I've been giving my great-grandfather, Robert Hamilton Espy, a bit of thought these last few days, primarily because I'll be talking about him at the History Forum on Wednesday. I do wish I "knew" him better. Unlike my grandfather (Harry, or...
I was just dropping off to sleep last night when there was a horrific thump, thump, thump just outside my bedroom doorway. It took a minute or two but my curiosity overcame that scary feeling so I (bravely) went into the hallway. My first instinct...
On page A8 of last week's Observer was an article headlined "Sunday Music Vespers features Peninsula Guitar Trio." Above it was a picture of the Oysterville Church's steeple with a caption that started like this: "Oysterville Church is one of the...
If my great-grandmother Julia's letters are typical of those of others of the 1800s, it seems to me that a good deal of time was spent discussing the various health issues of family members. This was especially true in her weekly letters to her...
It's been a week since my last entry in the Oysterville Daybook -- a week of love and laughter, of deep sorrow and reminiscence, of outreach and introspection. Our house has been filled with friends, new and old, and the village has hosted at...
Page 1 of the April 26, 1901 South Bend Journal features a small headline, Death of Mrs. R.H. Espy and one two-column photograph of the R.H. Espy Family taken on the occasion of eldest daughter Dora's wedding some six years previously. I don't...
Of her fourth child's birth on December 10, 1904, my grandmother Helen Richardson Espy) wrote many years later: Mona was born the night Albert was taken ill – a two-and-a-half-pound wisp – had 75 convulsions in 5 days when 5 weeks old. According to...
As I've visited with people during these months of sheltering -- by phone or zoom or text or email -- the conversation often turns to frustrated comments like, "I can't seem to get anything done" or "I'm just not motivated" or "I think I'm...
When Curator Ed Nolan first introduced me to the archives at the Washington State History Research Center back in the mid-'80s, he spent most of our time showing me ephemera. The term was new to me then... but never mind. I loved it all --WPA ...
On September 3, 1913, my fourteen-year-old aunt Medora wrote to a friend in Olympia: We are having a regular winter storm. Do you know what a storm is? Not an Oysterville one. You see we get it from both the ocean and the bay. The wind has...
As the start of school gets closer, my thoughts turn increasingly to my own school days, to the years I taught, and to the school experiences of my own children. This morning I took a few minutes to look back even further -- to 1908 and an...
Yesterday I had the great urge to clean out my closet and to inventory my sartorial needs for the coming of fall. I made a good start on filling the Goodwill bag with clothing that has been (literally) gathering dust for uncounted years. You know...