From the desk of Evan Robb

Former state senator (1969-1980) Gary M. Odegaard stopped in at the Washington State Library last week to share a wealth of unique photographs from his family collection, as well as hours of great stories about growing up in the border town of Sumas, Washington. Deborah Morgan from the Sumas Library met with Odegaard while staff from our Washington Rural Heritage program worked to digitize his photos.

It was a fascinating day of learning about life in Whatcom County in the 1950s, from daily farm life in “Washington’s Finest Dairyland,” to living through major flood events, to the history of the Sumas Valley Grange.

Odegaard’s collection will soon appear alongside other material from the Sumas area digitized through a Washington Rural Heritage grant completed this year by the Sumas branch of Whatcom County Library System. View that collection here: http://sos.wa.gov/q/SumasHeritage

The State Library’s Washington Rural Heritage program is a collaborative digitization project partnering with almost 150 of our state’s libraries and museums. The project also provides access to the otherwise hidden or inaccessible family collections of almost 500 Washingtonians.

The Washington State Library will be working with more than one dozen organizations through the end of 2018 to bring more of our common heritage online. Read more about our recent grant awards here: https://www.sos.wa.gov/_assets/library/libraries/grants/2017_WRH_Awards.pdf

This funding is made possible by a grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act. To learn more about participating in Washington Rural Heritage, please contact Evan Robb, Digital Repository Librarian, at (360) 704-5228, or [email protected].