Alta Marie Maack

She attended grade school in Ryegate, Montana. She enjoyed playing basketball and volleyball. Her education was cut short and she left school after the 7th grade.

Alta would work after school at a café; washing dishes and helping out in the kitchen for 50 cents an hour. At 15, she was also cleaning the local barbershop, cleaning houses and doing peoples laundry.

She was 15 when she met her first husband. At the age of 16 the two were married. The marriage lasted three years.

Alta soon met the love of her life at a dance. His name was Christian Maack. He worked in the gold mines in Pony, MT and the two were married. At the young age of 23, Chris lost his eyesight in a dynamite explosion.

The two then moved to Portland, OR and lived in a tiny home. Alta worked at a barrel factory making just 85 cents an hour to support them. She also took jobs making baby clothes at the Nancy Diaper Factory. Alta worked hard for a while in a bank, putting her husband through massage school. Then came a job in a golf cart factory, where she worked for 20 years.

The two bought a house and built a motel on the Washington coast in the 1940’s. They managed the motel at the coast and had a massage business in Portland. They finally built their home – which Alta drew the blueprints for - and permanently moved to Ocean Park, WA, bringing Chris’s business with them. Her husband worked from their home as a massage therapist until 2006.