Ralph Metcalf was born in Providence, R. I., November 2, 1861; son of Alfred and Rosa C. (Meloy) Metcalf. After his preliminary education he attended Brown University and the University of Michigan, graduating in 1883. He began newspaper work and was identified with the Pioneer Press of St. Paul, Minn. for several years, afterwards purchasing and editing the Winona (Minn.) Daily Herald. He moved to Tacoma in February 1890, and became proprietor and editor of the Tacoma Morning Globe, which was absorbed by The Ledger in 1893 (1). While editor of the Globe he was also briefly a clerk of the Board of Public Works but resigned in April of 1891 having found the two positions incompatible (2). In 1902 he established the Metcalf Shingle Company which became the largest manufacturer of shingles in the state (3) . He was elected Washington State Senator from Tacoma in November of 1906 (4). He served in the Senate until his death in April of 1939. His background in the newspaper business and his passion for travel inspired his many columns in the Tacoma News Tribune (5) which ran from November 3rd 1927 to February 10 of 1939.

William Trueblood was born in Ottumwa, Iowa on December 31, 1914. He lived in Tacoma for 55 years and was a photographer for the City of Tacoma. He died in Tacoma on June 14, 1983, at the age of 68.

Art Popham was a sports announcer, talk show host, and columnist. Born in Kansas City, Missouri on January 16, 1950, Popham had a career in public relations for the Oakland Athletics before moving to Tacoma in 1976. There, Art Popham would become a sports announcer for the Tacoma Twins, Tacoma Yankees, Tacoma Tugs, and the Tacoma Tigers. He hosted the shows PM Tacoma and The Art Popham Show. He was also a business columnist for the Tacoma News Tribune. He died on July 31, 2002.

John Boynton Kaiser was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1887. He received his B.A. in 1908 from the Western Reserve University, and later Kaiser studied at the New York State Library School in Albany, N.Y., where he received his B.L.S. in 1910 and M.L.S. in 1917.

After graduating, Kaiser began his career at the New York State Law Library. He became the assistant state librarian in charge of legislative services at the Texas State Library from 1910-11. He served as the departmental librarian in economics and sociology at the University of Illinois from 1911-1914. Kaiser was the director of the Tacoma Public Library from 1914 to 1924. However, during World War I, Kaiser served as the camp librarian at Camp Knox in Kentucky and Camp Upton in New York from 1918-1919. He left Tacoma to become the University of Iowa Libraries director and was in charge of their library school. Then in 1927, he took a position as director of the Oakland Public Library until 1943, when he became director of the Newark Public Library. While director of the Oakland Public Library, Kaiser was "also responsible for the Oakland Public Museum, the Snow Museum, and the Oakland Art Gallery." Kaiser retired from Newark Public Library in 1958.

Kaiser wrote many publications, including The National Bibliographies of the South American Republics (1913), Law Legislative and Municipal Reference Libraries, an Introductory Manual and Bibliographical Guide (1914) and Legal Aspects of Library Administration (1958). In addition, Kaiser served as president of the Pacific Northwest Library Association, the California Library Association, the New Jersey Library Association, and the New York State Library School Association. He was vice president of the American Library Association and executive director of the American Documentation Institute. Kaiser passed away on September 30, 1973 in Florida.

Joseph Chapin Bowen was born on April 25, 1900, in Columbus, Ohio to Charles Ambrose Bowen and Mabel Shattuck Hayes Chapin. (1) Chapin Bowen operated his photography studio Chapin Bowen Inc. for 25 years in Tacoma.(2) Bowen also worked as a freelance photographer for the Tacoma News Tribune for 12 years.(2) He came to Tacoma in August 1924 from Wenatchee, WA, where he also worked as a photographer.(3) Before living in Wenatchee, Bowen had traveled to most US states holding various jobs. (3) For example, he was also an engineer after taking courses at the University of Washington, Whitman College, and Montana School of Mines.(3) Previously Bowen was employed by the Great Northern Railroad at the Cascade tunnel as their chief electrician.(3) Chapin Bowen married Irma Saunders on December 22, 1925. (1) Together they had three daughters.(2) He was a lifelong member of Tacoma's Young Men's Business Club.(2) He passed away at age 56 on May 30, 1956, in Seattle, WA.(2)

Frederic William Keator was born in Pennsylvania in 1855. He received an undergraduate and law degree from Yale University, and later moved to Chicago to practice law and attend theology school. He was appointed as a priest in 1891, and after serving at a few different churches, he moved to Olympia, Washington in 1902 where he served as the Bishop [1].

Keator was appointed state chairman for the Washington State Library War Council by the National Library War Council. This was a campaign in which libraries raised money to fund the creation and maintenance of libraries for US soldiers, both at home and oversees during World War I. In this role, he reached out to different libraries in Washington State to encourage donations to the national fund. The Tacoma News Tribune reports a telegram from Keator in 1917 stating, “The library war fund will be a contribution from the people of the United States to the contentment, effectiveness, and future usefulness of our soldiers. It is a part of the great effort the government is making to surround our soldiers with a wholesome environment and to give them an opportunity to redeem by useful occupation of their leisure some of the losses which are necessarily entailed in military service.” [2]

He died unexpectedly on January 31, 1924. On Friday February 1, 1924, the Tacoma Daily Ledger reported his death, stating, “Bishop Keator was one of the men of whom Tacoma was proud. Devoted to his church work he also was devoted to the interests of the state in which he resided. Of the highest type of loyalty, he had always been a leader in civic enterprises and his friendly counsels had always been helpful in all movements for civic betterments” [3].

Marvin Dement Boland was born in 1873 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to parents James M. Boland and Darah E. Pennington. (1) Bolan attended Vanderbilt University from 1892-1895, then attended Fairmont State Normal School in West Virginia. Boland taught at Fairmont and later in Sterling, Colorado while attending the University of Colorado and Colorado State Teachers College. (1) He would graduate in 1912 with a BA. Boland then moved to Tacoma in 1912 to teach manual arts in various schools. (2) After teaching for a year, Boland became a commercial photographer and owned several photographic studios in downtown Tacoma from 1915-1949.(2) On December 9th, 1950, Boland died while photographing Navy ships in Bremerton. (2) He married Earle Keith Patterson from Ashland, Ky., in 1902. They had two daughters together, Katherine John Boland and Sarah Elizabeth Boland. (1)

Thomas H. Rutter was born in Truro, Cornwall, England on January 1, 1837. Before immigrating to the United States, he worked as a veterinarian. He moved to the Montana Territory in 1864 after hearing reports of the Gold Rush. By 1867, Rutter had developed an interest in photography and started a photography studio with R. J. Nesbitt in Glendale, Montana. In 1870, he opened his own studio in Butte, Montana. Rutter and his wife moved to Tacoma, Washington in 1888, where he opened a photography studio on 1346 Pacific Avenue. He worked there until 1900 and then moved to North Yakima where he continued to work as a photographer. The subject of his photographs was primarily the city and surrounding areas. He also took photos of the Yakima Native American tribe. In 1915, Rutter and his wife moved to Orting, Washington. Rutter died there on August 21, 1925, at the age of 88.

Lee Merrill was born in Peabody, Massachusetts on May 25, 1906. (1) He worked as a commercial photographer and was involved in several associations of photographers, including the Washington State and Pierce County Photographers Associations. He was the official photographer for the Western Washington State Fair for over 30 years. (2) Merrill died on November 16, 1987, at the age of 81. (1)

F. Jay Haynes was born in Saline, Michigan on October 28, 1853. He was a photographer of the Northern Pacific railroad. His studio was located along Pacific Avenue and 17th street. The subjects of his photos include landscapes and scenery of the Northern Pacific country, as well as individuals and groups. He also worked with crayon and pastel to produce portraits. As an official photographer of the Northern Pacific railroad, he took pictures of the railroad in order to garner public interest in railroad travel. Haynes died on March 10, 1921, at the age of 67. (1)

Albert Henry Barnes was born in California on June 27, 1876. He was a writer, photographer, and illustrator of magazines. His photos were mostly of Washington landscapes. Barnes was a member of the Mountaineers Club and the Tacoma Arts Club. He was active in the campaign to keep the name of Washington’s highest peak as Mount Tacoma. Barnes died on February 28, 1920, at the age of 44.

Arthur French was a photographer active from 1892 to 1905. (1) He started out by photographing landscapes and city views before becoming a studio photographer in Tacoma. His studio was located on Pacific Avenue. (3)

Prue Stuckey was born in Charlotte Amalie, Virgin Islands on September 22, 1920. He lived there for ten years, then went to school in New York. He was in the Army from 1939 to 1945 and later joined the Tacoma Police Department. He took a course at Eastman Kodak Co., which led him to become the police department photography instructor from 1952 to 1955. He was also the president of the Pierce County Professional Photographers Association. He was interested in the use of color photography in police work. After 26 years in the Tacoma Police Department, retired and died on April 1, 1993.

Virginia Shackelford was born on May 21, 1915. She was a prominent figure in Tacoma’s local politics and worked to restore the Pantages Theater and Union Station. (1) She was also a member of the John Birch Society, a right-wing political advocacy group. However, she left the society after a dispute with national headquarters concerning the distribution of anti-Semitic literature by several members of the society. (2) In the 1950s, Shackelford started lecturing at meetings and on her local radio show about anti-communism. She was particularly invested in the case of a school counselor fired in 1955 after refusing to answer questions about her alleged communist activities at a congressional hearing in Seattle. In her later years, Shackelford redirected her focus to restoring the Pantages Theater, where she performed as a girl with her father. (3) She died of pneumonia on February 15, 1993 at the age of 77. (1)

Larry Norman grew up in Hilltop on South Ainsworth Avenue. After graduating high school, he joined the Air Force. He returned to Tacoma in 1989 where he encountered an increase in drugs, gun violence, and incarceration. From 1993 to 2003, Norman said he attended 23 funerals for people he knew from the neighborhood who died due to the violence. Their ages ranged from between 11 and 24. While working as a Seattle firefighter, he started Happenings on Hilltop (originally titled Tidbits from Ten), a community newsletter devoted to documenting the neighborhood and sharing information with the community. Norman led the effort to construct an "All Lives Are Precious" memorial in 1993 which was dedicated to victims of violence in Hilltop. He relocated to Colorado in 2003 and returned to Tacoma in 2015.

Wanda Thompson was born in a small rural town in Florida. Her father served in the military and her mother was a teacher. Early in her life Thompson moved around due to her father’s job, and has lived in places like Germany, France, California, and Georgia, before moving to the Hilltop area of Tacoma. She attended the all-girls Catholic academy, Aquinas Academy, which in 1974 combined with an all-boys Catholic academy to form Bellarmine Preparatory School. She won Ms. Hilltop in 1969 and ran for Ms. Downtown Tacoma in 1980.

After high school Thompson attended Evergreen State College and studied cultural anthropology and journalism. While at Evergreen she also studied abroad in France. Out of college her first job was at the Tacoma Public Library in the genealogy department. From there she went on to work at the Puget Sound National Bank, Civic Arts Commission, Fashion Fair Cosmetics, the Washington State Department of Corrections, and the Rehabilitation Council of Washington to name a few. Thompson has been involved in the Tacoma community through her involvement with organizations like the Tacoma Urban League, the Tacoma Downtown Association, and the Afro-Pageant and Show. She is also a published author.

Edward D. Geddes was born in Marysville but lived most of his life in Tacoma. (1) At his retirement, Geddes had spent 47 years at sea and was the master of 15 ships. In 1919, Geddes began his career as an apprentice seaman on the merchant marine training ship Iris. He worked as a carpenter, messman, quartermaster, boatswain’s mate, and a licensed officer. (2)

Geddes was named captain of the Weyerhaeuser owned steamship Heffron on November 25, 1938. During World War II, the Heffron and 34 other ships made up a convoy to deliver war materials to Murmansk, Russia. (2) The convoy experienced Japanese air and submarine attacks. Near Iceland the convoy was attacked by enemy torpedoes. The Heffron was hit five times by the submarine, but Captain Geddes was able to call for his men to abandon ship and only one man was lost in the sinking. As a result, Geddes was awarded the Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Medal. (2)

From May 1944-November 1945 Captain Geddes served as a navigator for the U.S. Navy on the USS Hermitage and on the USS Europa. (2) The USS Europa was the third largest ship in the world at the time. He retired as a lieutenant commander from the Navy Reserve. (1)

Before his retirement Geddes was a master mariner for the Weyerhaeuser Co. and American Mail Lines. He was in command of ocean cargo and passenger vessels from 1938 to 1966. Edward D. Geddes died February 26, 1969, in Tacoma, Washington at 68 years old. (1)

Joseph S. Ibbotson was born in Richfield Springs, New York, on June 17, 1907, to Joseph D. Ibbotson and Hedwig Tappe. [1] His father was a Presbyterian minister, librarian, and professor at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. [2] He had two older brothers and one older sister. Joseph's German mother was a pianist who passed away when he was six. [2] Joseph spent part of his childhood with his mother's family in Wernigerode Am Harz, Germany. He attended Phillips Andover Academy in Brookline, MA, Hamilton College, Columbia University, and the University of Chicago. [2]

Ibbotson first worked as a New York Public Library reference librarian. He then served as an assistant professor and librarian at Colby College in Waterville, ME. Later he was an associate professor at the National College of Education while pursuing post-graduate studies at the University of Chicago. [2] Joseph served as the Library Director for the Rosenberg Library in Galveston, Texas, from 1936-1949, Fort Worth Library from 1949-1953, and Tacoma Public Library from 1953 until his retirement in 1971. The Tacoma Library Board named him Librarian Emeritus. [2] Joseph was the founder and first president of the Texas Library Association and he was a rotary member in both Texas and Washington. During his retirement, he became a WSU master gardener. [2]

Joseph married his first wife, Anna Mills, in 1930 and they remained married until her passing in 1980. He married Jaroslava Vojtech in 1988. He had two children. Ibbotson died on May 12, 1990. [3]

Frederick Gamble Jr. was born to parents Frederick O. Gamble and Mary L. Witzman on June 12, 1915, in Memphis, Tennessee. His family was involved in the arts, and Frederick Gamble Jr. was the third generation of professional musicians. While in grade school, Frederick Gamble Jr. and his family moved to Washington state, settling in Puyallup. After graduating high school, Gamble took care of his family’s fox farm business and his siblings due to his father’s ailing health and the death of his mother.

Following the liquidation of the family business Gamble began his journey into the arts by becoming a street singer “ballyhooing” films. He later moved from doorman to advertising man, and then theater manager until Frederick Gamble Jr. partnered with Sidney P. Dean in running the Lakewood Theater and four other theaters. Gamble served as director of the Seattle Community Concert Association. He was also active in local music circles and advocated for musicians. Gamble toured the country as a tenor. He debuted at the Carnegie Hall in New York City on October 6, 1953. (1)

Gamble moved to New York City in the 1950s, where he worked as a sales manager for Custom Shop Shirtmakers from 1954-1961, and later, he joined the Whitehouse and Hardy clothing firm, where he oversaw their training program from 1961-1965. He also worked for Damon International from 1966-1975, managing the warehouse outlet and as a sales executive for the southern branches. Frederick Gamble Jr. died on September 11, 1991. (2)

Sulja Warnick is a Tacoma resident who was a public school teacher in the Tacoma Public School dstrict. Early in her teaching career, she was called upon to help translate for Korean women married to service men on the military bases. This started her work with the Korean Women’s Association (KWA). KWA started as a small social club for Korean women and has expanded to a non-profit organization that provides education, affordable housing, in-home care for seniors, and social services, including domestic violence counseling for all groups of people. KWA now has offices in 14 Western Washington counties, serving up to 150,000 people of 40 nationalities and 35 language groups. The organization is now 51 years old.

William (Bill) Hocking was born in Seattle, WA in 1926, and grew up in Olympia. He was an architect and a member of both the Tacoma-Pierce County Civic Arts Commission and the Historical Landmarks Preservation Commission. After his death in June 1976, the Tacoma News Tribune described him as “a long-time advocate of preservation of Tacoma’s environment... Hocking was outspoken in his solutions, whether it was allowing people to use the City Waterway of the saving the old City Hall Annex.”

[1] “Wm. Hocking, architect,” The Tacoma News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington) · Mon, Jun 14, 1976 · Page 30, https://www.newspapers.com/image/735706573

Clarence Stave was a popular baseball umpire in Tacoma’s City League, officiating for almost 30 years. His father Ole was a Norwegian immigrant, his mother Ida came from Sweden, and he was born in Tacoma in 1897. He left school after the eighth grade and was 15 when he began employment at the Northern Pacific Railway Company as a messenger (1, 2). He was promoted to clerk and then shop timekeeper before leaving in 1918 to seek employment with the F.S.Harmon Manufacturing Co. (2, 3). There he worked his way up from stockman to clerk to furniture salesman, eventually moving to Sears, Roebuck and Co. where he remained selling furniture and appliances until his retirement in the early 1960s (3).

His life outside work included performing; he appeared at the Liberty Theater on amateur night, and with his wife was featured in a benefit for shopmen called “The Moonshiner’s Daughter” (4,5). He began as an umpire for City League baseball in 1924, and he was considered the first and favorite choice to officiate the City League games and others (6). He was usually the only official present and would announce the games as well as call them, adding in humorous quips and minor skits to enliven the action. Audiences came in order to see him as well as the game (7).

He had two sons, Clifford L. and James R. with his first wife. He married his second wife Lillian Shonberg in 1942 and she and his sons survived him when he died in 1973 (8).

Carrie Woodard (1869-1941) was born in Boscobel, Wisconsin in 1869, the seventh child of Edman and Catherine Welch (1). In 1888, she married Albert E. Woodard, and by 1900 they had moved to Williams, North Dakota and had had five children (2). Three more were born by 1910, at which time they were in Minter, Washington (3). After thirty years of marriage, Albert began divorce proceedings in early 1918, citing the "ungovernable temper" of Carrie. Custody of the three minor children, including the two-year-old ninth-born, was awarded to her (4). She was 49 years old. Nineteen years later, she was granted a judgement against Albert, and he was to pay $300 toward child support (5). Her occupation at age 70 in the 1940 census was live-in housekeeper for a lawyer and his family (6). She died a year later at her place of work at age 71 (7,8).

Benjamin (Ben) Hanson was born in 1926 in North Dakota, and moved to Washington with his family when he was young. He joined the military after high school, and later would go on to go to attend law school at the University of Washington [1]. He opened a law firm in Tacoma and became involved with Tacoma politics, joining the City Council. Ben Hanson was appointed as mayor of Tacoma in June 1958 by the Tacoma City Council under the Council-Manager form of government, and at 31 years old, he was inaugurated as Tacoma’s youngest-ever mayor at the time. [2] (Former Mayor Mike Parker now holds that title, elected at 30 years old in 1977 [3]). Two years later, in 1960, Hanson was elected to be retained by popular vote, and served 2 more years as Mayor of Tacoma [4]. Notably, during his term he made a visit to Tacoma’s sister city of Kokura City, Japan in 1959. After his time as Mayor, he went back to practicing law until his retirement. He passed away in 2007.

Elizabeth Loring (1909-1976) was an author and playwright active in the Mormon community in Pierce County. Born in Kansas, she moved with her family to Washington State by 1920 where she graduated from Mount Vernon High School in 1927 (1, 2). By 1930, she was employed as a public school teacher, and in 1933 she married George Loring, a dentist (3, 4). Their two children, Elizabeth Ann and Thomas Lovell were born in 1940 and 1949 (5). She and her family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints around 1953 (6).

Since childhood, she had acted in and directed plays, as well as singing and composing songs, and in the late 1950s she became involved with Lakewood’s On Stage Summer Theatre. She held many roles in this company, which was organized and directed by fellow Mormon, Thor Neilsen (7,8). Her son was killed in a tragic automobile accident and she memorialized his life in a small book of reminiscences and genealogy, Thomas Lovell Loring, 1949-1966 (6, 9).

She spent seven years developing her play, You’re No Stranger, based on the diary of Amos Fuller, an early associate of the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith. It was produced locally in 1971 and 1973 (7, 10). She died in 1976 at the age of 66 (11).

Margaret Rawson Goheen Arneson (1904-1995) was a music educator who brought Tacoma’s Lincoln High School’s a cappella choir to national prominence. Born in Minnesota, her family had moved to Puyallup by the time she was a teenager (1). Her teaching career started in Sumner, then after her marriage to Melvin Goheen in 1928, her tenure at Lincoln High School began and continued through her retirement in 1955 (2).

At Lincoln, she focused on choral music and formed an elite a cappella choir. For alumni and adults in the community she founded the Tacoma Symphonic Choir in 1937. She accompanied the Lincoln a cappella choir to the Music Educators’ National Conference, making the trip by train in 1938. At stops along the way performances were held in person and on the radio. In Tacoma, the choir was in demand by civic organizations and churches. When Paul Robeson came to Tacoma in 1941, they were deemed of sufficient quality to accompany him (2). She was responsible for producing an annual spring operetta, and in 1941 a group of ambitious students wrote and produced an original musical, Of Men and Models (3).

She married Gus Arneson in 1955, the year of her retirement. They moved to the Philippines for his employment, and she continued her music work there. On their return in 1962, they settled in Seattle, where she died on May 10, 1995 (4).

Lorraine Hildebrand was born in Tacoma to Ethel and Ernest Barker in 1926. She attended Lincoln High School where she met her husband James A. Hildebrand. They had five children. Lorraine was a Reference Librarian Specialist at Tacoma Community College. There, she created numerous bibliographies and reference works focused on BIPOC communities. These included "Chinook Indians: A Bibliography," "A Bibliography of Black Authors in the US," and "Sinophobia: The Expulsion of the Chinese from Tacoma and Seattle, Washington Territory, 1885-1886. She also wrote "Straw Hats, Sandals, and Steel: The Chinese in Washington State." [1] Hildebrand served as a member of the Chinese Reconciliation Project Committee in 1992, and provided the historical context for what would become Chinese Reconciliation park. [2]