Skagit River Journal of History & Folklore Subscribers Edition Stories & Photos The most in-depth, comprehensive site about the Skagit. Covers from British Columbia to Puget sound. Counties covered: Skagit, Whatcom, Island, San Juan. An evolving history dedicated to the principle of committing random acts of historical kindness

Noel V. Bourasaw, editor 810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, Washington, 98284 Home of the Tarheel Stomp Mortimer Cook slept here & named the town Bug

      Blackberries, cocoa, Velveeta cheese, and fudge. Puppies, kitties, flowers and birds. Foot-loose and fancy free on forty-some acres of woods with a Grandmother who believed children were perfect. What more could a kid want?
      The furthest back I can remember of Grandmother, Granddaddy, Uncle Michael, and Mt. Vernon is being out in the woods on a hot sunshiny day sitting on a blanket with my sister, Carol, while the bigger people all around us were busy picking berries. Also on the blanket, was a quart-jar of water for the thirsty and a pile of pots and pans out of Grandmother's kitchen waiting to be filled with ripe blackberries. That's when we were too little to pick. Later, as we grew older, we joined the ranks, eventually picking berries for Mom or Grandmother and as teenagers, to help pay room and board during our summer stays. After putting an ad in the newspaper, Grandmother would sell the berries by the gallon to people in the city who would come for miles to get them. Last price I remember her getting for them was $8.00 a gallon. I was a teenager then. Today you could probably get over $20.00 a gallon from a restaurant owner for a gallon of those mountain blackberries. Grandmother also made a few extra bucks by harvesting and selling cascara bark. There were a few cascara trees on the east side of the garden below the house. We went there with Michael and he showed us how to take the bark without killing the tree.
      I remember the long ride up to Grandmother's by way of old Hwy 99. We went through towns like Woodinville, Snohomish, and Marysville and it took us a good two hours to get there from Seattle. I might get carsick or Carol or our brother Johnny might get a bloody nose. Our favorite landmarks along the way assured us we weren't on a never-ending journey, but were on the right road and getting closer to Grandmother's house. There was the Paul Bunyan sign (not sure what kind of business that was,) the big tree you could drive through, the monkey tree in Snohomish or Marysville, and the Rip Van Winkle furniture store. There was the honey stand we occasionally stopped at before turning off the highway. It eventually made it big, selling its honey in the supermarkets. Sometimes there was a stop at Grandmother's neighbor's house to fill up bottles with spring water.
      My grandparents lived up on Devil's Mountain, above Big Lake back in the fifties through the seventies. My uncle, Michael Mitchell was raised there. I just finished writing up a short history for my kids and cousins that you might enjoy reading, also. My siblings, and my cousins spent our summer vacations at our grandparents place. It was our paradise.

      I live in Renton, Washington [the town just south of Seattle that was a historic coal-mining district]. I was instant messaging with this cousin, Candie, who is mentioned in the story and we got to talking over old times. Then it came to me. We should contact all the cousins and have us all write up our memories of Grandmother, Granddaddy, Michael and the place up there. Then in April, the month of our grandmother's birthday, we could all exchange them with each other in remembrance of them all. So, I decided to write mine up on a webpage so I could send it out to all that way and share it with my kids and granddads.

1=Alice Harrison, 7th grade; sister Carol; sister Barbara; cousin Glenna.

      The time period talked about in the story was from 1950 through 1980. I found that my grandparents bought their place in 1951. My Grandmother came from Roy, Washington. Her ancestors on her mothers side were in the very first group of Americans to come north of the Columbia River back in the 1840s. Their names are inscribed on a granite memorial below the falls in Tumwater. Her ancestors on her fathers side were here to meet and help those American pioneers. They were a Cowlitz Indian and a French Canadian working at Fort Nisqually. Grandmother was a direct descendant of Chief Skanewa. Granddaddy was a Texan and was stationed at Fort Lewis when they met and married. He retired from the Army and they went into a smalltime gladiola business.
      Michael James Mitchell was their youngest son. He was born in 1943. After two years in the service he went to work in 1965 at the Lone Star factory in Concrete, WA and was in a terrible accident, shoveling coal into a furnace. It back-flashed and he was burned over fifty percent of his body. He died soon after at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle. He is much missed. My grandfather died a few after, and Grandmother had a stroke at her place up there, lived many more years in the care of my Mom (I can find you the dates if you want) and died in 1992.
      Yes, Michael T. Simmons. My Gabriel and Keziah Jones were in that group. They all went together on the first saw mill. Did you know that Leschi and his Nisquallys met them when they got here and gave them much needed aid. They gave them food and a dry place to sleep, and then helped them build their houses. Michael Simmon's sister, Catherine was married to my other great, namely Israel Broshears. She and Israel came out on a later wagon train along with Catherine's mother, sister, brother-in-law , Doc Maynard and others of the Broshears family. Israel, and some other Broshears, and Catherine's mother, all died of cholera along the way. Catherine later married the Doc [Maynard].

      A few years ago I got up enough courage to go up there. I was so afraid that the place would be covered with housing developments. It wasn't too bad. there are a couple of houses down by the mail box, but from there up it is still the same driveway. The house is remodeled and a big shop or garage is where the chicken house used to be. It's cleared off quite a bit right around the house, but other than that it's still the same setting. I am going to go up there before too long and give the current residents a copy of this story. I always love watching "If Walls Could Talk" on HGTV. These people would probably love to know what kind of place it used to be.

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