Pioneering Families 2020

Hickeys locally are descended from M.A. Hickey, storied settler of 1882

From starting out living in a cedar stump, he became a venerated farmer

By Calvin Bratt editor@lyndentribune.com

WHATCOM — e family legend is that Michael Albert Hickey lived in a big cedar stump for a

winter or two before he built himself a log cabin.

Although that detail can’t be found in accounts of the life of the Whatcom County pioneer, his descendants don’t doubt it could have happened. It would t with what they heard once from someone who knew M.A. Hickey and his determination to survive and prosper. “If he had the equipment they have today, he would be farming all of Whatcom County,” the oldtimer once told great-grand-

son Michael Arthur Hickey.

What is known is that this Pennsylvania native found his way as a single man to Whatcom County in then-Washington Territory in 1882. He settled rst in the Woodlyn district that supplies the Woodlyn Road name between Lynden and Ferndale, and preempted land there, according to Lottie Roeder Roth’s 1926 "History of Whatcom County, Volume II." (In the American West preemption was living on a tract of land and

taming it with one’s labor, and paying for it later — an early form of credit.)

It was “stump farming,” which means “to cut the trees down and farm between the stumps,” interpreted great-grandson Earl Patrick Hickey, brother to Michael Arthur.

With his livelihood started, Michael Albert Hickey was back in his childhood Iowa in either 1888 or 1889 to marry a former schoolmate, Mahala Wheeldon.

Michael Albert Hickey, far right, and his wife Mahala, sit on a house porch in this undated photo with their children, from right, Arthur Lake, Esta Leah, Norman Floyd and Susie Ione. (Courtesy photo/Michael Arthur Hickey)

Mahala Wheeldon and Michael Albert Hickey had been schoolmates in Iowa before he returned in his 30s to marry her and take her back to a homestead begun in Whatcom County. (Courtesy photo/Michael Arthur Hickey)

Pioneering Families of Whatcom County August 2020

Hickey

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She returned with him to the Northwest and for nearly the next 50 years they would be a team working together to make a life for themselves and the Hickey descendants to follow.

is is Roth’s description of how it was for M.A. Hickey in the Weiser Lake area, Woodlyn township: “His early years here were of continuous toil, for the land which he took up was previously untouched by human hands, and a vast amount of work was required to remove the dense growth of timber and brush with which it was covered. ere were no roads and all provisions had to be 'packed' in from Ferndale, which was his nearest trading point. Wild sh and game were plentiful, however, and he did not

These were the buildings (and remains of tree stumps) at the place south of Lynden to which the Hickey family came in 1900. (Courtesy photo/Michael Arthur Hickey) See Hickey on page 6

Hickey

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lack for meat on his table. He cleared about 60 acres of the tract and ditched it, the land proving to be very fertile and productive.”

e Hickeys lived on that place until 1900, by which time the household included four children: Arthur Lake, born 1892; Esta Leah, born 1893; Susie Ione, born 1895; and Norman Floyd, born 1897. (A survey of generations shows that this family likes strong distinguishing middle names.)

It was time for a hardworking, enterprising farmer to have the reward of some rich river-plain land. M.A. Hickey acquired more than 150 acres along the Guide Meridian Road just south of the Nooksack River. Roth wrote, “He cleared all of this land excepting about 15 acres, the tract having been encumbered with small timber and brush, and some cedar, while many cedar stumps had to be disposed of before the land could be cultivated to any advantage.”

is he did until 1918 when the farm was turned over to oldest son Arthur Lake to run.

e quick version from his great-grandsons is that Michael Albert used “a lot of horse and block and tackle and dynamite” to wrangle the rich bottom land into submission.

M.A. Hickey was one of the rst stockholders of the old Lynden Creamery in the early years of the 20th century. He turned his attention largely to dairy farming, keeping an average of about 20 cows, while also raising diversi ed crops.

Stories are told of the Hickey farm raising a bounty of hay that M.A. then hauled by horse and wagon into Bellingham to supply stables

Mahala Wheeldon Hickey had been born in Indiana in 1857 and her family came to Lucas, Iowa, where she knew Michael Albert Hickey from childhood. This is a photo of her in 1918 about as they retired from farming. (Courtesy photo/Michael Arthur Hickey) Continued on next page

there in winter. e stack of hay was so enormous that the wagon driver, burrowed in it to stay warm, could not be seen as he approached.

e couple enjoyed retirement for more than 20 years to Mahala’s death in 1938 and M.A.’s in 1940. “We Lose a Farm Pioneer” was the heading of Sol Lewis’s tribute in the Lynden Tribune on Michael Albert Hickey’s passing. “ e ne river-bottom farm that he developed just below the Guide Meridian bridge south of Lynden has always attracted the attention of visitors, who marvelled at the heavy crops raised on its fertile soil. A monument to the steady toil of this good American citizen, these acres will always remind Lynden of sturdy M.A. Hickey, a representative American farmer.”

is land was farmed for many years by Lloyd Winterberg and is now be-

on page 10

The Bounty of the Sea

This was Arthur and Edith Hickey's simple home on the farm south of Lynden in 1954, as they were getting close to retiring. (Courtesy photo/Michael Arthur Hickey) See Hickey

Arthur and Edith Hickey were featured in the March 1956 Darigold Digest as "Darigold Pioneers."

They told of experiencing flooding close to the Nooksack River until relocating farm buildings farther away.

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ing used by Blok Evergreen Dairy.

Original family, and grandpa Arthur Lake Arthur Lake married Edith Marr in Lynden in

1916 and to them were born eight children — six sons and two daughters — in the years from 1917 to 1940. is line became a bulwark of the Hickey clan to follow.

Esta Leah Hickey married Ernest Miller in Lynden in 1923. To them were born

four children, including son Robert in 1926, who in time became the father of current state Rep. Luanne Van Werven of Lynden.

Susie Ione Hickey married Alvah Sooter on Sept. 1, 1922, and just eight days later her brother Norman

Floyd Hickey married Hazel Stanley, on Sept. 9, 1922. From these two unions came four and two children, respectively.

It has fallen to Michael Arthur Hickey, 73, of Everson, to be the compiler of the history of the family today, and he does enjoy it. He has put together a three-ring binder of collected clippings, photos and genealogy not only of the Hickeys but also of a few generations of mothers’ ancestry, which gets into the last names Marr, Sorensen, Ehlers, Hillje and Peterson. It becomes a blend of native-born American with Scandinavian and German

Continued on next page

A casual 1938 photo shows, from left, front, boys George and Paul; back, Arthur Earl, Glenn, mom Edith, Michael John "Jack," brother-in-law Gary VanDiest, Hazel and dad Arthur Lake. Two more children were still to be born.

Arthur Lake Hickey and Edith Marr were married in Bellingham on Aug. 12, 1916, and became parents of eight children in 24 years. They lived on the family farm along Guide Meridian Road. (Courtesy photo/Michael Arthur Hickey)

immigrant ancestry and perhaps more.

Brothers Michael Arthur and Earl Patrick, 72,

of Lynden, can each claim that they are now exactly in the middle of seven generations of the Hickey family in

Whatcom County. Within the past two years, each has welcomed a rst greatgrandchild.

ey did not know their great-grandfather, See Hickey on page 14

Hickey

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M.A., but they do have some dominant memories of their grandfather, Arthur Lake.

e earliest are of be ing still on the big Guide Meridian farm before their own parents, Arthur Earl and Pearl (Sorensen) Hick ey, moved to what is now the Stoney Ridge Farm on Van Dyk Road with an Ever son address.

e brothers think of their grandpa as being “quite a horseman” who made his own bridles and halters for Percheron draft horses. As very young boys they got their rst horse rides astride the broad backs of grandpa’s hefty workhorses.

Grandpa had a pre monition that the ongoing mechanization of farming, moving away from horses and toward powerful trac tors, would not be good, leading to agricultural over production. “‘ e horses eat the surplus’ was the way he looked at it,” Michael said.

Roth’s 1926 account of Arthur Lake, as he was in his mid-30s, was this: “Dairying is the principal occupation of the family, and they keep 33 high grade Guernsey cows and a regis tered sire. ey raise their own hay and grain and also enough corn for ensilage. A.L. has shown himself well-adapted to the voca tion which he is following.”

ere was also a large fam ily garden, and its canned produce helped get strug gling people through the Depression.

In March 1956, Arthur Lake Hickey, along with his faithful wife Edith, would be featured as “Darigold Pi oneers” in the Darigold Di gest publication for mem bers of the cooperative. is feature is reprinted in its

The Marr family, photographed in 1894, also has a place in the family ancestry.

left, brothers Earl

“We had potatoes all over Whatcom County,” Earl said. “We did a lot of peat ground farming and we had to drain the soil rst.”

ey remember, with some consternation yet, tripping over potato vines to move irrigation pipes, or spending whole Saturdays as

a crew processing tons of potatoes to ll a semi truck load headed to outlets in Bellingham, Everett or Seattle.

and Michael Arthur Hickey enjoy talking about their family's history in Whatcom County. They each represent the mid-point in seven generations of Hickeys. (Calvin Bratt/Lynden Tribune) became focused on seed potatoes), the farm had from 30 to 60 head of beef cattle and as many as 100 hogs, but not dairy.

“We had a pretty goodsized operation going there for quite a few years. We averaged about 100 acres (of potatoes).”

In diversi ed farming, sometimes the di erent aspects fed o of each other.

e potatoes that were too small for marketing were cooked into a mush that the

hogs could eat. On the other hand, the Hickey brothers remember that if the power went out to the heat lamps in the furrowing barn, then little piglets were brought into the house overnight to stay warm.

For fun, hay stu ed into a burlap sack hung from a rafter in the barn was a simple yet e ective swing for boys to enjoy.

e last crop of potatoes was in 1985, and Michael and

Earl Patrick then went into other things separately, such as driving truck, raising dairy heifers and haying on small acreages.

So much of family lore is passed on only “by word of mouth,” the brothers said, that it is good that things get written down once in a while. “It’s been an interesting life,” they both say, and as Hickeys they feel that they are part of a larger ongoing family history.

From

Patrick Hickey

Noteboom

Siblings reflect on 105 years of dairy farming south of Lynden

By Brent Lindquist brent@lyndentribune.com

LYNDEN — For the past 105 years, the Noteboom family has farmed the same land on Noon Road and continuously milked cows there.

Not far from the family farm, still operating today, the walls of Jason Noteboom’s home are covered in art.

e artwork hails from a variety of eras and artists, but a few pieces are a bit closer to home for him and the larger Noteboom family.

Jason commissioned four paintings of Noteboom farmers, each showing a di erent Noteboom in his farming element. For him, the paintings represent supporting artists, but they also go a bit further than that.

“It’s a way to preserve our own heritage and history, and they each tell kind of a unique story of a part of history,” said Jason, 37.

e Notebooms who made their living farming in and around Lynden were very di erent from one another, although a few common threads cross the generations. ese include community service, an emphasis on cooperation between farmers, the encroachment of technology, and the concept of trust.

Forebears originally hailed from Berkel, the Netherlands, and immigrated to the United States in 1848, settling in Pella, Iowa. e deed for their Lynden farm is dated July 29, 1915. William C. Noteboom would take over the farm from his father, Cornelius Noteboom.

Not much is known about

Farm

Cornelius, also called “Caese.” Jason has documentation of an old story involving Cornelius, in which he was hauling corn to town to sell while

working the family’s rst farm. When he returned home from selling corn, he put the money he had earned in his pocket and went out to the barn to

nish up his daily chores. When he nished his chores, he undressed to go to sleep

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This painting by Montana artist TJ Lynde depicts Cornelius Noteboom using a hand implement on the Noteboom family farm on Noon Road. Top of page: The emblem in the headline was created by Benjamin Milne; it's a linocut depicting the Noteboom farm and notable area landmarks like the Nooksack River and Mount Baker.

and left this pants with money in the pocket hanging on a chair. His wife, Jeneka, headed for bed as well and discovered that a man had followed Caese home to rob the family. Caese ended up chasing the man away with a pitchfork.

William C. Noteboom

was part of a trend in the Noteboom family: he was involved in just about everything he could possibly be involved in. William was part of a water association, he was part of the rest home board, he served on the rst school board of the uni ed Lynden School Dis-

trict, and he was very active in the local Baptist church.

William was a bookkeeper for a couple of businesses in Lynden, including Elder and Pace and what was then North Washington Implement.

In Jason’s commissioned painting of William C. Note-

boom, he's pushing the wheelbarrow seeder he used to seed the ground on the farm.

William Noteboom planted ve pounds of clover and timothy grass seed on 35 acres, which was perfect for

This painting by Levent de Paris depicts William C. Noteboom using his wheelbarrow seeder to sow clover and Timothy grass on his land. De Paris, doing impressionist texture oil paintings, is of California.

See Noteboom on page 18

Noteboom

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farming because the Nooksack River often ooded and brought with it fresh soil. e Jersey cows he raised on Noon Road are thought to have produced more milk because he used new grass seed.

Jason called his greatgrandfather ingenious because he would have his cows walk on the grass seed to tamp it down into the ground.

“I think he was ahead of his time,” Jason said.

William’s wife, nee Hilda E. Elder, hailed from Clarion, Iowa, and she was the organist at the Baptist church for 53 years. She loved to quilt and understood the value of education, said JoAnn Roorda, William C. Noteboom’s granddaughter and Jason’s aunt.

William C. Noteboom died in 1963, leaving ve children. One of those was Donald Noteboom, father of Daniel, JoAnn and Gayle. Donald and his four siblings all attended Washington State College (later renamed Washington State University) at the same time. When Donald and his siblings left for college, the family was farming with Percheron draft horses until 1948.

“When he came back, there were tractors,” Daniel said. “I would say that he really struggled with that transition.”

e family purchased its rst tractor, a John Deere Model M, in 1949, replacing horses Luke and Dan. It was the featured tractor at the Northwest Washington Fair.

Jason’s painting of Donald Noteboom features Donald pushing a wooden wheelbarrow loaded with hay bales; he’s wearing his iconic orange hat, Jason said.

Despite his dedication to farming, Donald never got into the technological side of the trade.

“I think my dad was more interested in people and

studying,” JoAnn said.

As farmers from California began moving into the area, farmers began risking more and more, but Daniel and JoAnn said their dad wasn’t about taking reckless risks with his farm.

“My dad didn’t bow down to that, trying to be competitive, to be bigger and better and risk the farm,” Daniel said.

“ ere are well over 2,000 families that don’t have their farm left. ey risked. My dad was not a risker.”

Donald milked Brown Swiss cows and took on a number of part-time jobs just to make payments on the farm. His wife, Henrietta, worked at Christmastime at a store called Jude’s Sporting Goods, now known as Dave’s

Sports Shop in the Fairway Center to earn money to put presents under their tree.

Donald served on a variety of committees and was progressive in his commitment to guiding the agricultural eld, and he was active in the DHIA. Professors would come from all over to have dinner with Donald and Hen-

Continued on next page

Clad in his orange cap, Donald Noteboom is shown in TJ Lynde's painting pushing a wooden wheelbarrow.

rietta.

“He just loved people and my mom just would invite everybody over for dinner,” JoAnn said. “He was a great ambassador for agriculture.”

Henrietta loved entertaining people in their home, and JoAnn said she was known as “Miss Hospitality.” She would bring out her Desert Rose china and treat guests like royalty. She never wasted anything, JoAnn said, and that included cow heart, liver and tongue. Henrietta would cook those parts for sandwich meat.

“I really didn’t like it,” JoAnn said.

Donald and Henrietta carried on the Noteboom family’s tradition of raising chickens for food and to cover feed costs over the years.

When Donald passed away in 2014, the family buried him in his orange stocking cap, Daniel said.

Daniel continued the farming tradition, depicted

See Noteboom on page 20

TJ Lynde also painted this piece, showing Daniel Noteboom driving his Case International tractor and pulling a flail chopper. The same tree can be seen in the background of several of these paintings, a landmark on the Noteboom family farm.

Noteboom

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in one of Jason’s paintings driving a tractor and chopper from the 1970s. e tractor in the painting is a Case International 684, which Daniel purchased from a retired farmer.

“ e year I was born there were 3,000 farms in the county that shipped milk,” Daniel said. “I’d like to say that all my grandparents on both sides, which would be the Elders, Polinders, Heusinkvelds and the Notebooms, were all Darigold members before me. Our family was always in the cooperative mode.”

As he farmed, he did so on the name and reputation of previous generations of Notebooms, Daniel said.

“I could have never gured out what I was going to farm without the name of my family,” he said.

Daniel was very active in FFA, having earned his FFA

State Farmer degree, growing vegetables for his project.

After Daniel earned his FFA degree, he started growing peas and working on the family farm.

He gives back to Lynden FFA by providing the land for the annual corn maze, for 20 consecutive years now.

Daniel ended up getting out of the vegetable business and into dairy when seven vegetable processors phased out of the area. Because the prices were so similar per pound for vegetables and milk, Daniel had to nd a way to produce 2 million pounds of milk after leaving the vegetable world in order to keep his land viable. He quit vegetables in the early 2000s.

Daniel gives a lot of credit to his wife, Terri, saying they each have their own mission statements as they make their way through a life of farming.

“We work as a team,”

Daniel said. “My mission statement would be that we would grow as much feed as the weather allows us to make as much milk as we can. Her mission statement would be to have one more calf each month of our dairy career. Every year, we try to gain 12 cows.”

Jason said Terri is more of a risk-taker than the rest of her family, and Daniel said she has been integral in keeping the farm in good nancial health.

eir son, Danny, continues farming the family’s land to this day with his wife, Sade.

e Noteboom family has been characterized over the years by involvement in a variety of activities, both o cial and uno cial. ey showed cows at the fair for years. e family’s picnics held at the Lynden City Park are well-known throughout

town, as well as its patronage of Wiser Lake Chapel on Guide Meridian Road. Many members of the family grew dahlias, and some still do, Daniel and JoAnn’s sister Gayle VanWeerdhuizen said. Even the Notebooms who have left the country life continue some of the family’s traditions of farming. Jason's sister, Jamie, still feeds calves on the farm after 33 years, and sister Angie fed calves with Jason during their time living on the farm. JoAnn continues farming through Kamm Creek Farm on Hamptom Road with her husband, Hank Roorda, and Gayle continues the Brown Swiss breed in Idaho with her husband, Carl VanWeerdhuizen, carrying on Donald and Henrietta's use of the breed.

“ ey all take part of the farm and community service with them,” Jason said.

Jason Noteboom retains some of the beams from the family's old barn on Noon Road, which is being taken down after being built on the property in 1915.

A look back at Sumas Rodeos past

Right: The royalty for the 1937 Sumas Rodeo were, from left, Alice Tumath Lapp, Caroline Thomas Yurovchak and Barbara Clausen Cyr. Yurovchak was 20 at the time, said her photo supplying daughter, Mary Lou Jones. (Courtesy photo/Mary Lou Jones)

Below: Going back 14 more years, a horse and rider jump over a touring car of the time at the 1923 Sumas Rodeo. (Courtesy photo/ Webster & Stevens, Seattle Times sta photographers)