Theo Kissick and his wife Delilah were active members of the Hix n’ Chix square dance club of Tacoma, Washington. The Hix n’ Chix were affiliated with the Rainier Council of the Square and Folk Dance Federation of Washington. Theo and Delilah were part of the organizing committee of the 30th Annual National Square Dance Convention held in Seattle June 25-27, 1981. More than 20,000 dancers from across the US and from Australia, England, New Zealand, Sweden, Holland and Japan registered for the event.

Robert Wayne Ramsey was born on October 9, 1920, in Byron, Washington to farm owners Prentice and Della Ridout Ramsey. He participated in the National Guard and was called into service with the 161st Infantry at Camp Murray. He met his wife, Georgia Kathryn Hayner, and they married on December 24, 1940 before settling in the Olympia area. Ramsey held many jobs over the course of his life. He worked in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), served in World War II and the Korean War, taught floriculture at Oregon State University, served as president of Landscapers Northwest, as senior partner at Chaffee-Zumwalt & Associates design firm, a partner of Mann, Milegan, Morse & Ramsey in Seattle, and the manager of the Snake Lake Nature Center. While at the Snake Lake Nature Center, he helped to start the Junior Naturalist program.

After Ramsey retired, he continued to hold membership in many different groups and societies. Ramsey led hikes for the Boy Scouts of America and a member of the the Puget Sound Mycological Society, where he served as a board member from 1969 to 1974 and president from 1970 to 1972. He was also a member of the Tahoma Audubon Society, being a charter member from 1969 onwards, board member from 1969 to 1976, and president from 1973 to 1975 and again in 1983. He chaired the Nisqually River Basin Study from 1973 to 1974.

Robert Ramsey also was also given the title of Pierce County’s Resource Conservationist of the Year in 1972. He was also appointed to a statewide committee for non-point water pollution abatement planning from 1976 to 1981 and being a chairman for it from 1980 to 1981. He was also a member of the Pacific Northwest Key Council for scientific study, identification, and keys for northwest mushrooms from 1977 to 1997. He also served as a chairman for the McNeil Island Committee for conservation matters during its change from federal prison to state prison from 1979 to 1983. Ramsey was also an author, writing works such as “Two Steps to Destruction”, “Onsite Surface Water Management”, “Pathway Planning”, as well as preparing a hypothesis for the origin of the Mima Mounds found in Thurston County, WA from 1988 to 1992.

The Illema club was organized in 1901 by Mrs. Edwin Sharpe, Mrs. Frank LaWall, Mrs. J.W. Clare, Mrs. Stanton Warburton, Mrs. John L. Mills and Mrs. W.B. Coffee. The name Illema is taken from the first letters of all of the founding members' first names, although they kept this a secret in initial appearances in the Tacoma Daily News. The group met biweekly at rotating houses around Tacoma. The group appears to have always had a literary focus rather than social or philanthropic. The final recorded meeting was on September 25th, 1977. The club colors were green and white and the club flower was the white carnation.

The Woman's Club was launched on October 27th, 1904 in the home of Mrs. J.Q. Mason and led by president Reverend Abbie E. Danforth. Danforth, appointed in 1889, was one of the first female reverends in North America. Danforth had been a pastor at the Park Universalist Church since 1902 after moving west from the Unitarian Church of Kent, OH.

Among the club's contributions to Tacoma were the creation of a female owned and operated "rest room," designed to be a "place offering almost retirement of home during unemployment hours" which would "prove a boon to hundreds of women and girls in Tacoma." The "rest room" appears to have been organized by Danforth in order to do for "women what the Y.M.C.A. is doing for men." This association with temperance groups continued in August 1913 when Danforth was elected president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. The "rest room" was located in the Chamber of Commerce building on December 3, 1904 and led directly to The Woman's Club Hotel, which would open a year later. This institution, also open only to female patrons, was located nearby at 714 Pacific Avenue.

The Woman's Club also opened a physical clubhouse on 426 Broadway St. in 1915, intended to create a physical meeting space for all of the federated study clubs in the city, which remained extant until 1960. That said, Mrs. Abbie E. Danforth is still recorded hosting the final meeting of the Woman's Study Club in May 1965 from her home at 1322 N. Yakima St. The motto of The Woman's Club was "there is no higher duty than to work for the good of the whole world."

The first and final published meetings of the Illahee Study Club were June 16, 1915 and March, 6, 1977. The first recorded president of the Club was Mrs. C.O. Lynn and the final president was Mrs. Clyde Henderson. The club colors were pink and green, the club flower was the test-out rose and their motto was, "the desire for knowledge increases ever with the acquisition of it."

The Alpha Study Club was organized in 1905 and federated in 1914. The group was originally created only for women of Tacoma's south side, and admitted no more than 20 members at any time. The focus of the group was primarily on the cultivation of its members, although there were minor philanthropic efforts following WWII. The last published record of an active meeting was on May 4, 1980. Club colors were pink and green, the club flower was the carnation and their motto was "in great things unity, in small things liberty, in all things charity."

What is now the Tacoma Ministerial Alliance was first organized as the Tacoma Ministerial Union on June 11, 1883 at the First Presbyterian Church on Railroad Ave. The initial goal of this group was for evangelical clergy in Tacoma to come together for ‘fellowship, mutual encouragement, etc..’ (1) In the 1904-1905 Constitution and Roll of Members of the Ministerial Alliance of Tacoma, the object of the Alliance is “to promote Christian fellowship among the brethren and to advance the religious and moral interests of our City and State.” (2)

Rowena Lung Alcorn (1905-1996) and Gordon Dee Alcorn (1907-1994) were collaborative authors, writing articles on Northwest history, Native Americans, biology and other topics (1). Their separate careers were in the visual arts and biological sciences.

Born in Tacoma in 1905, Rowena Alcorn began drawing while young, sketching Native Americans at age 7 as her family camped at Browns Point (1). By age 20, she had joined her sister in Santa Barbara, California, to study art (2). At the time of their marriage, Gordon was a biology professor at the University of Idaho in Boise and it was there she began painting portraits of the Nez Perce people (2). After they returned to Tacoma, she taught art at The University of Puget Sound, Grays Harbor College, and Pierce College (1). A portrait of Henry Sicade, Puyallup tribal leader, was commissioned by the Tacoma Public Library, where it hangs as of this writing in 2023 (3). A concurrent interest in writing led to her founding the Tacoma branch of the National League of American Pen Women in 1956 (2). She died in Tacoma May 3, 1996 at age 91.

Gordon Alcorn was born in Olympia in 1907 and graduated from Lincoln High School in Tacoma in 1926 (4). He received his bachelor’s degree at the University of Puget Sound and his doctorate from the University of Washington (4). He began teaching full-time at UPS in 1946 and was named chairman of the biology department in 1951 (4). He helped found the Slater Museum of Natural History there and was its director for 20 years (4). The campus of the University of Puget Sound was named the Gordon Dee Alcorn Arboretum in 1976 (4). An environmental activist, he was instrumental in preserving Nisqually Delta as a wildlife refuge, as well as Swan Creek in Pierce County and three Grays Harbor County islands (5). He died age 86 in Tacoma on March 25,1994 (4).

The Alcorns together wrote over 100 articles (1). Seamen’s Rest was of particular interest as Rowena Alcorn’s mother, Velma Lung, was a neighbor and personal friend of the founding Funnemark family (6). Mrs. Brigitte Funnemark and her daughter Christine Funnemark maintained the mission which ministered to the material and spiritual needs of sailors (6). Christine Funnemark went on to be a founder of the Tacoma Rescue Mission (6).

Reverend David T. Alger served as Executive Director of Associated Ministries for nearly thirty years from 1980 until 2009. (1) During his tenure, Reverend Alger expanded the Hilltop-based non-profit from an annual budget of $58,000 in 1980 into an organization with a budget of $3.7 million and a membership of over 200 congregations, religious groups, and interfaith partners. (2)

Reverend Alger played a vital role in the founding and growth of many agencies, including: the Pierce County AIDS Foundation, the Indochinese Culture and Service Center, the Shalom Center (focusing on Central American and Middle Eastern Peace), the South Sound Peace and Justice Center, the Pierce County Dispute Resolution Center, Faith Partners Against Family Violence, the Moments of Blessing program (services held to reclaim places where homicides have occurred), and the Hilltop Action Coalition. (1)

Reverend Alger graduated from the College of Wooster with a BA in Sociology/Religion. He then graduated from the University of Illinois Chicago with a Master’s in Social Work and received his Master’s in Divinity from McCormick Theological Seminary in 1971. Reverend Alger received the Tacoma Peace Prize in 2009 and the Community Service Award from the Rotary Clubs of Pierce County in 1989.

Tacoma School District No. 10, known as Tacoma Public Schools, is headquartered in Tacoma, Washington, United States. It comprises 35 elementary schools, 11 middle schools, 10 high schools, and 4 early learning centers. It is the third-largest school district in Washington State, with more than 30,000 students and 5,000 employees. Tacoma Public Schools is one of the largest employers in the greater Tacoma area.

Tacoma School District #10 was established on September 18, 1869, on the future site of Tacoma. (1) The first classes occurred in a resident's log cabin, with 13 students from the Baker, Fleetwood, and A. W. Stewart families. The first school building was a log cabin constructed in 1870, located on the southwest corner of North 28th and Starr Streets. It cost around $300. (1) A.W. Stewart served as a director, J.P. Stewart as a teacher, and R. H. Landsale as a board clerk. (1)

Like the rest of the United States, Tacoma Public Schools was influenced by the influx of European immigrants in the years before World War I. Government and religious agencies worked to address ethnic integration. (2) The National Conference on Immigration and Americanization in 1913 created a list of three critical aspects of immigrant assimilation: literacy, health and hygiene, and learning democracy. (2) In response, U.S. schools began introducing new policies and programs to promote and teach the importance of these three values.

The Tacoma School District began incorporating nurses, health clinics, showers, and home economics departments. The purpose was to improve health and hygiene within the school property. The school district also expanded social services, such as after-school programs, summer school, and the availability of on-site lunches. (2) The focus on the civic responsibilities of schools led to the improvement of libraries, lunchrooms, and administrative offices. (2)

During the early twentieth century, Tacoma and its school system experienced population growth due to the United States' involvement in World War I, including establishing Fort Lewis in 1917 and the 1914 opening of the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal expanded the business and industry associated with the Port of Tacoma; Fort Lewis also became the largest fort in the United States, housing 37,000 soldiers. (2)

From 1915 to 1920, enrollment in Tacoma Public Schools rose from 14,211 to 18,023. (2) In order to address the growing student population, the district school board debated between three educational models. The educational models would affect the construction of schools. The models were the 8-4 system, the 6-6 system, and the 6-3-3 system. (2) The 8-4 system was the typical school model before World War I. It had grades one through eight in elementary schools and nine through 12 in high schools. The 6-6 system recommended grades one through six in elementary school, with grades seven through 12 in high school. (2) The board adopted the 6-3-3 system, which advocated for grades one through six in elementary school, seven through nine in middle school, and 10 through 12 in high school. (2)

Tacoma voters authorized a $2.4 million plan in 1923 to transition to the new elementary, intermediate, and high school model. (2) The funding allowed for the construction of six new intermediate schools and additions to existing elementary schools. As a result, Jason Lee, James P. Stewart, Morton M. McCarver, Franklin B. Gault, Allan C. Mason, and Robert Gray's middle schools were built. (2)

Another significant population increase occurred in Tacoma and its schools during World War II because the Port of Tacoma and Fort Lewis brought economic growth. From 1950 to 1956, public school enrollment rose 26% from 22,157 to 29,778. (2) The increase in student population led to the overcrowding of aging elementary schools. Furthermore, the need for construction in suburban areas caused the school board to draft a new building campaign emphasizing quick, cheap, and flexible school construction. (2)

Following the Brown v. Board of Education decision and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Tacoma School District sought to desegregate schools with high non-white enrollment. (3) Dr. Angelo Giaudrone, the district superintendent, addressed the de facto segregation and focused on two elementary schools. The two schools were Stanley Elementary, with a Black population of 64 percent, and McCarver Elementary, with a Black population of 84 percent. Tacoma Public Schools formed a subcommittee in 1963 to study de facto segregation and provide solutions. (3) On July 8, 1966, the school board announced a plan for an optional enrollment program. The program’s goal was to close McCarver Junior High and provide limited open enrollment to students affected by the closing. (3)

After a decade of teaching in the Tacoma School District, Willie Stewart became the first Black principal in 1970. Stewart often liaised between the Black community and the school district. (3) Reflecting on the success of the voluntary desegregation plan, Stewart discussed the wish to have more African American counselors and a two-year education process instead of one year. (3) "Stewart thought the district could also have improved its plan by having high school regional meetings with schools and the community and separate meetings for the Black community to help with the transition with the loss of school lineage." (3) By 1972, the school district stated that de facto segregation had ended in fifty-eight school buildings. All buildings were at or below the forty-percent threshold for black student enrollment. (3)

Perry Keithley was born August 7, 1906 in Castle Rock, Washington. He attended Centralia High School (Class of 1925) and Bellingham Normal School (1925-1927). After starting his career as an educator, Keithley attended summer sessions at Western Washington College of Education where he was a part of the first four year graduating class in 1933. From 1928 to 1930, he taught at Meadows School in Thurston County where he was one of two total teachers. He taught all students in grades 5-8. He then moved to Lincoln School in Gig Harbor where he served as principal and taught 7th and 8th grades from 1930 to 1931. In 1931, Keithley was hired as a teacher and superintendent of the Midland and Harvard School Districts in Pierce County. His early years working for the school district coincided with financial challenges caused by the Great Depression. During this time, Keithley served as superintendent, principal, teacher, coach, and school bus driver. He also organized summer recreational programs for students. For several years, he was the youngest superintendent in the state of Washington. He chaired the statewide legislative committee of the Washington Education Association and led an effort to consolidate the Midland, Parkland, Collins, and Central Avenue school districts into the Franklin-Pierce School District. Due to health problems, Keithley retired in 1957. He died at age 61 of pancreatic cancer in 1968. In 1960, Perry G. Keithley Junior High (later Middle School) was named in his honor.

The Children’s Industrial Home was founded by a group of Tacoma women in 1890. First organized as the Women’s Lend a Hand League, then renamed the Woman’s League in 1892, it was incorporated as the Children’s Industrial Home in 1908. According to records in this collection, the organization’s stated purpose was to “find orphan, destitute and ill-treated children, receive them into legal custody and care for them until they are placed into approved and suitable homes or legally adopted; and further, for the protection of children who have lost one or both parents.” In 1904, the organization acquired six acres of property, including an orchard and a three-story house suitable for 30 children. Soon a nursery building was added to care for children under three years old. Eventually, as many as 72 children at a time lived in the large home. Due to its size and location at the top of a hill, the building quickly became known in Tacoma as the Home on the Hill. From its beginnings, the Children’s Industrial Home was supported almost entirely by private citizens in Tacoma. When possible, parents of children in the Home provided funds to assist with their care. The Home on the Hill housed children between the ages of birth and 14 years old. In 1926, Mrs. Jessie Dyslin donated land and funds to establish the Jessie Dyslin Boys’ Ranch as a home for boys who were over age for the Home on the Hill. Around the same time, the Children's Industrial Home opened a Girl’s Club as a residence for girls of high school age who needed a home while finishing school. In 1944, a furnace explosion extensively damaged the Home on the Hill and the building was demolished. The nursery building was used as a temporary home until a new home was completed in 1950. In the mid-1990s, the Children’s Industrial Home was renamed Gateways for Youth and Families.

Marguerite Neely Davy was born to Florence and Harry Neely in Spokane, Washington in 1895. She died in Tacoma in 1980 at age 85. After coming to Tacoma in 1919, she Married her husband, Alexander Davy in June of 1924 and started teaching 6th grade at the Tacoma Bryant School in 1925. She also taught in Washington’s Walla Walla County, Touchet, and Centralia school districts.

Throughout her life she was involved with music and theatre by directing student concerts. In 1939 she was made president of the local St. Cecelia musical group, an important sector of Tacoma’s cultural life at the time, who put on choir concerts and other musical events. Additionally, Marguerite was formally installed as director of Alpha Pi chapter, Beta Sigma Phi in 1946. Marguerite stayed involved with music and teaching later in life and was a member of the Retired Teachers Association and Tacoma Symphony Women.

Winnifred "Winnie" Olsen (nee Castle) was born on July 26, 1916 in Olympia, Washington. She attended and graduated from Washington State College (Washington State University) with a degree in sociology and journalism. She was involved in a number of organizations and causes including Red Cross, Girl Scouts, March of Dimes, United Good Neighbors, and many more. Winnie was also a writer and producer for a local Olympia Saturday morning radio show, “Mother Goose Radio Party”, from 1948 to 1957. Afterwards, she joined the Olympia High School PTA, City Council PTA, and the Citizens Advisory Council on Education.

She was also a member of the Olympia branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) for 60 years and was its president for two years. Along with this involvement, Winnie also helped to organize the Thurston County Juvenile Protection Committee and the Olympia Panhellenic Association. She wrote for the Olympia chapters of the YWCA, League of Women Voters, and Junior Programs.

Her career with Tacoma Public Schools began in 1967 and ended with her retirement in 1984. During this time, she focused on creating material that highlighted marginalized groups in the Pacific Northwest. She compiled over 100 years of information about the history of the Tacoma Public Schools for research for her book, For the Record: A History of the Tacoma Public Schools, 1869-1984.

After her retirement in 1984, Winnifred went on to volunteer around Olympia, serving at the Timberland Library, Friends of the Library, Thurston County Historic Commission, Washington State School Retirees Association, and others. In 1997, the Bush Family Interpretive Park was dedicated partially due to her extensive research on the history pioneer George Bush.

Winnifred died at the age of 94 in Lacey, Washington. She was awarded the YWCA Lifetime Achievement, WSU Alumni of the Year, Olympia High School Alumni Hall of Fame, Alpha Gamma Delta Distinguished Citizen, Olympia City Council Historic Preservation Award.

The Fern Hill Parent Teacher Association was established in 1911 as a branch of the National Congress of Mothers. It backed projects such as upgrading the school water fountain and remodeling the school when the original structure was deemed "unsanitary." The PTA also voted on the measure of splitting up Fern Hill's school population into elementary and intermediate. Fern Hill was the only school within Tacoma Public Schools to have grades from kindergarten to eighth in one building. The PTA also helped to plant a tree celebrating the 100th anniversary of Tacoma Public Schools on Fern Hill property.

Tyra Melvia Westling was an educator of the Deaf who taught in the United States, the Philippines, and China. Born in Nebraska in 1897 to Swedish immigrant parents, her family moved to Tacoma in 1901 (1,4). In 1916 she graduated from Everett High School in the Normal (teacher training) course, after transferring from Tacoma’s Stadium High School the previous year (2). Her interest in Deaf education led her to visit numerous schools on the East Coast, where she sought employment (3). In 1924 she accepted her first teaching position overseas, in the Philippines (3). By 1948, while at the Chefoo School for the Deaf, she and her students were evacuated due to unrest associated with the Chinese Communist revolution, and she subsequently taught at the Ming Sum School for the Blind in Canton (3). Later, in the United States, she taught at the Tucker Maxon Oral School for the Deaf in Portland, OR, and Tacoma Public Schools. She died in Tacoma in 1975 at the age of 78 (4).

The Tacoma News Tribune’s history dates to 1883 and was the consolidation of three Tacoma newspapers, The Tacoma Daily Tribune, The Tacoma News, and The Daily Tacoma Ledger.

In 1881, the Weekly Ledger was started by F. Radebaugh and H.C. Patrick, under the firm name Radebaugh & Company. Previously, Radebaugh had served on the reportorial staff of the San Franscico Chronical. He had first visited Tacoma in June 1879. Radebaugh became familiar with Patrick, who owned and operated a weekly newspaper in Santa Cruz. The two came to an agreement to move the business to Tacoma with Radebaugh as the paper’s editor and Patrick as the business manager. The paper quickly became a success and Radebaugh bought out Patrick’s share. Until 1837, The Ledger served as a morning paper. Its name remained on the nameplate of The News Tribune and Sunday Ledger until 1979.

H.C. Patrick purchased the Pierce County News from George W. Mattice and changed the paper’s name to the Tacoma Weekly News. The News was then converted into a daily on September 25, 1883; however, he later sold The Daily News in 1885. R. F. Radebaugh started The Tacoma Daily Tribune in 1908 and sold the publication in 1912 to Frank S. Baker. Baker would go on to purchase the News and Ledger in 1918. Baker was the president of the Tribune Publishing Company and was a highly regarded newspaper man of the western United States. The News and Tribune were combined into an afternoon daily and the first issue was printed on June 17, 1918.

In 1937, The Daily Tacoma Ledger stopped publication. The News Tribune is merged with the Ledger to form The News Tribune and Sunday Ledger. Then in 1979 The Tacoma News Tribune became the official name of both daily and Sunday newspapers. During 1986, Tribune Publishing Company sold the majority of its holdings to Viacom, Inc., and McClatchy Newspapers. That year, the Tacoma News Tribune became a subsidiary of McClatchy Newspapers. McClatchy Newspapers is the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States, and it originally started as Sacramento newspaper in 1857. The Tacoma News Tribune became The Morning News Tribune on April 6, 1987, until October 4, 1993, when name changes to The News Tribune.

Honor Wilhelm was born in Shiloh, Ohio in 1870. He graduated from Wittenberg College in 1894 and apprenticed in a law firm. He was admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1897. Later that same year, he relocated to Seattle. He began writing for a weekly Presbyterian newspapers, The Daysman, and writing two serials, "Musing of Maffy Moore" and "Scenes in the Sunny South." Through local printer H.L. Pigott, Wilhelm became aware of the recently founded magazine "The Coast," which was struggling financially. Wilhelm purchased the magazine and credited its founders by saying that the two women who started it in 1900, "...deserve praise for the perseverance and pluck with which they met adverse and discouraging conditions." While editing "The Coast," Wilhelm traveled around the northwestern United States. He wrote articles, took photographs, edited manuscripts, and sold advertisements and subscriptions. He sold "The Coast" in 1911 and became an ordained minister. He served congregations in Black Diamond, Sedro Woolley, Auburn, and Seattle. He later led a church service broadcast. He died in 1957 at age 87.

Grit City Magazine was founded in 2017 by Sierra Hartman, Sara Kay, and William Manzanares IV. The project began as an online only publication. The first print edition was issued in September of 2018. The magazine is produced quarterly with new issues released in March, June, September, and December.

George W. Kupka was born on July 3, 1912 in South Prairie, Washington. He held the title of Sheriff’s Deputy for Pierce County from 1934 to 1941. After this, he enlisted in the Navy during World War II. Before becoming a state legislator, Kupka was also a jeweler and worked in private construction. He was also a founder of the Bank of Tacoma. Kupka was elected to the House of Representatives in 1948 as a Democrat for Tacoma’s 27th District. He held this position until 1956 where he was elected to the Senate until 1968. During his time as an elected representative, he was chairman of the Commerce, Manufacturing and Licenses Committee, and the Interim Committee on Public Institutions and Youth Development. He was also a member of the Committee of Banks, Financial Institutions and Insurance; Cities, Towns and Counties; Labor and Social Security; Liquor Control; State Government and Veterans Affairs, and Ways and Means; and Military Affairs, Civil Defense and Public Utilities. George Kupka died on December 30, 1989, at the age of 77.

Nels (Nils) Bjarke was born in 1875 in Denmark. He immigrated to the United States in 1915 and lived in Nebraska before moving and settling in Tacoma at the end of the first World War. He worked as a laborer in shipyards before becoming an engineer for the Fern Hill School. He moved to Fern Hill in 1927 with his family. Bjarke wrote about the history of the Fern Hill area including Byrd Mill Road and Naches Pass. He also compiled a history of Chief Leschi. Bjarke spearheaded the community effort to build the Fern Hill branch of the Tacoma Public Library by petitioning the library board and collecting signatures highlighting the desire for a local library. Bjarke died in 1950 at the age of 74.

Henry Foss was one of four children born to Andrew and Thea Foss who founded the Foss Launch and Tug Company in Tacoma. Henry attended Stadium High School and went on to attend Stanford University. After graduating, he returned to Tacoma to work in the family business. In 1930, he was elected as the State Senator for the 26th District. During World War II, he served in the US Navy where he was part of naval intelligence. He retired as a Rear Admiral and was awarded the Legion of Merit and the Navy Marine Life Saving Medal. Over the course of his career, he served as Pierce County Republican Chairman, Port of Tacoma Commissioner, and Director of the Pacific National Bank of Washington. In 1973, Henry Foss High School was named in his honor. He died in 1986.

Michael K. Honey was born in Lansing, Michigan in 1947. His father, a WWII veteran, worked as an urban planner and professor. His mother was from a working class Detroit family. He lived in Williamston, Pontiac, and Grand Rapids, Michigan as well as Toledo, Ohio. From 1965-1969, Honey attended Oakland University in southeast Michigan. After graduation, his status as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War was approved. He then spent time in Kentucky and in Memphis, Tennessee, where he served as the Southern Director of the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation. He received an MA from Howard University and a PhD from Northern Illinois University. His research focused on labor history and civil rights. His books include "Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers," "Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign," and "To the Promised Land: Martin Luther King and the Fight for Economic Justice." In 1990, he became a founding faculty member of the University of Washington Tacoma. He held the Fred and Dorothy Haley endowed professorship and served as the Harry Bridges Chair of Labor Studies. He taught African American and Labor History and also began a Community History curriculum which engaged students in interview projects and other public history initiatives focused on Tacoma. In addition to his scholarly work, Honey is also a film maker, musician, oral historian, and activist.

Jim Tweedie was born in Longview, Washington in 1927. Both his father and grandfather were employed at Long Bell Lumber Company. Starting in high school, Jim began working weekends at Long Bell West Mill and Weyerhaeuser's pulp mill, beginning a lifetime interest in the plywood and lumber industry. He graduated from Kelso High School and served in the military during WWII, stationed in Japan. Upon returning, he resumed his career in lumber, working at Long Bell once again. From there, Tweedie worked at Weyerhaeuser Company for 30 years, working both domestically at mills in the U.S South and traveling abroad serving as Weyerhauser’s manager of international sales. Following his retirement from Weyerhauser in 1984, Tweedie worked for 9 more years as an international broker for plywood, operating under his company name Pacific Gulf International. He officially retired in 1993, but remained involved in the timber industry through his work with the Plywood Pioneers of America and the Cowlitz County Historical Society and Museum. Additionally, he volunteered at the Mt. St. Helens Forest Learning Center, and published his book "The Long-Bell Story" in 2014, detailing the history of the company that first sparked his career in lumber. Jim Tweedie passed away in September 2021 in University Place, Washington.

Elsa Nessenson (1878-1969) was a playwright, actress, and director active in the Pacific Northwest. Born in Illinois in 1878 of German immigrant parents, her father died when she was a young child (1, 2). Her mother brought her and her older brother to Tacoma in 1896 when she accepted the position of Language Department head at the College of Puget Sound (2). Elsa graduated from Vassar in 1899 and taught English and German at Miss Round’s School in Brooklyn, New York. She gave dramatic readings and became a protégé of Heinrich Conried, then manager of the Metropolitan Opera House (3). She returned to Tacoma in 1914 and taught French at Stadium High School, where she was granted sabbatical time to travel in Europe and study at the Sorbonne. The Tacoma Drama League branch was formed in 1918 and she was a founding member. One of her plays, In the Secret Places, won an award and was reprinted in the November 1926 issue of Drama Magazine. She continued writing and performing up to and after her retirement from Stadium in 1946. She moved to Wesley Gardens, a retirement community in Des Moines, Washington, where she died in 1969 (2).

Royal Amenzo Gove (1856-1920) was an early Tacoma physician, city council member, and public health officer. He was born in Vermont and raised in Minnesota. After studying medicine and surgery in Chicago, Louisville, and Iowa, Dr. Gove practiced medicine in Minnesota before moving to Tacoma in 1890 to start a new practice. In April 1892 and again in 1894, he was elected to the Tacoma City Council. Dr. Gove also served on the Washington State Board of Examiners. An active Mason, Dr. Gove was Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge of Washington in 1908 and 1909. He was a member of the Evergreen Lodge, Tacoma chapter; Royal Arch Masons; Scottish Rite; the Grotto and Eastern Star; and the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He was variously President and Treasurer of the Pierce County Medical Society, which he helped to found, and was also a member of the State Medical Society, the American Medical Society, and the Tacoma Commercial Club. He died in Tacoma on January 21, 1920 after a three month illness.

J. W. Roberts, born July 17, 1836 in Hollingworth, England, was a farmer and early pioneer in Spanaway, Washington. He was born to Elizabeth Wilson and Samuel Roberts and had four siblings: Matilda, Jane, William and George. In 1843 the Roberts family emigrated from England to the United States. Census records show that the Roberts family lived in Wisconsin (1850) and Illinois (1860), but in 1860 J. W. Roberts was no longer living with his family and had presumably headed west. The year when J. W. Roberts arrived in Washington is unknown, though his papers indicate he was living in Pierce County as early as 1866. Other family members, including his parents, brother, and niece eventually moved to Pierce County and purchased land near J. W. Roberts' claim at the southwest side of Spanaway Lake. Through inheritance and investment, J. W. Roberts continued to obtain and lease land in Spanaway and parts of South Tacoma. At the time of his death in 1912, J. W. Roberts was a wealthy land owner, landlord and farmer who had lived in Pierce County for over 40 years. Between 1868 and 1912, J. W. Roberts recorded his daily work on notebooks, loose papers, account books and pieces of cardboard. The journal entries average only a line or two a day and give accounts of details such as the weather and his daily work: tending to livestock, planting, clearing land, and various household tasks. He describes trips to Tacoma and other nearby areas to purchase or sell goods, and visit family. J. W. Roberts’ journals and correspondence also illustrate his family’s movements in Pierce County. His parents settled in Steilacoom in 1870, and his brother George Roberts lived in South Tacoma and ran Roberts Granite & Marble Works at 5304 South Alder St. In the last month of his life, J. W. Roberts’ journal entries made mention of “akes & pains,” swollen ankles, and being “verry sick.” According to his obituary, J. W. Roberts died May 12, 1912 at his brother George Roberts’ home in Tacoma. On May 14 his funeral was held in the Merrow & Storlies Chapel in South Tacoma. He is buried at Oakwood Cemetery. J. W. Roberts died a wealthy man without a wife, children or a will. After his death there were several claims on his sizable estate, estimated at the time to be worth between $70,000 and $90,000. Claimants included his great-grandnephew Charles Larson who petitioned on behalf of himself and his siblings, and a woman named Marguerite Clark Mulroy Snyder of Rockford, Illinois who declared herself a long-lost granddaughter. Both petitions were eventually rejected by the courts, and the claim by Mrs. Snyder declared grossly fraudulent. Included in these papers is a full record of this court case which made front page news and attracted considerable attention in both Tacoma and Rockford, Illinois. In the end, half of J. W. Roberts’ estate was awarded to his only surviving brother George Roberts, and the other half was split between two nieces, Elizabeth Beck and Catherine Rossiter.

Della Gould Emmons (1890-1983) was a writer of historical fiction based in the Northwest. Her first novel, Sacajawea of the Shoshones (1943), was written from Sacajawea’s point of view and told the story of her life and participation in the Lewis and Clark expedition. Emmons invested ten years of research, travel, and correspondence with historians before its publication, and she included brief references at relevant chapter ends. She assisted with an adaptation of the book for Hollywood in 1953, as The Far Horizons, which starred Charlton Heston, Fred McMurray and Donna Reed. Nothing in Life is Free (1953) focused on the pioneer experience and the Puget Sound settlers who crossed the Cascade Mountains at Naches Pass. She next wrote the story of Leschi of the Nisquallies (1965), an account of his involvement in the Medicine Creek Treaty and ensuing Puget Sound War, his two trials for murder, and subsequent death by hanging. Her fourth book was a compilation of 12 plays, Northwest History in Action (1960). Lastly she wrote a biography of her oldest brother, titled Jay Gould’s Million Dollar Gems (1974), which served additionally as a memoir as she related their early upbringing together.

She was born in Glencoe, Minnesota August 12, 1890, where she spent her early life. She graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1912 and the following year she taught high school in Sisseton, South Dakota. Her tenure there culminated in the production of a musical and theatrical presentation at the local opera house as well as the nearby Sioux agency [1, 2, 3]. Her marriage to Allan Burdette Emmons (1887-1958), a train dispatcher, in 1913, led to their subsequent travel west along the railroad line as his job required. They lived in Seattle for nineteen years, and when her daughter’s fourth grade class at Green Lake School studied history, Emmons was motivated to write pageants for the students’ participation. The pageants were popular and restaged multiple times and Emmons was encouraged to submit radio plays to local stations where they were aired in the 1920s and 1930s. By 1936 her husband had been transferred to Tacoma and she was involved in civic life there for her remaining 47 years. She served on the Board of the Washington State Historical Society, was appointed Historian for the Fort Nisqually Restoration Council, and was adopted by the Lummi Nation in 1955. She gave talks and presentations at events and on the air, and received numerous awards. A plaque was placed in Point Defiance Park dedicating the rose arbor to her in 1981. She died in Tacoma at the age of 93, November 6, 1983, and was buried in Glencoe, Minnesota [5,6,7].