EVERETT — People wouldn’t stop calling Pam Cressell-Todd on Tuesday morning.
When she finally answered her phone, she got a welcome surprise.
Everyone wanted to tell the Lake Stevens woman that a vintage photo of her late husband, Tom Todd, and his good friend were on the front page o
f The Herald. The image sent her tumbling back to 1976.
In the photo, the two men walk along Evergreen Way trying to thumb a ride. Todd is sporting a thick beard and a huge grin.
The photo was part of a story about a collection of 1970s local photos available at the Everett Public Library.
“I remember both of them looking exactly like that,” she said. “I probably still have all the clothes Tom was wearing.”
In 2008, Todd passed away from liver cancer. It was delightful for Cressell-Todd to see a reminder of their past.
They met at Herfy’s Burgers in south Everett when she was a junior at Cascade High School and he was 18. They were together 38 years and raised twins, Maisie and Owen, now 26.
He worked as a logger and stayed home for a time to take care of their young children while she worked. Todd loved reading science fiction novels and had a calm demeanor. His wife described him as an attentive and loving father.
“If they hurt themselves, they’d run past me to him,” Cressell-Todd said.
The photos in the 1970s Everett collection were taken by former city photographer Neil House. They’d been stored away at the library for three decades before a historian took charge of getting them cataloged and digitally archived.
Despite the best efforts of the historian, many of the people in the photos are unidentified, including the one of Todd that ran on the front of The Herald.
Cressell-Todd had never seen the particular photo that ran in the newspaper. She doesn’t know why her husband and his friend, Monte Gregory, were hitchhiking. At the time, the couple owned a car.
“Maybe it broke down,” she said. “I don’t know where they were going.”
Seeing that gigantic grin of his one more time was a wonder, she said.
“That just warmed my heart.”
Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com
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