Chronicles of Coupeville’s captivating citizens

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Recording of Coupeville’s local stories are what sparks Judy Lynn’s fire.

“Corralling history has been a passion of mine,” she told me as we sat at in the sunny window at Crabby Coffee on Front Street the first week of February.

She’s recorded and transcribed tales of Coupeville locals past and present, whose stories are published in e-book format. Since its publication ten years ago, she has collected more than 50 additional stories that will be added in an updated edition.

Published in 2015 with more than a hundred interviews, “Front Street Coupeville: An Oral History,” by Judy Lynn, includes conversations recorded and transcribed that tell of the town’s colorful, hard-won and thrilling history. Proceeds benefit the Island County Historical Museum.

The book is available on Amazon, downloadable to compatible devices, and searchable. It is also available for listening at the Coupeville Library, part of the Sno-Isle Library system.

Years prior to the publication of the e-book, Judy began recording and transcribing stories for various families’ own use.

One of her early oral history requests came by way of a quilter friend—Judy was a part of the fiber arts community for years—who asked for an interview of her father living on Mercer Island at the time.

“He had a picture of Pancho Villa in a bathing suit,” Judy recalled.

Judy self-published another oral family history for her partner of 20-years, Val Arnold, who died of brain cancer 19 years ago. “The most important thing for her was oral history, long before I got started,” Judy said. “I’m following in her footsteps.”

Val Arnold, a fourth-generation Coupeville resident, never outgrew her love of farming and driving John Deere tractors. Val also served as president for of a number of organizations, and was a founding member of the Coupeville Arts Center. Her father Chuck Arnold was born in 1916, married, and raised his family at the farm on Arnold Road where Chuck grew up. He lived there for 89 years. The Arnold family story is recalled in Judy’s self-published book, “Charles Arnold Remembers: Growing Up In San de Fuca.” Judy printed up extra copies of the book where it was sold at the museum.

Since moving to Coupeville with a pair of children in the 1980s, starting a number of businesses, and helping to found the Coupeville Arts Center, Judy was and is a magnet for attracting and writing others’ stories.

“I left the Arts Center in 1999, and started another business, “Consider it Done,” and worked as a professional organizer,” Judy recalled. “During that time I also started doing oral histories.”

Seeds for “Front Street Coupeville’s” eventual creation were planted while Judy helped a local couple downsize their estate with her Consider it Done business.

Rose and Mahlon Brosseau—she was a nurse at Children’s Hospital and Mahlon was a director of news photography at KOMO TV before moving to Coupeville—once ran the Six Persimmons restaurant and gift shop on Front Street during the 1970s.

Rose’s story—as recorded by Judy—tells of opening their Chinese restaurant, and being asked a year later to host Chinese cooking classes. At first local grocers did not stock the Asian vegetables she required. The grocers sent their produce staff to take Rose’s cooking classes and later, began stocking the veggies she used in her restaurant.

In their retirement years later, Rose hired Judy Lynn to organize the couple’s move to assisted living at Maple Ridge in Freeland. Judy became fascinated by the couple’s story, which is published in “Front Street Coupeville,” and thought she’d like to compile other such interesting stories in book form.

In the story about Rose, Judy notes: “Rose Brosseau died on November 23, 2008, just seven days after this interview.”

Meanwhile during our visit that morning in Coupeville, Judy hinted that I must not fail to read the book’s entry about Ken Pickard, who was instrumental in creating Ebey’s Landing Historical Reserve. In reading the interview, I felt as if I were right there with Ken, who was born in 1950.

In Judy’s meeting with Ken at his Coupeville home in 2012, we learn that he lived in Coupeville most of his life. His paternal grandparents and parents owned the Prairie Center Mercantile general store, which later became the current Prairie Center.

When a developer proposed building 240 townhomes on Keystone Spit back in the 70’s, locals protested en masse, wishing to preserve Ebey’s Landing. Incensed that Island County Commissioners approved the project in the face of overwhelming public opposition, Ken determined he would earn a law degree and fight the project.

While the initial proposal was thwarted due to a lawsuit under the state’s new SEPA —State Environmental Policy Act, another developer stepped in, hoping to convert the 300-plus acre property into 60 five-acre ranchettes.

Appalled that the prairie could be ruined by unscrupulous developers, Ken and others formed Friends of Ebeys, which raised money and hired a top environmental lawyer, Ken’s former law professor. The group challenged the builder, which, in Ken’s words, “…led to a huge, horrible 10 years of fighting and animosity and hatred and all kinds of hell.”

Through numerous lawsuits and non-stop lobbying of state representatives, the land was preserved, marking it as the first national historical reserve in the country. According to this Historylink.org site, the recently passed “National Parks and Recreation Act (NPRA), one of the most expansive pieces of legislation ever passed affecting the nation’s parks system,” finally authorized $5 million to create Ebeys Reserve in 1978.

Another notable character, whose transcript is a part of the museum’s collections of oral histories, is Mary Fullington, who believed women weren’t given enough credit for their accomplishments in Coupeville’s early days.

Clara Burns, collections manager and archivist with the Island County Historical Society Museum and Archives, emailed on short notice a number of photos from the museum archives featuring some of Coupeville’s women of note.

From the webpage “Voices of Ebey’s Reserve,” we learn that “Walalita Slapoose was born in a village near Coupeville in the early 1830s. Despite being nearly blind, she was renowned for her weaving skills and sold baskets, bags, and other textiles to the white settlers. Traditionally, thread was twisted from duck downs, cedar bark, and wooly dog hair. The threads were dyed with natural pigments derived from Oregon grape, sea cactus, hemlock, and elder and wild currents. In the early 19th. c. sheep were introduced to the island and the production of textiles shifted away from traditional thread to favor sheep wool.”

An interview with Mary took place in the early 1990s–she died in 1993–with Judy Lynn asking questions. Historian/author Theresa Trebon corrects the factual errors in the document, while Mary’s irascible character gives the transcript its color.

Mary’s first words criticize Coupeville’s then-recorded history, saying its focus was on buildings and white men. Credit belonged, Mary asserts, to the Lower Skagit Indigenous women who married some of the white settlers, and to the white women who arrived and got things done.

“Iron women is really what they were, iron women,” Mary told Judy, saying she coined the term herself to describe the strong-willed women of early Coupeville. “And they correspond to the Indians’ Copper Women.”

Copper Women, Mary said, were indigenous women of Washington state who belonged to a council. (Note: no verification of a Copper Women’s Council could be located.)

“I would like to have it show that the culture of Coupeville is not shown. In the beginning…it was due to the women that lived here that Coupeville was considered a cultural community. Well it begins (before the white men) …with the Indian women here once and there were wonderful Indian women…and a lot of these Indian women meant a great deal to the community,” the transcript notes.

Soon after Mary’s first words in the interviews, she said Judy can express things better than she: The community would never have been what it became, a cultural center for Puget Sound, if it had not been for the women. I think that’s plain. But I haven’t expressed it, you can express it much better.”

“Oh you express it really well,” Judy replied.

Judy also wrote Coupeville (Images of America), with Kay Foss and the Island County Historical Society and Museum in 2012 through Arcadia Press.

Her never-ending fascination with her home town’s stories is ongoing. Judy enjoys sharing the thrilling tales that continually add to Coupeville’s foundation. Visit Island County Historical Museum’s webpage or stop by during visiting hours–Monday-Saturday from 10 AM to 4 PM; Sunday from 11 AM to 4 PM– to learn more. It is worth your while.