valley, where her school friends were. But she often had to go back to Washington and miss out on whatever antics her friends got up to in the Valley.

“I started high school in Seattle and halfway through my time in high school, I came to Kellogg,” Nearing said. “About all we did was get ready and think about the high school dances.”

Her favorite place to work was a Navy job she would take when she went back to Seattle. As part of the wartime efforts, any visits to the ships had to be properly monitored, so her job was to make sure people actually went where they were supposed to be while going about their business.

“We would escort people along the ships and stay with them to make sure they didn’t leave the areas where they were supposed to go. It was fun and once I had dinner on a submarine,” Nearing said.

These days, Nearing enjoys playing around on her computer and attending “birthday club” celebrations at the Hilltop in Kingston. If it’s your birthday, you’ll get a card in the mail and the club will meet up to celebrate all of the birthdays happening in that month.

“People get together and we laugh and talk,” Nearing said.

If you go

What: Kellogg All-class Reunion

When: Today, Saturday and Sunday

For information, visit www.khsreunions.com/or contact Lori Sawyer at lksawyer16@gmail.com.