By STAN STAPP

IN AUGUST OF 1999 while remodeling the bathroom of his University District home at 5623 Brooklyn Ave. NE, Jeff Brandli came across some interesting documents which had been placed in the wall 85 years ago. It was common in those days to use newspapers for home insulation and there, amidst them, lying on a 2x4 cross member, was a hand-written note dated Aug. 10, 1915.

Last December, or thereabouts, Jeff contacted me wondering: "If I'm able to dig up some more information, would you be interested in printing it in your column?"

"Yes," I assured him - "IF you ever uncover the story, let me know."

And, not long ago, he informed me by e-mail: "WELL, SIR, I'VE DONE IT!"

With little more to go on than the note, Jeff - who is associated with Dexter & Chaney, a Lake City firm that develops accounting software for construction companies - started his research.

The note had been written by Henry L. Medrow expressing his love for Edna Lu Delle Rohrbacher, a 1916 Lincoln High classmate of his. The note was dated Tuesday, Aug. 10, 1915 (which checks out on my Perpetual Calendar); and contained Edna's initials E. R.; her address 408 N 49th; and phone number North 2154.

An anonymous poem was included, which read: "The wind was blowing, as if condoling my sad and gloomy thoughts. Which were turning, fiercely turning in my inward consciousness. I was rowing down the flowing, turbulent stream of life. Which was tearing and swiftly bearing me to the sea of death. Contemplating upon the grating cares of tiresome life, I had been sinking, hardly thinking, into a net of life."

The rest of the poem was unreadable, and neither Jeff nor I are sure of several words. The document was handwritten in ink and the paper was torn, burnt, or scarred on the edges. Since then, Jeff learned that the Medrow family moved to Seattle in January 1914 from Cudahy, Wis., and initially lived in an apartment at 5501 University Way NE. The father, Louis, worked in a butcher shop at 5503 University Way which was owned by Valentine Sontag. There were two businesses on the street level of the building, Cowen Park Meats (5503) and Cowen Park Pharmacy (5501).

In 1915, the Medrow family moved into the home Jeff now occupies with his future bride, Connie Maxwell. Sometime shortly after graduation in 1916, the Medrow family moved to Santa Monica, Calif. Henry later joined the Merchant Marine and developed a deep sense of religion while visiting a Seaman's Mission in New Zealand.

Upon his return to the United States, Henry went to work for Standard Oil and they shipped him off to Bahrain. He fell in love with the area and decided he wanted to perform missionary work as his life passion. He returned to California and the San Francisco area and married a woman 10 years his senior who was a member of his church. The couple were commissioned in the late 1940s to perform missionary work in the Middle East, eventually landing in Nazareth, Israel, where they performed good works for over 20 years. Henry died in Israel in 1965. Over 400 people attended his funeral including several officials of the government and other religious sects.

Edna Rohrbacker was listed as entering Lincoln High in February 1913 from Portland, Ore. Her father, Edward, was a noted inventor of an air pump for automobile tires that operated off of the engine's flywheel. He started a company in Blaine, Wash., around 1905 with $20,000 in backing and eventually received over 20 patents for his inventions.

In 1910, he moved the company to Portland, but three years later the Rohrbachers left Portland and moved into a home at 408 N 49th in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood. The company was apparently dissolved.

After graduation, Edna lived with her parents in an apartment building on Harvard Avenue (which they managed) and she worked as a stenographer for the Ritter Insurance Company located on Broadway in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. In July 1920, Edna married Roy Tolman who started a bicycle repair and radio supply store in the 1800 block of Westlake Avenue. The partners were listed as Roy Tolman and Edward Rohrbacker, Edna's father.

In the mid-1920s, the Rohrbacker's and Tolman's invested in a 30-acre property on West Lake Sammammish where they opened a resort called Orchard Park. Roy passed away in the early 1950's and Edna continued to operate the resort for roughly 20 more years. Edna and Roy had one son, John, who passed away in Caldwell, Ohio, in 1987. Edna passed away in the same town two years later.

Jeff spoke with Edna's only grandson, Terry Tolman, who told him that Edna was very free-spirited and humorous. "She would do very outrageous things for a woman in her time such as traveling with another single girlfriend by train to Los Angeles after graduation," he said. Although Jeff said he was speculating, he believes she went to visit Henry in Santa Monica.

"I have tried to contact graduates of Lincoln High from the same era", Jeff said, but they have all passed away by now." He's hoping someone may be able to help him fill in some of the gaps and end the speculation. His cell phone number is: (206) 310-4185; his e-mail: JBrandli@dexterchaney.com.

Jeff enjoyed his experience so much, that should you have a similar case to this one, perhaps you could hire him to help you out.

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Incidentally, about 29 years ago I buried several copies of the Outlook in the wall of our Outlook building at 4273 Woodland Park Ave. N., (recently the home of Billings Middle School, which has moved to 7217 Woodlawn Ave. NE, formerly the Green Lake Funeral Home). Since then the building has been acquired by a philosophical school, the Gurdjieff Foundation of Washington.

When I bought the building I found it advisable to alter the men's and women's restrooms. Originally the men had two toilets and one urinal; the women just one toilet. That might have been fair originally as the previous outfit had more men than women. But the Outlook had more women then men.

As the two restrooms were adjacent, all I had to do was cut a hole in the wall behind the urinal and move it in the original women's restroom, and cover up the hole in the wall. Now the men had a toilet and urinal, and the women had two toilets.

I wonder if someone will find those papers sometime this century?

Stay tuned. (