08/20/2026
STORIES FROM THE KEY ROOM
Some keys unlock doors. Others unlock a person’s story.
This week’s key takes us back more than 80 years—and gives us not one name, but two.
The identification card belonged to Ralph R. Pain, who worked for the Southern California Disinfecting Co. in Los Angeles. His employee card was issued May 11, 1944, and somehow, all these years later, it remains with this little key.
And this isn’t just a name on an old card.
His photograph is still there.
His signature.
His birthplace—Maquoketa, Iowa.
His date of birth—January 25, 1902.
Even his fingerprints.
But then there’s another name.
Attached to the key is a handwritten tag:
“Edna L. Bennett
Los Angeles, Calif.
July 7, 1946”
Edna is the one who left this piece of history behind.
And that leaves us with the part of the story we may never know.
Who was Edna Bennett to Ralph Pain? How did she come to have his key and identification card? And what made her bring them all the way from Los Angeles and leave them here in the Key Room in the summer of 1946?
Nearly 80 years later, we’re still asking those questions.
Maybe that’s what we love most about this room. Every key tells us something—but rarely everything.
Two names. One key. A photograph. A set of fingerprints. And a mystery that has been hanging here since July 7, 1946.
That’s another Story from the Key Room.
And if you have a key with a story of your own, bring it with you. Stop by the front desk for a tag, tell us a little about it, and leave a memory of your own at Seven Keys Lodge.
