Ya, y'betcha!

People who try to outstubborn a squarehead have only themselves to blame for what follows. (Did I mention that my mother's family is Norwegian?)

Edith Macefield is stubborn. Man, is she stubborn.

That's what her mother told her when she was a little girl back in the 1920s. It's a characteristic that has followed her all her life. Now that unrelenting stubbornness has won the 86-year-old woman admirers throughout Ballard.

Macefield refused to sell her little old house where she has lived since 1966 to developers, forcing them to build an entire five-story project, which includes a grocery store, fitness club and parking garage, around her. (Emphasis mine.)

She was offered $1 million to leave. She turned it down flat.

For those who aren't fortunate enough to live in the Northwest, Ballard is a Scandinavian enclave in the north part of Seattle. It started out as its own town and was absorbed sometime in the last century, but when I was a teenager I used to take the bus up there and just hang around, soaking up the Norseness. I've known old ladies like her, and my money's on Mrs. Macefield. Yu betcha.