1949 Honorary Member Profile : Andrew Good

"Andrew Good, with 10 major peak climbs to his credit, is the leader among the Mountaineers in this respect," a 1934 Spokesman-Review reported. Rainier, Baker, Stuart, Hood, St. Helens, and Oregon's Three Sisters were cited. (The Yakima Cascadian party he was with in 1925 on the Sisters set several records.) He was elected club president in 1928, at about age 51, after serving as vice-president and secretary-treasurer. A myriad of club jobs, including trustee, and trips led to his honorary designation in 1949.

"Walks"-yesteryear's term for club trips-involving winter snow, rock climbing, and new territory-attracted him, as did the Summer Outing. Three months after paying dues in December 1923, the new member led Walk No. 311, when 20 people marched 13 miles from the Manito car line end along Paradise Prairie's slope overlooking Hangman Valley. Characteristically, "the route has not been fully scouted," the bulletin said. And still exploring, his final recorded lead was No 1964 in December of 1947, a "new hike with an old timer" reported the Review: 6-8 miles from Liberty Lake to Barker Way, using the Greenacres bus. "Devil's Den," a favorite Rockhaven Trail destination, was described in a 1948 Kinnikinnick as "that pretty glen discovered for us by Andrew."

Dubbed "the club's snowshoe expert" in a 1935 Spokesman-Review article, Andrew led the "first winter climb" of Mica Peak in February 1926, which was 8 to 14 miles depending on conditions, and a 10-mile "snowshoe mystery hike" in 1937, amid numerous others. On December in 1934, he plodded 6 miles to Mt. Spokane's summit on the club's first annual New Year's Eve overnight celebration there, sleeping on straw ticks in the Vista House.

In 1923, glissading on the north slope of Storm King (4970 feet) (now Rathdrum Bald) on his first club outing enticed repeated returns for the 3-1/2-mile jaunt from the rail station to the summit. Always looking for local climbable rock, he and two others discovered "Dishman Vales" in today's Dishman Hills, scheduled in 1943 for "exploring, first roping practice, climbing and picnic." His April 1936 Kinnikinnick write-up said, "If new climbing rope, recently ordered, is available, the club will try a little rock climbing next Sunday on the face of Shasta Butte." At Bayley Lake, he climbed the "sheer wall" of Bear Canyon.

Well known for stamina, Andrew found his trip lengths questioned. "While Andrew says it will be a leisurely hike of 6 or 7 miles, you know Andrew's miles," one doubter wrote. Little Snowy Top (6400 feet) west of Priest Lake involved 17 miles in 12 hours in 1935. A 32-mile "endurance walk" to Cheney and back left the downtown post office at 7:00 a.m.

Summer outings were a must, and he was always on the committee. His first was the club's first also: the upper Priest Lake area in 1935. On Canada's Kokanee Glacier in 1937, he placed a club summit register on Mt. Cond, the park's highest peak at 9200 feet, and topped Haystack at 9038 feet, the Giant's Kneecap at 9134 feet, Esmeralda at 9100 feet, and unnamed peak at 9128 feet. A 1948 photo from Canada's Yoho National Park outing shows him pushing a stuck bus.

What was mountaineering like 70 years ago? Here is Andrew's advice from the Spokesman-Review of January 1, 1933.

"After sunrise, if the party is in a glacier or snowfield, everyone must apply actor's grease paint to exposed parts of the neck and face, as a precaution against severe sunburn...It I only in steep and dangerous going that members of the party are roped together, about 8 to the rope and 10 or 12 feet apart..."

And this, from the February 12, 1933, Review-

"On a major peak, the leader is supreme...Only an experienced leader should be chosen and, if he knows his job, he will inspect the party at the start, sending back anyone who does not have proper foot wear, well- broken-in, who does not have an alpenstock or ice axe, or who does not have dark glasses or goggles and stout, warm gloves..."

Andrew, a bachelor who didn't own a car, was everywhere. "On all the socials," members said. He won 1931's annual "Field Day" ball throw and a 1934 harvest party bean-matching game. He labored to complete a wide trail connecting Blanchard Creek and Mt. Spokane roads near the park's southwest corner. His last recorded club service was a new set of books for the treasurer in December 1949.

What the printed word-and photo albums-do NOT reveal about this oh-so-active Mountaineer is that he had only one arm! Only incidentally was this learned when I was gathering information from children of other honorary members. Lethene Parks, daughter of Mae Dennis, recalls hearing that Andrew lost his left arm at 17 in a sawmill accident. "I was always fascinated with the beautiful bow knots he would tie in his shoelaces with his one hand," she recalls. "He could do better with one hand than most of us with two." Wanda Palmer Miller's son, Bob Palmer, remembers that "he always wore a sport jacket and would pin up the bottom part of the sleeve to the top." "He didn't seem to notice that he had only one arm," remembers then-member Bernadine McClincy, "so neither did we..."

"Dignified...soft-spoken...courteous...helpful" describe how Andrew is remembered. "He was always patient with us kids," Lethene says. She remembers "a charming fellow... always wearing a hat, with a fringe of white hair," and "never using slang or profanity." "He didn't talk much about himself," Bernadine recalls, emphasizing his courtesy. "He'd go about his quiet way and be helpful to anyone he could." She cites the 1935 Priest Lake Summer Outing when she put her soaking wet boots and socks too close to the fire. "Andrew just took a pair of neatly rolled socks out of his pocket and gave them to me to wear back."

"The Trial of Andrew Good" is another recollection from that outing. "The men got together and decided they weren't going to bother shaving...On the second day, here was Andrew all shaved!" He was tried for the "crime" at a nightly campfire. A club classic, said the Kinnikinnick. "He was always smiling," Bernadine points out.

He was popular. When Andrew was isolated by his 1934 solitary winter vigil at the 5000- foot Deer Trail Mine near the Canadian border, the club went to him Twenty people paid a surprise visit, trekking 4 miles with sleeping bags and supplies, including a gift radio and 20 pounds of batteries. He was inventive. A 1937 bulletin describes a "Campcraft stunt." Andrew devised a small can of wood ashes mixed into paste with gasoline to light fires, good for a year if the lid was tight. And he mixed fun into his hikes: ice skating on Fernan Lake after topping Canfield Butte, making merry on Capt. Finney's boat while crossing Lake Coeur d'Alene to climb Roche Baldy, a breakfast party along the Little Spokane, roasting wieners on a Dishman walk.

Little is known about Andrew's first 27 years. He surfaces in the 1905 city directory as a roofing company bookkeeper, first for Elaterite, then National Mastic. As a bookkeeper, he apparently played a significant role in the development of the Spokane Valley. Prominent land developer D.K. McDonald hired him in 1907, and 1908 records show "Andrew Good" as one of three incorporators of the Vera Electric Company. Two years later, his days with Valley development companies begin: Vera Electric, Vera Land, Modern Electric, Modern Irrigation and Land. All were interrelated: the water and electric companies supplied the land and irrigation firms. Mingled is bookkeeping for another player in Valley development, Charles Pattulo's Oregon Mortgage Co. in 1909 and then the 20's.

The employment trail gets muddied in 1932 when Andrew is listed as a Federal Land Bank insurance clerk. He appears intermittently as "bookkeeper" or "accountant" with no employer shown until another stint with the Deer Trail Monitor Mine in 1942 and the Gothmann Greenhouse and Nursery in Opportunity in 1944. We know from Pat Goetter, daughter of former Modern Electric Co. manager Tom M. Smith that Andrew probably retired from her father's firm in the late 1940's. She found his Mountaineer bulletins and membership lists in her deceased father's boxes and donated them to the local state historical society library. As a child, she remembers Mr. Good "as a gentleman" who always wore a suit. "He talked to me, smiling and friendly."

Injury befell Andrew a second time when in March 1944, a gas jug he was carrying in the Opportunity Irrigation District Office spilled on the stove and exploded. News accounts said the 67-year-old was "severely injured," with burns to head, face, and right hand. He was still in a hospital bed in mid-May and didn't return to the hills until September. "We're glad to see Andrew Good back with us on the hikes again... He knows all the trails, historical places, and good camping grounds," said the Kinnikinnick. It's a fitting epithet for the member whose Spokane Mountaineer trail ended when he moved to the Midwest in the 1950's. (His address was given as Box 173, Cokato, Minn., on the January 1958 membership list.)

Bernadine remembers receiving letters for a few years. "He told you how much he missed the Club..."

Lorna Ream

Sources: Spokesman-Review, the Kinnikinnick and earlier club bulletins; Polk's city directories; The Spokane Valley, vol. 1, no. 83, by Florence B. Boutwell; Eastern State Historical Society library. Great appreciation is due also to Nancy Compau of the Spokane Public Library's Northwest Room.