When you get to a certain age, money doesn’t mean much.
Having lots of things doesn’t mean much.
What means much is family, friends, and a happy home.
So, when developers offered Edith Macefield a million dollars to move so they could demolish her home and build more places that sell stuff and offer stuff she flat out said, “No!”
Macefield wanted to stay in her 100-year-old Ballard, Washington home.
Some people called the move “punk rock” or “rebellious” or even a big middle finger in the face of capitalism and its pursuit of growth in order to increase profits.
It is unknown if Macefield saw it that way, but she did live her life the way she saw fit regardless of what anyone else had to say about it.
BostWiki reports that she told her mother she was going to college at the age of 16 and secretly joined the army which brought her to England.
She then got kicked out of the army after they learned she was underage. She stayed in England and ended up taking in war orphans and even toured with the Royal Army’s marching band.
She also convinced some of her friends that she was working as a spy.
Macefield later moved to Ballard, Seattle in 1952.
After Macefield refused to sell her home in 2007, she and the developers were in a stalemate.
So, she kept her house, and the developers built a massive office and retail complex around it. They bought up all of 46th street except for Macefield’s house.
The big grey-blocked buildings are a far cry from the rural neighborhood by the lake the neighborhood used to be when Ballard moved in.
Though Disney Pixar says the story for the movie “Up” wasn’t directly inspired by the Macefield house, they reportedly attached balloons to the house to promote the movie. Macefield and her home ended up becoming a local symbol for anti-development and the “fiercely independent spirit.”
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In 2013, they even named the Macefield Music Festival after her in honor of “holding onto things that are important to you.
