Cheryl, my third cousin twice removed (I think) and her husband Virg arrive for a few days’ visit today. I think of them as “Cuzzins” as opposed to the second cousins, both once and twice removed, who are the “Red House Cousins.” (It was Cheryl’s brother Ralph who began our particular branch calling one another “Cuzzin.”)
I also think of C&V as the “Healthy Cuzzins.” Not that the RHCs are unhealthy. It’s just that C&V make an entire lifestyle out of healthy endeavors. They eat wisely and sparingly. They follow an exercise routine of an hour or more every single morning. They hike or ride their bikes for multi-miles every day.
And, lest anyone think they aren’t well-rounded, I hasten to add that in addition to their interest in boats (a big one at their place at Lake Chelan) and cars (a ‘vette, among others), they are both musicians of the first order – Virg, clarinet; Cheryl, flute and piccolo. They are retired music teachers and, until they sold their place here at the beach, they played with the North Coast Symphonic Band.
Three or four years back they moved up to Lacey to be near Cheryl’s (now) 95-year-old dad. They spend winters on this side of the mountains (with a month or so thrown in to visit family in Arizona) and summers water skiing and cycling and following other outdoor pursuits at the lake. Always they are on call to help out Mr. Jeffords if need be.
They had a place here ‘at the beach’ for years before we knew them at all. It was Cuzzin Ralph who lives in far-off Virginia who kept trying to get us together (he being the present-day family genealogist and keep-tracker of who is related and who needs to get acquainted.) Once we finally met, we saw each other frequently even though, by their standards, we must be the “Sedentary Cuzzins.” Then they moved.
Nowadays we see them only a couple of times a year, sometimes on their turf, sometimes on ours. When they come to Oysterville they always arrive with the first meal in hand. Today’s menu will include flank steak marinating and ready to go on the barbecue plus all the side dishes!
Oh boy! Here they come!
As I stood at the gate talking with my neighbor Tucker the other afternoon, we heard the clip-clop of horse hooves coming up the street. Our conversation stopped and we both turned, watching and waiting. I’m sure we were both smiling. Such a familiar, though infrequent, sound in Oysterville can’t help but gladden the heart.
Tucked in an out-of-the-way corner on one of our library shelves are several very old and very well-used books of medical advice for home use. Occasionally, when I remember they are there, I enjoy thumbing through them just to see how far we have progressed… or not!
My mother, Dale Espy Little, was truly an amazing woman. She accomplished many notable things in her lifetime, not the least of which were spearheading the formation of the Oysterville National Historic District, helping in the foundation of the Oysterville Restoration Foundation, and working tirelessly to restore and, later, maintain the Historic Oysterville Church.
There is an accumulation of canes in this house. They are testimony, I like to think, to the numbers of people who have lived to old age in our family. Some of them, of course, have been used by young people and not all belonged to family members. Each has a story, though at least two have not revealed their secrets to me.
She had a colorfully painted cane from Mexico – much shorter than it should have been to be useful – and a brass-headed walking stick that was so skinny it probably would have snapped in two had she put any weight on it.
Hanging from the closet doorknob in the north upstairs bedroom is an old hand-embroidered reticule, made no doubt by my grandmother during the months following her 1897 engagement to my grandfather. The little draw-string bag has definitely seen better days, but it and its contents were kept because “you just never know when this will come in handy.”
Celluloid collars came into fashion in the late nineteenth century. They were the practical and relatively inexpensive answer to maintaining clean neck ware. In those, days with limited and difficult laundry facilities, most clothing, including linen dress shirts, saw a number of wearings before finding their way to a washtub. Since it was the shirt collar that became soiled first, shirts were made as collarless garments, and men kept a supply of detachable and discard-able collars on hand.
In the beginning, these removable collars were linen but they were expensive items to be thrown out. Soon paper collars were developed but those didn’t last long and weren’t as flexible or comfortable. Celluloid (an early form of plastic) collars, developed in 1870, lasted five times longer and proved to be more flexible. They remained in fashion until ready-made shirts with collars and ‘modern’ laundry facilities caught up with each other fifty years later.
Once again, “Shoalwater Shenanigans” is all costumed and rehearsed and ready for presentation. It’s a new production of last year’s very well-received show about long dead people of the peninsula. I say “new,” not only because with live theater every show is new, but also because this year’s “Shenanigans” features some interesting cast changes plus one additional venue.
I think that I am one of the few people who really 
Dear Daughter: This has been election day and some way it has been strenuous. Thus began a letter written by my grandmother, Helen Richardson Espy, on Tuesday, November 3, 1914. She was writing to her oldest child, Medora, who was away at school. The letter continued:
The bedroom was the one in which all the R.H. Espy Children were born. As early as 1946 when my Uncle Willard bought the house from the R.H. Espy Estate, there was talk of making that change. However, my grandfather and his brothers and sisters all objected for sentimental reasons. It wasn’t until the last of that generation (Uncle Cecil) died that the change was made.
I have another photograph, taken about twenty years earlier, of my mother’s first cousin Barbara who was Uncle Cecil’s daughter. She is standing at the woodstove frying clams which is where I remember her being throughout my childhood! Of all the eighteen first cousins of that generation, she was the one I knew best and loved the most. I think my mother felt the same way.
Now that it is dark outside well after I get up in the morning and long before I retire each evening, my thoughts turn to my Grandmother Helen Espy. They always do at this time of year and especially when it is stormy. And even more especially when the power goes out which, thankfully, has occurred yet this season, but probably will.
It would be easy to assume that she was able to endure the lack of amenities here in Oysterville because she had never known otherwise, but that is not the way it was. She was raised in East Oakland, California where there were electric lights and gas heat in the houses and trolley cars on the streets. She and my grandfather had planned to live there always, but those pesky ‘circumstances’ beyond their control brought them to Oysterville in 1902.