Written and presented by Jo Ann Ridley (1925-2010) in celebration of the Graham’s wedding anniversary. Archived by historian Gwendolyn Yansen (1915-2012). Typed verbatim and submitted by C. Christensen.
“Shaw Islanders, Incorporated
6 December 1969
There is a story—perhaps apocryphal, but never the less persistent—that Lou Dodd, when he walked among us, looked out from Yellow Island one day and called in amazement to his wife:
“Come and look at this! We’ll not see this kind of thing much longer!”
There, in the waters of Wasp Passage, a canoe made its rhythmic way toward a particular destination—just which one is forgotten. A noble red man, so the Dodds surmised, wielded the paddle in strong and regular motion.
It was not, of course, a Native American. It was Errett Graham, an erstwhile Hoosier, who brought his wife and his canoe to Shaw Island in 1941 precisely because he could exercise both the prerogatives of canoeing to work and living the life of a determined, highly individual citizen of the world.
Whether it is true that island living begets the uncommon man, or that such a man springs from the peculiar exigencies of water-bound existence, one thing is certain. The Grahams possessed a good many of those virtues by the time they came to Shaw. Each in his and her own way brought a special brand of individuality. Lou Dodd was right about one thing, though. We’ll not, more’s the pity, know their like again. To Shaw Island, during the past twenty-eight years, has fallen the happy privilege of enjoying the Grahams as beloved and valued friends.
It was very like the Grahams to go quietly about the observance of their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary three months ago—so quietly that few were aware of it.
But now it’s time to pay the piper, Mr. and Mrs. Graham. We’ve caught up with you! And knowing a little of your life before you came to Shaw we should not stand in wonder at the manner in which you have become so firmly woven into the fabric of our island life.
Errett Graham and Helena Washburn were married on 14 September 1904, in Rensselaer, Indiana, an area where both had been born and raised. The groom, by then a graduate of Butler University in civil engineering, took his bride to Boston, and there worked for and earned a master’s degree at M. I. T.
The couple’s first homes were modest to a fault; a rough cabin on the upper Tennessee River, a backwoods construction camp in Virginia. In West Virginia where they lived for some time, Mr. Graham was resident engineer for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Eventually, his career returned them to Rensselaer.
Mr. and Mrs. Graham have seen something of the world, and their interest in it has never ceased. In 1913, for instance, Mrs. Graham, with the two older children, accompanied her artist sister to Paris, while Mr. Graham went in the opposite direction, to Japan. Traveling thence across Russia by Tran-Siberian railway and met his family in France. And, by the way, was it this trip Mrs. Graham recounts when she tells of a noticeable list on the steamer coming home because Mr. Graham had gathered about him the prettiest girls on the boat?
At a time of life when most couples are reaching for retirement, the Grahams came to Shaw Island, after a year in Seattle. The move to Shaw had something to do with the waters that treat a canoer with some favor. And, it appeared, a good surveyor hereabouts would never lack for something to do.
The move to Shaw was, to say the least, an event. When their goods and chattels reached Anacortes, the Grahams were informed that the moving van was too big for the dock at Shaw Island. Finally, redistributed into smaller conveyances, the Graham household arrived at Shaw Island and proceeded to Squaw Bay in the dark of night.
This was prior to the great day of the all-electric home. In fact, the house at Squaw Bay definitely was a non-electric establishment, and Mrs. Graham’s most vivid memory is of holding torches for the moving men while they unloaded and deposited the furniture in a house she had never before seen.
It was not long before Mr. Graham’s canoe and tripod had touched nearly every island in the San Juan Archipelago. His work often kept him away from home for several days at a time. It was not that Mrs. Graham, alone and uncertain about just when her husband could return, busied herself by acquiring a skill that subsequently endeared her to at least a generation of Shaw Islanders.
She learned the techniques of cartography, and it became her custom, eventually, to present each newcomer to Shaw with a carefully drawn and detailed map of the island, with current plats identified by owners’ names. These Shaw maps are among the greatly treasured possessions of many of us, not only because nobody else could, or would, provide this kind of information, but because of the time, the effort, and the love expended in their making.
Not content with the proficiency, Mrs. Graham went on to construct topographical models, one of the San Juan Islands, one of the Pacific Ocean floor, and even one of that wonder of nature’s wonders, Yosemite Valley.
And finally, she learned yet another art—illumination, the adornment of letters as practiced hundreds of years ago by Benedictine monks. Mrs. Graham’s Christmas cards were saved and savored, and she further shared her art by teaching it to the island Camp Fire Girls and making plaques for the Shaw Sunday School.
It must be observed that the Grahams are great teachers that youth is not the exclusive property of those who are few in years. Mr. Graham, for instance, handily circumnavigated Lopez Island—by canoe–on his 91st birthday.
The Graham’s presence on Shaw Island has been a pleasure to all and an inspiration. Their contributions to life here have provided an embarrassment of riches, from the apples in their overflowing orchard to their unstinting devotion to the cause of children—any children. Their own children, too, are a source of pride: Mary Hibbard, is an executive secretary in Berkley, California. Ernest is an aerodynamics consultant for the Boeing Company, as is his wife, Beverly, both of them two of our favorite people on Shaw. Martha Smithmeyer, lives in Seattle and is—you guessed it—an aerodynamicist, married to an electrical engineer.
And now, Mr. and Mrs. Graham, there remains little for us to say but this: Thank you. Thank you for choosing Shaw Island for your home, and for having enriched us, beyond measure.”
A speech delivered by Jo Ann Morse Ridley.