INSIDE

And a good time was had by all

By Meg Olson

Whether coming from Seattle to look for their pioneer relatives or ambling down the street for an amazing piece of pie and a good story, several dozen people came to the October 19 Point Roberts reunion to celebrate local history and those who made it.

While one room of the community center held a spread of old photographs and artifacts, the other had a lunch and dessert spread that left tables and stomachs groaning. Over lunch, sisters Linda Givler and Monica Williams and their aunt Barbara Williams, who traveled from Seattle for the event, were looking for information on Thomas and Emily Williams. The couple had ten children, one of them adopted. Barbara is the daughter and Emily and Monica the granddaughters of one son, Lincoln.

They found a 1924 Bellingham Herald article in the historical society archive congratulating Thomas and Emily on 50 years of marriage which referred to them as “the oldest pioneers in Point Roberts.” The couple lived on a homestead across from what is now the Roofhouse, and were themselves Point Roberts natives. Thomas was descended from an even earlier Williams, Alfred, who worked to help erect the border monument at the northwest corner of the Point.

Besides clippings and photographs, Barbara, Emily and Monica found a living piece of history. “We found a cousin!” they said. Emily Herzog, who sat next to them during lunch, turned out to be the daughter of another one of Thomas and Emily’s sons – Gordon.

After lunch people were rewarded with bags of garden tomatoes for sharing their stories. ‘I remember the Indians on the beach cooking salmon and the church ladies brought down salad and rolls,” said Grace Porlier. Carl Westman remembers learning of Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Poland in a fish-buying scow on Boundary Bay. “That solemn feeling stayed with me for days,” he said. Virginia Wampler remembered being crowned the Blaine war bond queen at 17 after a visit to Bob and Walt Largaud who happily gave her a jar containing $75,000 to buy bonds. “I couldn’t help but win then,” she said.

At 92, Edgar Dunning won a special prize for being the oldest man at the reunion, while Margaret Calder took the prize for oldest woman at 83. Dunning’s father started the Delta Optimist in the 1920s and he’s spent a lifetime recording local stories. He urged everyone to write down as much of what’s around them as they can. “The color of your grandfather’s eyes, what a cranky son of a gun he was, you can’t get that from vital statistics,” he said.

Dunning told a favorite Point Roberts story about Pansy Mae Stuttard, an English registered nurse who made her way through the Vancouver brothels to wind up building a tavern at the end of English Bluff Road. The building backed onto the border and, during prohibition years, Pansy Mae amassed a small fortune selling whiskey to thirsty Americans out her back door.
“We all realize how important it is for us to record these old stories,” said Irene Waters. “We’re not going to be around much longer so it’s important for us to keep them alive.”.

BACK TO TOP