Berwicks appreciated for caring attitude

This loving tribute is to the best Mom and Pop store in North Idaho, (maybe all of Idaho).

We appreciate the Berwick family for all your  honest, dependable, giving and caring attitude and actions of which we all are very grateful for these last 30 years.

When Bret and I and our first born son, Zachary, moved to Boundary County in the summer of 1983, we were so enthralled by the beauty if this area and by all the friendly people we met. 

We initially came here to apprentice with the noted, local underground house guru, and in the process learned a lot of basic survival skills and eventually purchased an undeveloped piece of pristine North Idaho.

Besides all the hard work and becoming very adaptable, I even learned how to hand grind whole wheat berries into a whole wheat dough for homemade pizza, (not too thick-not too burnt!) on a Weber Bar-be-que grill.

We appreciated going to the Naples General Store to get hot showers, do our laundry and get the needed supplies to make the rest of the hard work endurable.

The best part of having Linda and Earl be where they were is that they helped so many of us youngsters with so many things.  Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets and sponsoring benefits for all sorts of folks in the community.  Truly, love your neighbor, is written in their hearts.

We will never forget the wonderful day when our second child, Cherith, was born at home up in Ruby Creek in our small house trailer.  We took her to the Naples Store, and Linda and Earl put her on the vegetable meat scale to see how much she weighed.  We also performed this ritual for IsaYah and Ezra, to our delight their statistics would be a part of the family Bible record, which would come in very handy and needful some day.

When our fifth child, JosiYah, was born in December 1992, Earl and Linda had remodeled part of the store and the old scale was gone, but no fear, just a few steps away was the Naples Post Office.  We asked the postmaster if we might be able to post and date little Joe for our records.  She kindly inked his heel and cancel posted and dated this important document for us, thank you U.S. Postal Service.

Since all of our children were home-birthed and I had failed to register their live births with the local authorities in a timely fashion, Linda and Earl came to our rescue again and provided substantial evidence as credible witnesses to the fact these children were our children not aliens but U.S. citizens.  We did this for Social Security taxes, and as the years went by, we needed these same records for acquiring U.S. passports for each of the children.

These are just a few of the many good things that we wanted to share with this blessed community of the wonderful memories we have of the Berwick family who continue to be an inspiration for us all.

Happy trails

The Skinner Family

near and far