Island News Articles and Stories
Native American History Series
“Who Picked The Hops” As told by Paul Wrigley – whose father was minister at the church that is now Chapel on Echo Bay. Paul married Margaret Ketner of Fox Island at that early church in 1918.
Hop raising in the Puyallup Valley was at its peak in the 1920’s. Crops were good and pickers were in tremendous demand. The natives of northern Puget Sound were experts in this work and followed the early ripening crops of the Lower Sound region up to the later ripening crops of their home areas. Great numbers came to the Puyallup Valley, setting up tents or living in what cabins were available. It was a gala time in the Valley, and this writer well remembers the various groups represented by different types of clothing. This is preliminary to the sad part of this story.
Sanitation was virtually unknown in those days, and sickness and death ran rampant in the crowded quarters. The different tribes had prepared for this situation by hiring an Indian woman by the name of Mrs. Riddell to act for all of them. She was provided with money and was of such a position in her own tribe that she was entrusted with the care of all cases of death. Her close association with the Wrigley-Clements Funeral Home in Puyallup provided complete care for all cases.
Mr. Wrigley said that the custom of hanging babies in the back-packing cradles on the end posts of hop rows seemed to account for many fatalities, whether from exposure or illness, was hard to tell. The bodies were taken to the funeral home, prepared for burial, whereupon, Mrs. Riddell would appear and the hearse would start its long journey up the Sound, perhaps to Suquamish, Hood Canal or even to the Hoh Reservation. In the simple, tiny chapel provided for that purpose the Indian Shaker Ceremony would be held using among other articles a beautiful, silver bell. After the burial service, back they would go to Puyallup the next day where the tribes would continue their chores.
Mr. Wrigley told of what a wonderfully kind yet business-like woman Mrs. Riddell was. As the years passed the hops became diseased with hop lice and eventually hop growing was no longer the cash crop of previous years.
Doris Allmer and Salal Berries
The Allmer family lived in a remodeled log cabin on Fox Island. Mrs. Allmer, a former teacher, made a study of the salal berry which grows abundantly on the Olympic Peninsula and in the coastal regions of the Pacific Northwest and luckily in the Allmers’ garden. Native Americans used the fruit of salal for food and for purple dye. The salal berry retains a spicy, apple-like flavor. Mrs. Allmer provided News Tribune readers with some tasty recipes using salal including a salal jelly, salal berry coffee cake, and salal berry and apple pie. The berries may be eaten raw, blended with pancake mix or with cream and sugar.
| Did you know how a collection of Fox Island historical items became the Fox Island Museum? by Janice A. Miller My grandfather, Cecil Fassett, started a collection of historical items that were housed in the old schoolhouse, which was always a concern about the safety of the collection. Before he died in 1973, my parents, George and Lois Miller purchased property on 9th and Kamus and launched the Historical Society’s fund-raising campaign and building project. My dad was a teacher of history. Growing up my dad took the family to see almost every historical marker in Washington state and vacations always included visits to museums. When my dad retired from Tacoma Schools in 1979, the fund-raising kicked into high gear and building the museum began. When the building was completed in 1980, my dad assumed the role of Museum Curator. Over the next 22 years he dedicated himself to the community wide effort of creating a place where all generations of Fox Islanders and their guests could come to learn and celebrate the story of this extraordinary place. |
A story about the property that is now the Fox Lair condos from a current Fox Island resident who has lived here 60 plus years:
This resident recalls an apple orchard at the Fox Lair location that led down to woods. Her memory was quite vivid because she and a friend used to walk dogs on trails through what is now Fox Lair. The astonishing thing about their many trips through the area was that none of the dogs were theirs. The ladies and their “companions” walked 9th Avenue to the Nichols Center and then down Gway. At the second corner the group turned on to an old logging road and sauntered back up hill to the Fox Lair property. At that point, all the dogs who had joined them left, presumably for home.
Rotating Exhibits at Zog’s
The Museum has several photos displayed at Zog’s, located behind the Fox Island Store. Be sure to stop by and check them out!
Fox Islands “Boys In The Boat”
‘Our Boys in the Boat’ is a display of information about the Alaska bound canoe trip that left from Tanglewood Island on June 10, 1961. Pictured in the display are two master canoe builders, Earl and Floyd Willits, builders of the special canoes for sound-ocean travel, and Dr. A. L. Schultz, a Tacoma physician who is leading the group to Juneau, Alaska. The doctor, three adult camp counselors, and eight boys will paddle and sail five 17-foot canoes to Alaska in 36 days.
Read more about the canoe trip to Alaska on the wall in the game room at Zog’s.
The Grounding of a Nuclear Sub on Fox Island
