Everybody has a story: Police caper was warm-up for proposal of marriage

My mother, Jean, completed a degree in retailing at New York University, and by the late 1930s was employed as a buyer for Macy’s on 5th Avenue. Tom, whom she’d known in high school in Albany, Ore., where their families still lived, was now writing for the Seattle Times. They had remained friends as each had gone on to college at a different university.

Tom called Jean in New York to ask her if she would be flying home for Christmas. Jean replied that she would be coming home for the holidays, and Tom then suggested that she, instead of flying into Portland Airport, fly into Seattle Airport. He would take her to dinner and then they would drive down to Albany together. Jean replied that she would enjoy that.

When Jean’s plane disembarked in Seattle, however, two uniformed police officers met her at the door of the plane, and inquired, “Jean Ingle?” Jean replied, “Yes. Is something wrong?” An officer replied, “No, ma’am. Come with us.” Jean again asked, “But, what is wrong?” to which his reply was, “Just come with us ma’am.”

He escorted her into the back seat of a police car next to a plainclothesman with a Bogart-style trench coat and hat tilted over the side of his face, who said nothing during the ride. The uniformed officers climbed into the front seat, turned the sirens and lights on, and hurried into downtown Seattle.

“But, there must be some mistake!” Jean began.

The officer sitting next to the driver turned toward her, showing her a picture of herself. “This is you, right? Jean Ingle?”

“Well, yes, but there must be some mistake,” Jean replied. The officers proceeded to the well-lit underground garage of City Hall, and as one of the officers helped Jean from the car, the plainclothesman stood up. Jean saw that it was Tom! She summoned the foulest word she knew and used it on Tom: “You rat!”

Tom smiled and replied, “Now, Jean, we have a little reception for you upstairs. I want you to meet the people I work with at the Times and at the Seattle Police Department as a police reporter, and then we’ll head down to the Olympic Hotel for dinner.”

After a fine dinner at the Olympic, “the spot” in Seattle, they left to head south to Albany, but Tom had one more detour that he told Jean he would like her to see on the way out of town — the view from the top of Queen Anne Hill, which in those days held no homes or other buildings.

Tom asked Jean to join him outside the car, to better see the beautiful view of downtown Seattle and the Puget Sound at night. As they stood admiring the beauty, Tom produced a small velvet box and presented to Jean an engagement ring, stating, “Jean, I would like you to marry me. I want you to wear this ring for six months, and if in six months you have decided that you do not wish to marry, you keep the ring, and we remain friends.”

They married in July, and I was their first born, 1 1/2 years later.

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