Double Trouble in Walla Walla.

The Adventure on Klickitat Island

What do these titles have in common?

Well, they contain two of Washington State’s very unique place names.  Walla Walla and Klickitat are just fun to say.

They are also part of our collection of children’s books here at the Washington State Library.

We don’t just have history books and microfilm here at the State Library.  We collect any book written about, or set in, Washington State.  That includes picture books.

 

Double Trouble in Walla Walla by Andrew Clements is a wonderful tongue twister of a tale that is great fun to read aloud.

In Lulu’s English class one morning, there is an outbreak of “lippity-loppity jibber-jabber.”

Everyone is double talking – the students, the teachers, the nurse and even the principal.

He tries to deny it by saying “Tut-tut, sounds like silly-willy hocus pocus to me”.

It seems he has caught the double talk bug too.

Adventure on Klickitat Island by Hilary Horder Hippely is a beautifully illustrated nighttime adventure.  A little boy and his bear head out to help animals on the island who are wet and cold in a thunderstorm.

“On Klickitat Island
just think of the rains,
now soaking the otters
and poor baby cranes”

Once they get to the island, all of the animals work with him to build a shelter.  They triumph over the cold rainy night.

“With deer hauling driftwood
and cranes helping sort,
soon standing up tall
was a Klickitat fort!”

Come and visit us, or browse our catalog, if you’re  looking for a children’s book set in, or written about, Washington State.

 

From the desk of Brian Frisina

Washingtonians know the importance of preserving the history and culture of our great state.

One way to preserve our history is by supporting the Washington State Library. Established as a territorial library, the Washington Territorial Library was created by the Organic Act of 1853, which also created the Washington Territory. The Washington State Library is the oldest cultural institution in Washington State and its original collections were chosen by Governor Isaac Stevens, the first Territorial Governor, before he headed West from the East Coast.

Libraries play a very vital role in society. They provide access to both printed and online information, their collections preserve historical moments, and above all they are the stewards of the history and culture of society.

Libraries also provide people with free opportunities to learn through books, magazines, newspapers, and documents. These opportunities uplift our society and helps us to be the best human beings we can be.

I would like to take a moment and share my experience with the Washington State Library. I was working on a project that required digging deep into the history of the State, the history of the First People. I am interested in telling the story of Washington State through the eyes of the First People.

In my research I was looking for some rare images. One image I was looking for was of a person name Dick Jackson, from the Sqauxin Island Nation. Mr. Jackson played an important role in keeping his people from starving during the 1900s. The image on the right was preserved at the Washington State Library.

Through the collections of the Washington State and help from the staff I was able to locate the research material I needed. I share my story with you to highlight the Washington State Library and its role in preserving the history and culture of our great state.

Thank you Washington State Library.

Brian Frisina works at the Washington State Library branch in the Department of Labor and Industries, He is active in American Indian issues.

 

From the desk of Kim Smeenk

There is a bestselling fantasy series about werewolves and vampires
in Washington State, and it isn’t the one you’re thinking of.

 

Instead of the rain, mountains and misty forests that most people think of when they picture Washington State, Patricia Briggs has set her Mercy Thompson series where she herself lives.  The dry and sunny Tri Cities region in Eastern Washington.  More desert than forest, more farmland than mountains.

Mercy Thompson is a young Volkswagen mechanic, who also has the ability to shift into a coyote.   This is why she can count amongst her family, friends, acquaintances and enemies, werewolves, witches, vampires, trolls, various other shape-shifters and members of the Fey.

Mercy isn’t a superhero.  Most of the time, she is the weakest supernatural creature in the room.   When we first meet her in Moon Called, she is driving an old VW Rabbit, and lives in an old single wide trailer outside of town with her cat Medea.

You just enjoy spending time with her in these books.  She faces life with humor, loyalty and grit.  There is the actual grit that comes from working on cars all day, but Mercy is also full up on the grit required to face all of those creatures who are stronger than her.  Facing them in her daily life – her neighbors happen to be werewolves – and facing them in battles she often doesn’t expect to win.   She fights those battles because friends are in trouble, or sometimes, it’s her enemies who are in trouble.

Life is complicated, but really, really interesting, in Mercy Thompson’s Tri Cities.

#1 Moon Called
#2 Blood Bound
#3 Iron Kissed
#4 Bone Crossed
#5 Silver Borne
#6 River Marked
#7 Frost Burned
#8 Night Broken

If your local library doesn’t have these titles, you can borrow them from the Washington State Library through interlibrary loan.
www.sos.wa.gov/library/

 

From the desk of Shawn Shollmeyer

Today, March 19, 2014, marks the 101st Anniversary of the Washington State Park System.  You can read a little about the history of one of our state parks and follow links to historic newspaper articles.

Dr. J Hilton of Seattle owned 80 acres of land that included Mt. Constitution on Orcas Island. A prime piece of real estate that provides views across the Puget Sound to British Columbia. The February 5^th, 1909 San Juan Islander corrected the Bellingham American to get their facts straight, but at 2409 feet, not 5,000, Mt Constitution is still the highest point in the Puget Sound and “…one of the finest views to be had in the world, if the atmosphere is clear.”

The San Juan County citizens petitioned for the state to create 40 acres of this area to be preserved and on February 1^st, 1909, Senator John L. Blair introduced a resolution that this area be purchased by the state for a public park when the land came on the market. But many argued over the exorbitant price being asked for the land.

Mt. Constitution did became part of a state park years later. The land was finally donated to the state by Seattle Mayor Robert Moran, but not without some controversy. The Washington State Board of Park Commissioners was created in 1913, but was not able to act until House Bill 164 allowed the state to acquire land (http://www.parks.wa.gov/175/History ) in 1921.

How much was the land worth in 1909 and who was this Dr. J. Hilton? How big is the park now? You can find out more directly from Washington newspapers:

The announcement & support of a state public park

The San Juan islander. (Friday Harbor, Wash.), 16 Jan. 1909. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085190/1909-01-16/ed-1/seq-8/>

The San Juan islander. (Friday Harbor, Wash.), 29 Jan. 1909. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085190/1909-01-29/ed-1/seq-1/>

The San Juan islander. (Friday Harbor, Wash.), 05 Feb. 1909. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.

<http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085190/1909-02-05/ed-1/seq-1/>

Dr. J. Hilton

The San Juan islander. (Friday Harbor, Wash.), 21 Feb. 1913. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085190/1913-02-21/ed-1/seq-1/>

 How much were they asking?

The San Juan islander. (Friday Harbor, Wash.), 26 Feb. 1909. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085190/1909-02-26/ed-1/seq-1/>

Robert Moran Steps in

The San Juan islander. (Friday Harbor, Wash.), 21 Feb. 1913. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085190/1913-02-21/ed-1/seq-1/>

Robert Moran’s Letter refutes a “Public Playground”

The San Juan islander. (Friday Harbor, Wash.), 16 May 1913. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085190/1913-05-16/ed-1/seq-1/>

This collection is made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Library of Congressand Washington State Library Digital Collections.

Images are from the Washington Rural Heritage Collection.

 

From the desk of Kim Smeenk

Fires, volcanoes, and floods, oh my!

The Pacific Northwest has seen its share of natural disasters over the years. Forest fires, windstorms like the Columbus Day Storm in 1962, and the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980.    The Washington State Library has books, magazine articles, government reports and documentaries about these events.

If you want to read what the newspapers were reporting as the disasters were unfolding, you can find those articles in the State Library’s microfilm newspaper collection.  If you can’t make it to our library, don’t worry, we lend out many of our books, and all of our microfilmed newspapers, to people all over the world through interlibrary loan.
Contact us if you have questions.

 

In 1963 Ellis Lucia published The big blow; the story of the Pacific Northwest’s Columbus Day storm, about the Pacific Northwest windstorm that killed over  40 people, and caused millions of dollars in damages.

The following year, Dorothy Franklin published West Coast Disaster, Columbus Day, 1962

 

The great Forks fire, by Mavis Amundson, describes the fast moving forest fire
on the Olympic Peninsula in September 1951 that threatened to destroy the town of  Forks, WA.

 

 

1910 was another year of massive forest fires in the Pacific Northwest.  There were more than 1,700 fires that burned three million acres, and killed over 80 people.

Year of Fires by Stephen J. Pyne, and The Big Burn by Don Miller are just a few of the books we have about these fires.

For official state reports from that time, you can come to the State Library to read the 100+ year old annual Report(s) of the State Forester and Fire Warden

 

 

 

 

The most famous natural disaster in Washington State was the eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980.  These are just a few of the titles the State Library has about this event.

Citizen response to volcanic eruptions: the case of Mt. St. Helens by Ronald W. Perry and Marjorie R. Greene.

Echoes of fury : the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens and the lives it changed forever / Frank Parchman

Mt. St. Helens : surviving the stone wind by Catherine Hickson

Portrait of Mount St. Helens : a changing landscape / essays by Chuck Williams and Stuart Warren

The eruption of Mount St. Helens [videorecording] DVD

Mt. St. Helens [videorecording] : back from the dead DVD

You can find all of these items and more in our online catalog.

If you have questions about how to borrow any of our books or newspaper microfilm, contact us at [email protected].

 

These letters and manuscripts came into the possession of fellow suffrage worker, Bernice A. Sapp, who assembled and indexed them.  The Digital and Historical Collections staff decided to undertake the digitization of the collection to prolong the life of these manuscripts and to provide expanded access to citizens – especially students and teachers.  The project was funded by a grant from the Washington’s Women’s History Consortium and the collection can be viewed at their web site at: http://www.washingtonhistory.org/research/whc/WHCcollections/wsl/

DeVoe was one of the major personalities involved in moving Washington State being the fifth state in the country to adopt full suffrage for women in 1910 – ten years before the national constitutional amendment was passed.  While she occasionally clashed with some of the other strong personalities in the movement she was a tireless worker and keen strategist.  Unlike their counterparts in England, American woman suffragists adopted the tactic of the “still hunt”, using ladylike demeanors and calm reason to persuade the men of the state to grant them the vote as a matter of simple justice.

DeVoe went on to found the National Council of Women Voters in 1911 to bring together western voting women in order to move toward national suffrage.  The group eventually merged with the League of Women Voters in 1920.  She later became active in the Republican Party and wrote from that viewpoint for the Tacoma News Tribune.

From the Desk of Marlys Rudeen

Pulled by religious fervor, men and women left homes and families to come West, intending to bring their faith to the “heathen”. They were often well-meaning but unprepared for life on the frontier and for interacting with people of another culture. They strove faithfully, endured hardships and grief among people whose responses to their teachings ran the gamut from acceptance to violence. Two of our Classics in Washington History describe the lives of Protestant women in western missions.

In Memoirs of the West: the Spaldings,  Eliza Spalding, the daughter of Rev. and Mrs. Spalding, looks back at an idyllic childhood at Lapwai, the Spaldings mission. She helps her mother, travels with her father, and grows up among the Nez Perce Indians. She often stays with Marcus and Narcissa Whitman at their mission for months at a time in order to attend school with other mission and immigrant children. And she is there on Nov. 29, 1847 when the Whitman mission is attacked by the Cayuse Indians. Her account is harrowing, as the 10-year-old child witnesses death and terror, and then serves as interpreter between the Indians and their captives. The book also includes excerpts from her mother’s diary and some of her father’s letters that speak of the unrelenting labor that he and his wife undertake.

You can also look through three fascinating collections of letters by Narcissa Prentiss Whitman, gathered and published in the late nineteenth century by the Oregon Pioneer Association. The first covers their journey across the country to the Oregon Territory in 1836. The others include Narcissa’s letters to her family back east and correspondence with other missionaries in the West. They can be found in Classics in Washington History as Journey across the plains in 1836.

The letters reveal a woman who is determined to live up to her religious ideals. She accepts the loss of home and her extended family. She accepts her husband’s frequent absences and the physical hardships of frontier living. Yet, she continually begs her family to write more often, and is without any letters from home for up to two years due to long distances. She is never quite at home with the Indians and has difficulty learning the language. There are hints in her narratives about the tensions among the missionaries and the discouragement when few others arrive to join the mission effort.

Narcissa bears a child at Waiilatpu, Alice Clarissa, that is the light of her life until she drowns at the age of “two years, three months, and nine days.” At the same time she takes on the care of children in need, having as many as eleven children in her home at once and writes, “I am sometimes about ready to sink under the weight of responsibility resting on me…” The letters, though relentlessly optimistic, create a portrait of an intensely social and conventional woman laboring in isolation and surrounded by a culture that remains foreign to her.

For an overview of the Whitmans and Spaldings you might try Waiilatpu : its rise and fall, 1836-1847 : a story of pioneer days in the Pacific Northwest based entirely upon historical research by Miles Cannon. Cannon interviews many of the survivors of the mission as well as dealing with its early years.

Kathleen Benoun, long time Library Associate at the Western State Hospital Library in Lakewood, WA, is an amateur historian who spends a lot of personal time researching the history of the hospital, and the library itself.  Kathleen recently shared this interesting story about opening day of the library back in 1950.

Can you imagine opening day at a library without a book or librarian in sight?  That’s exactly what happened in 1950 on the grounds of Western State Hospital.  The Tacoma newspaper photograph you see below accompanied a story about the budget crisis of 1949 that diverted monies for the Staff Research and Patient Libraries to other building projects on campus.

Thankfully, the Legislature held a special session to fund both libraries and the Research Institute that occupied other floors of the building.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since then and many budget crises later, the Patient Library has endured to provide leisure, educational, and therapeutic resources for both patients and staff.

The shelves are no longer empty.  Now the library houses 8574 books and 5610 CD/DVDs in the collection, as well as popular magazines and local newspapers

Beyond the physical resources the library provides, over the years, Kathleen visited every ward in the hospital to present Library programs.  Her goal was to both entertain and encourage the patients to borrow from the collection or use library services such as the listening center where patrons could enjoy radio or music or outreach programs for ward-bound patients and staff. The most popular ward programs were interactive–such as trivia contests and poetry readings.  Kathleen reports, “One month, I visited a ward with older men and women and challenged them to play the board game Chauvinist Pigs.  Its trivia questions were based on gender-specific common knowledge.   We had such a spirited time together, the staff came over to shush us.  First time that ever happened to me, but it wasn’t the last.”

Patients and staff often express their gratitude for the presence of an on-site library to provide a comforting environment within the state psychiatric hospital.  Over the years, both patients and staff have donated materials to supplement the meager library budget.  Patients have also donated poetry and original art.  One patient read so many novels, he told the Library staff he could write his own book, which he did and donated two copies to the Library collection.

The Western State Hospital Library is a unique library which serves a key purpose; a place that responds to the needs of its patrons and provides a welcoming, non-judgmental space to visit. But isn’t that the definition of all good libraries?

 

 

 

 

Territorial Era Love Story, Bucoda 1889

This one is a nice spin on an old story, but the backstory is even more unusual. This was found at random in the Centralia Daily News, August 6, 1889:

THE BOY WON 

In Spite of the Difficulties Placed in His Pathway 

He Saw, He Loved, He Conquered, and is Rewarded, by Securing the Prize He Most Coveted. 

“For a few years past there existed a feeling of warm attachment between Eli Bannse and Nettie Coats, daughter of G.W. Coats, of Bucoda. For some reason best known to himself, the paternal heart did not seem to yearn to any great extent for a son-in-law, in the person of the applicant, and the loving pair found ‘Jordan a hard road to travel.’ But there is that in love which will take possession of a person’s very being, shape their resolves, and cause them to cling to the object of their affections, though death itself should threaten. Parents are very apt not to rightly estimate the strength of attachment thus formed.”

“A few weeks since, Mr. Bannse informed the parents that he had come to marry their daughter, but she was persuaded against taking the step. Bannse was not to be thwarted in that manner, and he arranged with some friends to help him out by a scheme. Last Saturday night there was a dance at Bucoda. Bannse was to play, but excused himself on the ground of sickness in the family, and providing a horse and carriage, waited outside for developments. How his heart must have beat with expectancy. Those few moments he was obliged to remain in suspense, must have seemed hours, for he knew not but what the parents who were present at the dance, would put a quietus on his scheme.”

“He was not doomed to disappointment. Success crowned his efforts. He carried off the prize, and while search was being made to them at every conceivable point, they drove quietly to Mrs. and Mr. Bannse, Sr.’s, farm house, and put up for the Sabbath. Monday morning Lon Ogle went to Chehalis and procured a license, and armed with the license, and accompanied by Justice John A. Taylor of this city, he returned to the waiting couple. By this time it was an afternoon long to be remembered by the participants and witnesses.”

“Justice Taylor says that this was the most romantic marriage that has come under his judicial career.”

“When the judge drove to the house of Mr. Herman Bannse, he found that it was out of his jurisdiction, but found the bride and groom hale and hearty and ‘Barkis is willin’.”

“So they all came back into Lewis county, and selected a nice grove by the way side, on top of a high hill, overlooking the River (Skookumchuck) and the beautiful valley through which it runs, and under a canopy of heaven and in the presence of witnesses, he joined this happy couple in wedlock. Judge says that he has seen marriages performed under marriage bells, arches of flowers, horse shoes, and many other places and implements of torture, especially prepared for the occasion, where, by the expression of the bride and groom not much happiness seem to exist, but on this occasion under the tall fir trees, cedars and maples, while nature in all its glory seemed to smile upon all present, while the birds of the forest did not forget to give their songs of praise, and indeed happiness (Eureka) was plainly stamped upon the faces of this young couple, as they took the midnight train for Portland. Happiness and success is the expression of all their friends and acquaintances.”

“The couple have a host of friends at Bucoda, who are glad to see the consummation of the marriage.”

“It must not be understood that we wish to cast any reflections upon Mr. and Mrs. G.W. Coats, who as far as we can learn, are worthy and respectable people, but the general opinion seems to be that they were mistaken in this matter.”

Eli Bannse and Nettie Coates were indeed married by Justice Taylor in Lewis County, August 5, 1889. Herman Bannse and A.E. Ogle were the official witnesses. The marriage certificate is available for viewing courtesy of the Washington State Digital Archives. At the time they were married, Elias Bannse was 27, Nettie was 18. They moved to Everett, then to Huntington Beach, Calif. by 1910, and landed in Centralia by 1914. Eli, who as we could see in the above article was a musician, was active in the town band. Nettie died in 1924, and Eli moved to Yakima to be close to their daughter, Madeline. Eli died in Yakima in 1935.

Herman Bannse, Eli’s father, turns up in C.B. Mann’s project, Thurston County Pioneers Before 1870. Herman had been part of the Keil party. The sect, called Bethelites and led by a charismatic German named Dr. William Keil left Bethel, Missouri for the Pacific Northwest in 1855. Just a few days before departure, Willie Keil, the Doctor’s 19 year old son, died as a result of malaria. Honoring Willie’s wishes to accompany the family out West, he was transported the entire distance in a lead-lined coffin filled with 100 proof Golden Rule whisky.

 

 

The Keil party settled in Pacific County for a brief time. And it was here, near present day Menlo, Washington, that Willie Keil was laid to rest. A marker on the road near the grave is there today to tell the story. Across the road, last time I went through there, was a tavern called TombStone Willey’s.

Not finding the Willapa area to their liking, the group moved south to the Aurora Colony in Oregon, leaving Willie behind. Herman Bannse and Willie Keil, who were the same age, were first cousins. Herman’s mother was Dr. Keil’s sister. While in Oregon, Herman married fellow Keil Party member Margaret Bergman in 1860. Four years later they moved to Bucoda.

And the rest, they say, is history.

 

Deep in the basement of the Evergreen State College on Cooper Point outside of Olympia is a room that appears to have once hummed with the sound of giant computers. But now all that is left is one lonely server, along with a few dust bunnies.

You wouldn’t know to look at it, but this machine hosts the consortium catalog for the Washington State Library, The Evergreen State College, and Saint Martins University. By the end of this December all three libraries will be moving to newer frontiers. Evergreen and St. Martins  will be joining a larger alliance with other Pacific Northwest academic libraries, and WSL family of libraries will go solo.

We will continue using the Innovative Millennium system, but our server will change and as a result our public catalog will look different. This change gives us an opportunity to reshape our services a bit more for our particular customer base.

It seems inevitable this kind of migration will have bumps here and there. Hopefully we’ll have them ironed out quickly. Library users attempting to use the system to place holds or make changes on their account on Dec. 2-3 are advised to wait until Dec. 4.

Once our new catalog is up and running, please take a look and send us your feedback and/or questions. I can be contacted at:

[email protected]

(360) 704-5276