by Davea Fisher

July 17 was the most recent time Elsa Piper attended a Town Picnic in Point Roberts – the first time was in 1908! This time she was the guest of honor. Elsa enjoyed both of the picnics, and even though she was only five years old, she says she “remembers the joy and excitement of the first gathering.” As one might imagine, when the early settlers got permission to homestead their land it was one of the happiest days in the history of Point Roberts.

Elsa Dorothea Thorsteinson Piper was born in Point Roberts on January 7, 1903 to parents Helgi and Dagbjort. The youngest of five children, she had two sisters, Groa and Runa, and two brothers Laugi and Jonas. Elsa was an excellent student. In those days there was no secondary school in Blaine, so students went to live with family or friends in Bellingham and attended the Bellingham high school. When Elsa graduated she went to Normal school at Western Washington University to get her teacher’s certificate, returning home to teach three years in Point Roberts. Elsa later attended the University of Washington in Seattle where she received her Masters Degree in Marine Biology. While working on her graduate studies she discovered and named four new species of marine crustaceans.

During her working years she held a number of jobs including being a nurse in Yakima and teaching nurses in San Francisco. Married to a chemist named Finis Piper in February 1941, they made their home in St. Louis, Missouri. They had one child, Nancy Piper Pierce, who is now a music teacher in the Washington, D.C. area. One hundred and one years old, Elsa lives now at Orchard House, a retirement home in St. Louis, but she comes back to Point Roberts every summer to the Thorsteinson farm where she was born.