A Little Blackberry Jam With Your Land Clearing?
May 15, 2009 by Erin · Leave a Comment
About a week ago, I was taking my son back to the emergency room and as I was leaving the City of DuPont, I noticed at the intersection of Barksdale and Wilmington there were crews there clearing the land. This corner marked so many memories for me as a child and had already been changed so much – several years ago there wasn’t this large, busy intersection that there is today. The traffic used to be much less, and it used to look a lot different. In fact, one of the greatest joys we had as children was to ride out bikes up to the front of town and pick blackberries on this corner, with the Iafrati’s sometimes there to oversee us. We could walk from their property if we wanted to pick blackberries, right to that infamous corner at the front of town.
We could also walk from the Iafrati’s property through a small underground tunnel (which bypassed the road/traffic) and came out) where the Starbucks and Better Business Bureau are today. This is where the City Hall used to be and where we would go sometimes to drop off miscellanous things for our parents. This was also where we colored Easter Eggs a few times as volunteers. The underground tunnel was destroyed when the intersection was put in several years back. The blackberry picking was the highlight though…it was a contest between all of us kids to see who could get the most and then when we got home with our buckets we’d rinse them all off and then Grandma Anna would show us how to make blackberry jam. She’d walk us through the pectin process and getting the jars ready, even right down to letting us make the labels. She was a real teacher from start to finish and was so patient.
What I remember most about my grandmother was her love for details and saving everything. Whenever I’d arrive to her house the routine was the same, enter through the back door, walk down the long hallway to where you’d find her sitting in her rocking/recliner chair and then we’d talk for a few minutes. She’d most likely be watching the news and talk with you about the record tempatures for the day. Then she’d show you an article she’d recently cut out that fascinated her and most likely it would have been about DuPont or it would be a comic that reminded her of you. These memories I’ll hold with me forever. I haven’t had a Family Circus cartoon by Bil Keane cut out for me since my Grandmother’s passing in June 2001. Now, I also will no longer be able to pick blackberries at the front of town, which is where I’ll always remember picking them. Saving history is more than just writing history, it is also about saving our landmarks. Today its the blackberries, but what might it be tomorrow?
Sequalitchew Creek…A Watershed Runneth Dry or Disappearing?
March 23, 2009 by Erin · Leave a Comment
DURING ONE OF MY MIDDLE SCHOOL YEARS, Steilacoom School District arranged to bus the students to the city of DuPont to learn about the vast history and upcoming development the city would soon entertain. We had the opportunity to visit the Sequalitchew Creek Bed near Edmonds Village; we were granted entry past the guard gates at Weyerhaeuser and attend sessions about the upcoming businesses coming to DuPont in the near future. I remember most prominently the Sequalitchew Creek Bed tour and how full the creek bed was then with water. At the time there hadn’t been any development down Center Drive. Center was just a new road and so much of Northwest Landing was still in its beginning stages. The aerial map hanging on the wall did outline the businesses projected to plant their fresh foundations into the freshly excavated soil. The Girl Scout Building was on there- I remember that much from the map. The rest is a blur, except I do remember sitting in some antique school desks.
I am not sure if I tuned it out because I lived here and proclaimed I knew it all already…or why I didn’t pay better attention that day because now I wish I had. I do know the water was a lot higher in the Creek 20 years ago. I know things can change, but instead it feels as though all the trees and nature have diminished, all the water has dried from the creek bed and now rather than a history having aged; it feels as if it has disappeared. Photos can tell a story, and combined with a great storyteller you can take readers on a journey. But looking back now, the value to stand in front of the Sequalitchew Creek and have the history explained to you then – what an experience. We should continue to do that now with our children and visitors to the city – the city’s history is worth saving.
Information’s pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience. ~Clarence Day, The Crow’s Nest
Paving the Path of History with Bricks
March 7, 2009 by Erin · Leave a Comment
The front of town used to look a lot different than it does today. The intersection wasn’t there (it used to be a stop sign) which curved around to the DuPont Steilacoom Road, the 76 station wasn’t a gas station (it was just a store), and where the Better Business Bureau is now located once sat the City Hall and Laughbon High School. There once was a gas station at the front of town but it closed when I was 3 or 4. It was kitty corner from where the 76 station is today.
The front of town was always more exciting than our end of town. We liked going up to the store because if we were lucky we might be able to get some kind of snack or drink which might break up the day. We always used to save up our change too because they had a gumball machine and we’d go in and buy as many gumballs as we could and see who could blow the biggest bubble.
As kids, my brother and I used to pick up our mail at the post office on our bikes and then on some occasions we would have to go up to the city hall. To do this, we used the tunnel several times that passed under the road starting closest to the Iafrati’s property by the blackberry bushes. One of the things we always looked forward to was picking blackberries at the front of town next to where this tunnel was. We could get buckets of fresh blackberries just in an hour – there were so many on the bushes up at the front of town.
School buses and children in front of DuPont School. Click Photo for details.
I remember in the very late 80’s or early 90’s when the school was being torn down, my mother asked us one summer day to go to the demolition crew and ask them for a few of the bricks as memento’s. We did and I remember them thinking what do these kids want with these bricks, like we were up to no good. We explained what they were for they looked like they could care even less about the bricks at this point because they almost tossed the bricks to us and there we were left trying to figure out how ride our bikes and carry the historic bricks home.
It took us several hours that day to get bricks in 80 degree weather plus our ride home. I just remember how appreciative my mother and grandmother were – the bricks meant something to them – even though to us they were just bricks. I am retelling the story now and I remember her stories of Laughbon, even though I didn’t attend. I carried a brick and through my mom had an emotional connection just like we all can have through saving the history of this great city.
My History and a few lemon drops..
March 6, 2009 by Erin · Leave a Comment
My grandma Anna Kelley on Louviers in 1961.
Whenever I think about the Old Town Village of DuPont today, I am reminded of so many things, but especially of my childhood that I shared with the population when it was only 601. I can visualize Barksdale Street in spring lined with the fully blossomed cherry trees and the white antique lamp posts adorned with their hanging baskets of flowing ivy. I think of so many things – time spent frequenting the great outdoors (trails and woods), taking on side jobs to help out the town folk (painting, pulling weeds, mowing lawns, babysitting) and having the chance to earn some money and walking to the Post Office to pick up the mail (only the Post Office was where the old Police station was and now the Fire department uses and at the time we all had keys and an actual mail box). Summers consisted of barbeques at the Park behind the Church and Christmas always included an Advent Ceremony at the Church typically rehearsed and led by the infamous Paula Andre.
An appreciation of DuPont’s history is sure to enrich one’s life. I grew up here and had frequented the museum and found the lemon drops they used to keep hidden in one of the displays. We used to spend hours on the train as we played games of train robbers. I’ve been to the area where the Wading Pool was built in the early 20’s, but wouldn’t have known what it was at the time, and even played in the bunkers pre-Powderworks clean up.
Living here now, I have a different appreciation for the town and the history ingrained in the land and soil, specifically the Mission site, Sequalitchew creek, Old Town and various other historical landmarks. Unfortunately, so much of the land has already been cleared and so much of the other land is so overgrown, sometimes it might feel like a lost cause. I am quickly reminded though that a natural disaster could just as easily ruin our land – that is why I feel it is important for us all to be that changing voice in our community.
My husband, Patrick has always been passionate about the things he does. He has been actively involved in the city while he served as a Reserve Police Officer, even when he lived outside the city limits from 2002-2006. When we moved back to town in 2006, he became more and more interested in the details surrounding the Powderworks Plant and Old Town and especially the land where both the first and second Nisqually Mission Sites are marked. Our research efforts are purely self-led, based solely on instinct and interest we feel this is our best effort and our biggest contribution to save the history.
Here is my lineage to DuPont:
Quick Lineage
