[BelleZora]

I've de-cluttered and simplified my life several times, passing on family objects to my children, so that I have little left. Since I can't count two civil war era objects for the purposes of this thread, a letter from Katharine Hepburn is the only treasured item left.

In the early 1980's she came to Seattle to perform in the play "West Side Waltz" four evenings a week for several weeks. It was her custom to have a New York steak for dinner before every performance which either her chauffeur or companion Phyllis picked up from our family meat market at the Pike Place Market.

In the last week of the play her chauffeur conveyed an invitation from Ms. Hepburn to my husband and me to attend the play and to meet her afterward.

It was exciting to be swept from the crowded alley after the play back into the theater and into Ms. Hepburn's dressing room. She shook our hands warmly and as though we were doing her the honor, and said that she wanted to meet the people who took such good care of her.

My husband, who'd had a lifelong crush, afterward wrote a note thanking her for her invitation. Perhaps two months later we received a handwritten note under the letterhead Katharine Houghton Hepburn: "Dear Mr. and Mrs. Loback, thank you for your kind letter. It made me happy."

The letter is a reminder of a happy encounter with a gracious lady.