Washington Coast Magazine Winter 2020-21

A view of sparrows Local species are more varied than moniker suggests

Also in this issue

FINDER OF FAMILIES ROVING UNDERWATER MARKET FINDS NEW PLACE

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Letter from the editor Welcome to the Winter ’21 edition of Washington Coast Magazine!

22 Kat Bryant, Editor

Y

editor@washingtoncoastmagazine.com

es, we coastal folks are still spending a lot of time at home because of the pandemic.

Still, it’s not difficult to maintain physical distance from others in Washington’s vast outdoors — or to find people doing wonderful things within the community. In this issue, we focus on several such individuals.

First, Kathryn Myrsell of the Westport Aquarium has teamed with leaders of Grays Harbor Youth Works and Ireland’s national aquarium to create a unique community STEM project.

Cindy Wakefield of Hoquiam makes it her mission to help adoptees locate their birth families, without any expectation of reward. She just loves the quest!

The Market Place, Aberdeen’s natural food store for decades, is thriving in its shiny new location, led by second-generation owners Erick and Michelle Olson.

And veterinarians Sonnya Crawford and Corrie Hines of Montesano have established (and are working to expand) a much-needed wildlife rescue operation.

In addition, columnist Jeff Bryant shares the unexpected beauty of the Coast’s sparrow family; the Opera Workshop’s Ian Dorsch tells us why he loves it here; and artist Lucy Hart offers up a Last Shot from Westport.

Enjoy!

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PERENNIALS 6

BIRD’S-EYE VIEW

Sparrows’ drab moniker is deceptive

32 WHY I LOVE IT HERE

By Ian Dorsch

34 LAST SHOT “A Reminder of the Past,” by Lucy Hart

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WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021

Winter 2021

Contents

28

FEATURES

10 BENEATH THE SURFACE 16 SEARCH ANGEL 22 A NEW MARKET PLACE 28 THE RESCUERS Student-made ROVs document water life in community project

10 ON THE COVER A Savannah Sparrow hunts for tidbits in seaweed along the high-tide line.

Bird’s-Eye View, page 6 PHOTO BY JEFF BRYANT

Cindy Wakefield is on a mission to locate adoptees’ birth families

Family-owned natural food store settles into new spot in Aberdeen

Two veterinarians establish the first wildlife rescue on the Coast

WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021 5

BIRD’S-EYE VIEW

T

he name “sparrow” goes back a long way.

Its roots can be traced to the ProtoIndo-European prefix “sper-,” vaguely describing any small bird. Though the ancient Greeks assigned the Old World sparrows the role of Aphrodite’s sacred birds, symbolizing true love, both Chaucer and Shakespeare referred to them (more accurately) as lecherous. Various translations of the Bible use the sparrow to represent the most base and insignificant of creatures, particularly to demonstrate that God loves them all.

Unfortunately, our sparrows here on the Washington Coast carry that lowly and nondescript reputation to this day. Yes, some could be dismissed as “LBJs” (little brown

6

Text and photos by Jeff Bryant jobs), as my dad calls them — but our birds don’t even deserve to be saddled with the adopted name “sparrow,” let alone the baggage that came with it!

When settlers from England arrived on this continent 400 years ago, they struggled to make sense of their utterly alien surroundings.

Through homesickness, nationalism or possibly just a lack of imagination, they resorted to naming an inordinate number of those exotic wonders after the most familiar things of merry old England. (Case in point: “New England.”)

They named our blackbirds for the unrelated European thrush of the same color, our commonest thrush for the similarly colored but unrelated

WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021

European Robin, and a bunch of LBJs after the most familiar and widespread bird in Europe: the House Sparrow. A better choice of namesake would have been the more colorful (and more closely related) buntings of Europe and Asia; but alas, that name was given to some distant American cousins instead. Those colonists were nothing if not consistent.

Too bad they didn’t adopt the Cherokee moniker for our New World sparrows: tsikwa’ya, which translates to a more dignified “real” or “principal” bird. The Cherokee name probably derives in part from the abundance of sparrows throughout North America.

The Dark-eyed Junco is a perfect example, breeding in the northlands

SPARROWS: WHAT’S IN A NAME? and mountains of the U.S. and Canada, then flooding into the lowlands every winter, inundating most of the lower 48. Somewhere in the middle of October, seemingly overnight, our few breeding pairs magically become large flocks, skittering up from the ground in a flash of white tailfeathers at the first sign of danger.

Winter is the peak of sparrow season in coastal Washington. Of the 10 or so species most commonly found here, just one — the elegantly golden-browed Savannah Sparrow, evacuates to warmer climates when the rain starts.

The handsome Lincoln’s Sparrow can be found here only in winter, and then only with difficulty, as it skulks deep in thick, grassy vegetation. A testament to its stealth is that John James Audubon, during an 1833 expedition, was unable to collect a single one of these secretive birds for further study. Only one of his five companions managed to secure a specimen: Thomas Lincoln, for whom Audubon named the species.

Only in winter can you find the Fox Sparrow doing his signature dance move: using both feet to push away a dead leaf with one agile hop, then inspecting the ground below for tasty morsels.

Harsh winter winds also push the Golden-crowned Sparrow down from his breeding grounds in Alaska and the Yukon to our backyards and hedgerows. He advertises his presence with a mournful, slightly off-key song beginning with three descending notes, often transcribed as “I’m so tired.” It is said that prospectors in the Yukon during the 1890s gold rush translated the sad song differently: “No gold here.”

Perhaps our most striking yearround sparrow is the Spotted Towhee, with its stark black and white body accented by chillingly red eyes and bright, rusty-orange sides. It can

FACING PAGE: With his explosion of stripes in gray, brown, black and buff, the tiny, secretive Lincoln’s Sparrow is my favorite winter resident.

ABOVE: Despite his large size, long tail and bright colors, the Spotted Towhee is indeed a sparrow. This one demonstrates the deft seed-cracking ability of a sparrow’s bill.

LEFT: Common in the warm months in grassy fields and dunes, this Savannah Sparrow gleans food at the high-tide line.

BELOW: Our local race of Dark-eyed Junco (“Oregon Junco”) wears a patchwork quilt as dapper as any cage bird.

WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021 7

BIRD’S-EYE VIEW

be readily found rummaging through dry leaves, where it plagiarizes the Fox Sparrow’s trademark choreography.

Much smaller, but splashy in its own way, the White-crowned Sparrow often nests around urban oases like parking lots, charming shoppers with his compelling song.

More humbly clad in subtle browns and grays, the common and conspicuous Song Sparrow stakes his reputation on his lilting song. This bird truly earns his Latin name of Melospiza melodia, which translates to “melodious song-finch.”

Contrast that with the raucous chirping and utter lack of song of the “original” sparrow. House Sparrows were introduced in Brooklyn in 1851 and reached the West Coast within 60 years — leaving a swath of agricultural damage in their wake while displacing, even murdering, our native songbirds. Like the European Starling, these pesky wife-swappers have been foolishly introduced to South America and Australia with similar results.

So, what’s in a name? Maybe nothing. But just remember that our diverse assortment of vocally talented, often colorful native “sparrows” are about as closely related to the lowly House Sparrow as a dog is to a cat.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jeff Bryant has been an increasingly obsessive birder since childhood. For the past 30 years, what little money he’s been able to set aside has been spent traveling in search of ever more of the world’s 10,000 species. He’s only a quarter of the way there.

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WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021

ABOVE: Juvenile sparrows can baffle the beginning birder. This White-crowned Sparrow hasn’t yet grown into the unmistakable helmet of white stripes that make his parents immediately recognizable.

LEFT: Though lacking the eastern subspecies’ foxy red coloration, our “Sooty” Fox Sparrow is an eye-catcher for the delicate brown chevrons across its chest.

BELOW: Perhaps our commonest and most conspicuous sparrow, the aptly named Song Sparrow is liable to break into its melodic aria any time of year.

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Mia Tiffany, an 11-year-old student at St. Mary School, drops her ROV into the water to test it at the Westport Marina.

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WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021

Looking beneath the surface:

With aquarium program, students design ROVs to explore local waterways

Story and photos

by Kat Bryant

K

athryn Myrsell, co-owner of the Westport Aquarium, has launched a do-it-yourself underwater exploration project for people around Grays Harbor — and far beyond.

Participants design and build simple floating ROVs (remote-operated vehicles) with PVC pipe, pool noodles, and propellers run by 12-volt motors. Once a GoPro camera with a waterproof case is attached to the frame, the operator can use the ROV to document underwater life.

“Our initial goal was to have them build their own underwater ROVs and then revise them as they see fit when they’re working in the field,” said Myrsell. “And then the other goal is to take photography or videography of our local waterways.”

She also wanted to make the concept easily accessible to anyone who was interested.

“They have really fancy ROVs these days. I saw one in a classroom that was almost like the torso of a person. It could actually open up its arms, and it had tools on the end of the hand.... It was

Westport Aquarium co-owner Kathryn Myrsell shows one of the underwater remote-controlled vehicles made by a local student under the program she created.

like a Transformer,” Myrsell laughed. “But we’re doing the home computer model here.

We’re doing it at way less cost. And instead of going for the rare and unusual, we’re just looking at what is right in our backyard.”

She hatched the idea as a community project, though she’s loath to call it “citizen science.”

“I can think of a bunch of people that weren’t scientists, but have discovered some pretty important things,” she said. “Do we call Leonardo da Vinci a citizen scientist? Nope.”

Myrsell has spearheaded two separate partnerships to give her idea life.

Making the Irish connection Early this year, Myrsell decided to connect with the Galway Atlantaquaria, Ireland’s national aquarium.

She had befriended aquarium advisor Peter Biddulph several years earlier through a professional online group.

“I thought: Wouldn’t it be cool if students from Ireland and students from here could talk to each other about what they find with their ROVs? They could compare and contrast and find similarities between the oceans and the animals that live there,” she

said. “I thought this could raise the ante and get the students really excited to do their craft and then share it halfway across the world.”

Biddulph agreed and committed to his facility’s participation in the project.

Garry Kendellen, marketing manager of the Ireland aquarium, also jumped on board.

“As the co-secretariat of the Irish Ocean Literacy Network, I see this as a wonderful opportunity to engage the whole community in ocean literacy principles,” said Ken­dellen. “As a marketing tool for engagement of the public, this is exciting, fun and, I believe, can be replicated in Irish schools for all young people to go and explore the ocean.”

They set up a private server on Discord so they — along with colleagues and students — could discuss ground rules and objectives, then establish basic guidelines on how to build the ROVs. Students at both ends have begun sharing and discussing their ROV ideas and designs as well as initial footage through the Discord group, which was created by two of the Westport youths involved in the project: Alex Struckmeier and Santiago Myrsell.

As of the end of October, Irish and U.S. participants of all ages were working on ROVs through that partnership.

WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021 11

ABOVE: A few of the students working through the Westport Aquarium’s joint project with Galway Atlantaquaria, from left: Mia Tiffany, Dylan Todd, Humberto Redford and Michael Haas.

LEFT: Fritz Bold, 10, of St. Mary School, shows the device he created to protect electronic components on his ROV.

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WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021

Most are looking to observe underwater life, though some have other ideas.

“We have two families working together — one is a fisherman, one is a restaurateur here on Grays Harbor — and they want to go investigate a shipwreck that they know is down there,” said Myrsell. “So they’re hoping to build an ROV to get down to that shipwreck.”

Mia Tiffany, an 11-yearold St. Mary School student, is part of that group. She has already built a floating ROV for design testing, and she intends to use a much stronger motor and lead weights on a future design so she can maneuver it 300 feet below the surface.

“It’s going to be a 24-volt setup, powered by the charter­ boat Slammer,” said Mia. “We’re still trying to figure out how to make it and put it together.”

Myrsell is keeping her ear to the ground for other potential applications for the ROVs. “We went out recently and did a survey with three students, and we met a fisherman on a tuna boat,” she said.

“And he said, ‘Hey, could you check out the bottom of my boat?’ … What if our students could just look under there, see if there’s a problem they’d want to fix? So we have different needs in our community for underwater ROVs.” Because of COVID-19 restrictions, it’s difficult to get all of the local participants together at the aquarium for help sessions. But Myrsell does host a few students at a time on Monday afternoons to answer questions and offer guidance on ROV designs. She’s also trying to make Sunday afternoon field testing a regular thing at the Westport Marina.

“We keep our distance, and we keep our masks on,” she said. “Sometimes people really

need that in-person help.”

The two aquariums are providing time, expertise and building materials.

“I look forward to overcoming the engineering challenges, the breakdowns, seeking help from the group and the ‘funny mess’ of just creating a work of ROV art,” said Kendellen.

Ten-year-old Fritz Bold of Westport, for example, created a solution to protect his ROV’s wiring because the connections kept breaking.

He placed his motor inside a plastic container and strung the wiring through short bits of PVC pipe (which he had attached with a watertight seal to holes drilled into the container). This helped keep the wires from being pulled away from the engine during use.

Myrsell said participants range from age 6 through adulthood, and the children are encouraged to work with their families.

“I think the project is organic,” said Kendellen. “It will grow.”

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Cousins Charlize Gutierrez. far left, and Blane Espinoza-Boyer, far right, receive guidance from (left to right) Felicia Mullins, Cheryl Hancock and Kathryn Myrsell as they pick up their ROV kits at the Grays Harbor Youth Works office.

One of the caveats of the district grant was that the project be limited to students ages 12 to 19 within Grays Harbor County. This conflicted in several ways with the joint effort Myrsell had going with Ireland. Undaunted, she and Mullins set up the framework for a career-oriented student program based on the original ROV project.

With support from the nonprofit’s executive director, Cheryl R. Brown, they created WAqua Youth Works. The program is having students design ROVs to explore not only the ocean, but also local rivers, lakes and estuaries — and in the end, Mullins hopes to have some Youth Works video production interns 14

piece the footage into a documentary along with interviews of the WAqua participants.

They held an orientation meeting Oct. 23 via Zoom for interested students, and six of them signed on immediately.

Using an online application, they submitted their design specs, and then Myrsell created a customized ROV kit with the materials required for each student’s creation.

Among the first to pick up their kits were cousins Charlize Gutierrez, an 11th-grader in the Running Start program at Aberdeen High School; and Blane Espinoza-Boyer, an eighth-grader at Miller Junior High School in Aberdeen. Charlize said she was attracted largely to the math

WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021

and engineering elements, while Blane said he was more interested in learning more about “the way the world works.”

The participating students are meeting every two weeks via Zoom. While the fall months have been dedicated to the ROVs, the winter sessions will be all online, with marine scientists and related experts giving presentations during the Zoom sessions. The ROV element will resume in the spring.

And because of the grant, “this is totally free to our young people,” said Mullins.

“It is still in the early stages,” said Myrsell. “But it is going to be a fabulous program, and I would like to get more Grays

Harbor students interested.”

Mullins agreed. It’s a pilot program under a small grant right now, but she foresees something greater coming from it down the road. She’d love to see future interns placed with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the local fishing industry, and more. She also hopes to secure scholarship funding for those interns.

“Our community has so much potential for being a marine center in the Northwest, or even the nation, in terms of science and how environmental sustainability can be partnered with business,” she said. “And we want our students to know that!”

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Search Angel Cindy Wakefield makes it her mission to locate blood relatives (and more)

C

indy Wakefield’s unique hobby brings as much joy to others as it does to herself.

For 25 years, the Hoquiam resident has spent much of her personal time connecting people with their heritage.

She has located folks all over the country, but she derives the greatest satisfaction from searches within her own home state.

“I will never, ever let go of one that was born in Washington,” she says. “I am going to find something, somehow, some way.”

Cindy specializes in tracking down adoptees’ birth parents, though she also enjoys locating the original owners of family photos and heirlooms she picks up here and there.

It all began around 1995, when she noticed a personal ad in The Daily World: “Male born July 15, 1952, adopted nine months later, looking for birth relatives.”

“I had all these ideas going around in my head,” she says. “I thought: OK, I know how to go down to the library and look up The Daily World on microfiche or microfilm. And if he wasn’t adopted until nine months later, maybe he was born and his parents got killed in a car accident or something.”

With a few extra clues, she was able to determine that Mike’s birth family was Quinault Indian.

“I was able to find all his heritage,” Cindy says. “Since then, he has taken back his birth name and was able to get his complete medical history. I believe

Cindy Wakefield of Aberdeen will leave no stone unturned when she’s using her specialized skills to find people.

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WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021

Story and photos

by Kat Bryant

he’s met all seven siblings, and he found out a lot of other relatives he had in the Quinault Nation.”

That first experience triggered an interest that became an obsession. She continued digging on behalf of others, picking up new skills and resources along the way.

“I didn’t have a computer at the time,” she says. “So actually, how I started was going to the Aberdeen library. They had the computers underneath the stairway at the time, the big old huge ones. I got the first 8- or 9-year-old kid I could find and said, ‘Hey, can you help me with this?’ And that’s how it started. I became what they call a search angel.”

The term is used for people who conduct searches without expecting compensation for it. Cindy doesn’t charge anyone for her services; she works as a private caregiver and does this simply for the gratification of reuniting people with biological family members or treasured artifacts.

“I tried to make a business of it, but was putting more money into it than I was getting back because I never had the heart to tell anyone ‘no,’” she laughs. So, she returned to caregiving and acting as a search angel.

While she asks for no compensation whatsoever, appreciative clients have sent her everything from a Harry & David candy bouquet to handmade potholders. She says former Grays Harbor County Coroner Ed Fleming once sent her a basket of plants for helping him with a case — but she’s no good at taking care of plants.

“That was kind of ironic to me,” she chuckles. “I help the coroner find a dead person’s family, the coroner gives me live plants, and I’m gonna kill them.

That’s the circle of life!”

When she’s in between clients, Wakefield enjoys acquiring “lost” items from garage sales, eBay and other sources and then tracking down families that might want them back.

WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021 17

Resources Anyone can start their own search, according to Cindy Wakefield. “There’s so much you can do yourself by looking on the internet.” Here are her top three suggestions to get you started on your quest: NETR ONLINE ublicrecords.netronline. com “You can go to any county you want nationwide to search public records,” says Wakefield. Avaiiable info varies by county, but most link at least to the assessor’s and recorder’s offices.

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“And it helped me one time track down someone that did a change of name.”

ANCESTRY.COM BIRTH RECORDS www.ancestry.com/cs/us/ birth-records A two-week free trial will allow users access to records based on information entered into the system. If you decide to dig deeper over a longer term, you can invest in a membership.

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When you get into this searching, it’s addicting. It’s my drug of choice.

— CINDY WAKEFIELD

Getting others into the act Cindy also enjoys sharing her interest with others.

Before she became a private caregiver, she led activities at assisted living facilities around Grays Harbor.

When she was program manager at a Hoquiam facility, she bought an old photograph through eBay, intending to locate the person who was pictured. She borrowed some old high school yearbooks from the Hoquiam library and gave some to each of the women in her activity group.

“I had already found which book the person was in, and I gave that one to Marge,” Cindy says. “She didn’t talk a lot, didn’t get excited a lot, and I thought: ‘OK, this is my chance.’”

With a few gentle nudges, Marge discovered the matching photo. “She gasped, got so excited that she’d helped solve a mystery,” she says. “We were able to get that family photo back to someone.”

At another facility in Montesano, she discovered stacks of old magazines in the cupboard. “One day I reached in, pulled one out and started going through it,” she says.

“I went to the back and saw this lady was trying to find a nephew that was placed for adoption.”

She brought the residents together and asked if anyone wanted to “play detective.”

Several spoke up: “me, me, me!” So she printed out some information, gave it to the

WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021

ladies, did the research — and found him. They helped reunite the woman with a nephew she hadn’t seen since he was a toddler, and now he was in his 30s.

“And it’s like, ‘What possessed me to pull that one out of 150 magazines?

Why? How?’ Cindy says. “It’s just amazing how things fall into place or fall into my lap.

Serendipity is the only word I can come up with for it. It just seems like it’s meant to be.”

A place for their stuff Cindy also devotes plenty of energy to finding the original owners of lost things.

“Every time I drive by the LeMay’s landfill, I picture in my mind how many things are buried underneath all that that are now gone, never again to be seen, that could have gone to somebody,” she says.

“So I specifically try to stake out estate sales and garage sales, because I’ve got to get that high of searching for what someone else can’t.”

She also keeps an eye on local Facebook groups, such as Historical Hoquiam, for posts seeking information on items such as old jewelry or photos. They often have names written or engraved on them, allowing her to work her magic online.

“When you get into this searching, it’s addicting. It’s my drug of choice,” she says.

“Once when I was going through a dry spell, I got on eBay. Some people were

selling family Bibles or cabinet pictures that had identifying information. I’d go ahead and start researching and find a family member and contact them.”

She’s collected quite a few artifacts along the way and hopes to find homes for all of them eventually.

“I’ve got pictures and other things I’ve got to label so if something happened to me, my kids would know it’s not their relatives. ‘No, it has nothing to do with you, it’s totally someone else,’” she laughs. “It’s stuff I just can’t throw away. It belongs to somebody.”

Getting to the root of things Cindy is a member of several international angel groups, including Emergency Medical Locators for Adoptees, Adoptee Free Search and DNA Detectives.

“I would absolutely love to get into genetic genealogy — it’s my dream,” she says. “I’m frothing at the mouth to learn, but there’s so much to it.”

For now, Cindy relies heavily on Ancestry.com for that type of research and encourages people to add their information to that database for their own benefit as well as others’.

“When people do Ancestry DNA to find out their heritage and stuff, it helps link their DNA to the DNA law enforcement has,” she says. “It just matches them up.”

She acknowledges that a lot

of people are are reluctant to give DNA samples to companies like that, but she has no qualms about it. “If I have a relative out there who’s done a terrible crime, it’s time for them to get caught,” she says.

“I don’t mind my DNA being out there at all.”

In fact, sending her information to Ancestry led to a surprising discovery for Cindy’s own family: It revealed that a longtime neighbor was actually her father’s half-brother. “He lived maybe a block away from me for almost 20 years! We were friends, he worked with my husband, the whole nine yards,” she says.

“Ancestry will do like a grouping, and it will tell you ‘cousin.’ But if you go in deeper, to a website called DNA Painter, you can put in (specific information), and they will give you a closer match, like an uncle or an aunt or a grandmother,” she says. “Well, he came up as a half-uncle.”

It was shocking news to him as well: Before Cindy told him, he never knew that the man who’d raised him was not his biological father.

Just do it Cindy laments that fact that so many people are reluctant to seek out their birth families because they’re afraid of rejection.

“A lot of adoptees I come across are like, ‘I don’t know.

Should I or shouldn’t I?’ And I put it to them like, ‘You can wonder the rest of your life:

What if? Or you can find out, good or bad, and start the healing process,” she says.

“I’ve done close to 500 searches, and I can count on one hand the times where the birth parent or adoptee or sibling said they didn’t want any contact,” she adds. “Only two were somewhat hostile.

Others were like, ‘No, I’m happy with the way my life is.’ And others were like, ‘No, I haven’t told the rest of my family, this is something I’ve got to keep hidden.’”

Even in those cases, she notes, the birth families usually are quite willing to share medical information the adoptees might need.

Cindy also admonishes adoptees not to automatically believe everything they’re told: “Find the truth out for yourself.”

Anyone who’d like some help along these lines can start with the resources listed on this page. But Cindy is more than willing to take requests for aid.

It’s what she does.

“I’ve always been one of those that, if I was putting together a jigsaw puzzle, it could be 2 in the morning and I’ve got one piece left, and it’s not in the box — I’m sweeping the floor, I’m moving the refrigerator. It’s here somewhere!” she says. “The information I need is someplace, and I’m going to find it one way or the other. It might take 15 years, but I’m going to find it.

“I don’t give up.”

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O

Serendipity: Laurie’s story

ne of Cindy Wakefield’s favorite cases involves Laurie Cooley of Glendora, California. Laurie posted her request for aid about 20 years ago on one of the websites Cindy follows, and it immediately caught her attention because the birth mother had been a longtime Hoquiam resident.

“She already had her name and wrote letters, but didn’t get a response back,” said Cindy.

She offered to copy yearbook photos at the local library so Laurie could at least see what her birth mother looked like. She also drove to Tacoma, where the woman had since moved

and had other children, and so was also able to send Laurie photos of her half-sisters.

At that point, Cindy was unable to take things any further because there was no record of who the birth father might be. He was not named on the original birth certificate, and the birth mother had declined to communicate.

“Fast-forward about 15 years,” said Cindy. “One time when Laurie visited, I told her that her birth mom had been moved into assisted living in Tacoma. I knew she didn’t want to approach her, because she knew her feelings. But I said, ‘If you’d like

to catch a glimpse of her, I’ve got a plan.’

“Well, it worked out just tremendously perfect. I had a friend I was taking care of.

She was 82, homebound, couldn’t see very well. So I said, ‘Mary, you wanna play PI for a day?’ And I told her the story, and she was like, ‘Oh, I am so in!’ And it happened that she had gone to school with the birth mother.

“So we all met up in Tacoma and took Mary in, saying she was kinda thinking about assisted living, and starting the interview process. I excused myself to go to the restroom, and ... poked my nose into the

dining room and saw (the birth mother) at one of the tables. So I went back and said, ‘Mary, you’ve got to see the view from the dining room!’

“When we get there, I’m circling this table like a wagon train, jerking my head at her for Laurie to look. She finally caught on and got to see her.

“So then we have to finish the tour. And I guess everything was meant to be — because coming back up the hallway, here comes the birth mom. And I made a comment: ‘Oh, what a beautiful blouse you’re wearing!’

I thought for sure Laurie would reach out, but she told

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WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021

me later that she was satisfied to make eye contact and finally know.”

Cindy recalls telling this story to a friend at a local baseball tournament. “I told her, ‘We’ve just got to find out who the birth father was.’

And she said, ‘I hope you do someday. That’s got to be heart-wrenching.’”

About a year later, another friend mentioned that her father’s farm, about 60 miles away, was giving away free Christmas trees. Cindy jumped on the opportunity.

During a tour of the farmhouse, she noticed a bit of Hoquiam High School memorabilia — from the same graduating class as Laurie’s birth mom.

“I thought, ‘Well, it’s worth a shot!’” said Cindy. So she asked the owner outright whether he had known Laurie’s birth mother in high

PHOTO COURTESY LAURIE COOLEY

Laurie Cooley, left, with Mary Whitehall and Cindy Wakefield on the day they visited her mother’s home. school. He said he had — and added it was sad that she’d had to give up her baby.

“You know about that?

Oh my gosh, who was the father?” Cindy recalls asking.

“Well, remember that story about me sitting next to that

gal at the baseball tournament? It was her father.”

It all comes back to serendipity, she says. “What are the odds? Someone asked if I wanted a Christmas tree, and here we are.”

Laurie’s birth mother had

never told the father about her existence, and he died about 10 years ago, so she never got to meet him. But she hopes to meet all six of the half-siblings she’s discovered.

“I was going to travel there this past summer to try to see more of them, and some cousins,” she said. “But then what I call the ‘pandammit’ happened, so I never got to go. I’m getting up there in age, and if I have the chance I’d like to meet them.”

For now, Laurie is grateful to have filled in the gaps in her family tree and her medical history.

“I now have this huge family background, which is something I never had before,” she said. “Without Cindy, seriously, I would never have gotten as far as I’ve done. She’s a gem. I’m thankful to have met her.”

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A New Story by Doug Barker Photos by Michelle Olson

Under secondgeneration family ownership, Aberdeen’s longstanding natural food store is thriving in a bright new spot downtown.

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WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021

Place for the Market W

ith its recent move into a fresh new space, the familyowned Market Place carries on its 30-year tradition of supporting a healthy community.

The natural food store started out in 1983 in the corner spot on the ground floor of the Morck Hotel in downtown Aberdeen. Around 2000, it moved into a bigger and brighter location, operating for years on East Wishkah Street just before the bridge into Aberdeen.

And this past year, it returned to the downtown core after the secondgeneration owners renovated a former bank lobby into a sleek, upscale store at Market and Broadway streets.

A few years ago, Erick and Michelle Olson took over the business his parents started; and, in spring 2020, they moved it out of its longtime location on the traffic-challenged main

drag in East Aberdeen. The plan was first announced about two years before that — and when it didn’t happen right away, a loyal customer base waited anxiously, worried about their go-to place for healthy choices.

Erick handled most of the remodeling work himself, with lots of help from their son Nate and from a neighbor. One of the reasons it took so long was that his job made him a daily commuter to the Puget Sound area for long stretches as he supervised large construction projects.

But they finally were able to relocate about the time the pandemic hit.

The new place has lots of parking and easy access from any direction. The Olsons are getting nothing but positive feedback on the store’s location, design and expanded selection.

“People say, ‘We loved your (previous) store, but it was too stressful

to get into that location,’” said Michelle, who works regular shifts in the store and handles most of the paperwork.

“The other thing they say is, ‘It feels like this is in Seattle.’”

The Olsons designed the store themselves, with suggestions from friends and peeks at Pinterest. They wanted a clean and simple look to go with the mid-century building. They would come up with an idea together and then Erick would construct it.

The store is in a well-kept neighborhood a block off the main drag and overlooking Broadway at an intersection where there was once a bank on every corner. Large windows deliver light from several directions into the main part of the store.

Erick said they had been looking to buy a building in light of pending rent increases at the East Aberdeen

Owners Erick and Michelle Olson, left, recently relocated the Market Place to the corner of Market and Broadway in downtown Aberdeen. (Page 22 photo by Steven Olson) WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021 23

I don’t know if we would have had the courage or ability to start it from the ground, but it’s such a blessing to be the secondgeneration family keeping it going.

— Michelle Olson

site. While sitting in Realtor Tom Quigg’s office one day, frustrated that nothing they were seeing would fit the bill, Erick looked across the street at the vacant bank and said, “What about that building?”

Quigg said the last he knew, it wasn’t for sale — but he checked, and the owners were interested. The deal was done soon after that.

It was a huge commitment financially. They used equity in a fixer-upper house that Erick had remodeled, but it was still going to be a strain.

As Erick was working on the store conversion, he was approached by businesses interested in the space upstairs. So, mid-project, he switched to converting the office space, which provided a source of income as they finished the store.

“Trust and faith,” said Michelle. “You take the steps, but I believe God had it all. … It just wonderfully lined up for the Market Place to continue.”

Evolution PHOTOS COURTESY ERICK OLSON

A FAMILY AFFAIR: At top, Erick Olson, right, and his son Nate construct the front counter of the new store together. At bottom is a Daily World file photo of Erick’s parents, Randy and Jackie Olson, at the opening of the East Aberdeen location in 1983.

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WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021

Erick watched his folks, Randy and Jackie Olson, build the health food store from the ground up, sometimes working day and night. In the meantime, he built a career as an ironworker on Puget Sound.

He and his wife have five children, all home-schooled

by Michelle. After the first one was born, they decided to move back from Tacoma to Grays Harbor, where they both had been raised. Erick continued to commute to work as his career thrived.

Not long after his father died about eight years ago, his mother tried to sell the business — but they didn’t own the building, so prospective buyers weren’t interested. Michelle wanted to buy the business, but Erick had seen how hard his parents worked and wasn’t sure.

One day, when it was starting to look like the operation might have to be liquidated, Erick changed his mind and they took the plunge. “We saw there was growth that could happen in the business,” he said.

Michelle was delighted.

“It was like we just climbed on (his parents’) shoulders,” she said. “I don’t know if we would have had the courage or ability to start it from the ground, but it’s such a blessing to be the secondgeneration family keeping it going. And it didn’t have to close.”

Typically, customers visited the Market Place for just a few items they couldn’t easily find at local supermarkets, such as bulk

The Market Place Location 101 N. Broadway St., Aberdeen (at Market Street) Owners Erick and Michelle Olson Phone 360-538-1521 Hours 8 a.m.-7 p.m. Mon-Fri 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun

TOP: Market Place employee Sheryl Roose places fruit on display.

RIGHT: Customers browse the coffee and tea selection.

WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021 25

A variety of natural dietary supplements line one of the bright, wide aisles at the Market Place.

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WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021

aberdeenwa.gov

grains and spices, as well as organic products. Erick envisioned a store in which people could to do all of their grocery shopping.

While they still occupied the East Aberdeen building, they added fresh produce (some grown locally), dairy and vegan products, and a wider line of healthy and organic processed food.

At the new location, they’ve expanded their selection even more.

According to the store’s website, they offer glutenfree, raw, vegan, vegetarian, allergy-free, non-GMO and organic fresh, dried, frozen, canned and packaged food options. In addition, shoppers can find vitamins, fitness supplements, crueltyfree body care products, non-toxic household cleaners, and pure pet supplies.

And you can still buy a 50-pound bag of rice or just three teaspoons of your

favorite spice.

Most of the Olsons’ nine employees have been with them for years. “The people who work there are amazing,” said Michelle.

“They are so nurturing.”

They’re also well-educated on healthy foods. Grocery manager Craig Roffler has a researcher’s deep store of knowledge in the field, and other staffers have various areas of expertise.

Longtime customers will remember that Randy loved to visit with customers.

Michelle said he named the store the Market Place because old world markets were places where people could socialize.

“To walk into the store and see Erick visiting with people like his dad used to, or to hear a customer enter the store and inquire if he’s working, is a rewarding indication that Randy’s vision for the Market Place lives on,” she said.

WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021 27

Drs. Sonnya Wilkins, left, and Corrie Hines operate Twin Harbors Wildlife Center in Montesano.

TWIN HARBORS WILDLIFE CENTER Where: 16 Old Beacon Road, Montesano (adjacent to Grays Harbor Veterinary Services) Directors: Drs. Sonnya Wilkins and Corrie Hines Phone: 360-861-4556 • Active on Facebook • Not open to the public

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WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021

The rescuers

Two vets building nonprofit wildlife rehab center in Montesano Story and photos by Kat Bryant

A

pair of Montesano veterinarians are answering the call of the wild by establishing a rehab facility for critters ranging from ducklings to bears.

Drs. Sonnya Wilkins and Corrie Hines, co-directors of the Twin Harbors Wildlife Center, are both vets and licensed wildlife rehabilitators. They set up the 501(c)3 nonprofit in 2019 to rehabilitate injured animals in Grays Harbor and Pacific counties and return them to their natural habitat.

The center is slowly being developed on a 4.5-acre campus next to their domestic animal clinic, Grays Harbor Veterinary Services, at 16 Old Beacon Road in Montesano.

Wilkins got her wildlife rehab license 10 years ago and was “doing it just a little here and there” using the vet clinic’s resources.

Two years ago, she decided to step up those efforts and hired Hines, who has been a licensed wildlife rehabilitator since 2000.

“The way the law is written right now, a veterinarian has three days to stabilize a wild animal, and then they have to turn them over to a wildlife rehabilitator,” said Wilkins. “I wanted to be able to keep them longer than the three days if I felt like it was needed.”

Also in 2018, Wilkins won a Partners in Wildlife Fellowship from the University of Minnesota. She said their goal was to get veterinarians and licensed wildlife rehabilitators working together more efficiently, and to set standards for the profession.

Her fellowship project was developing an open-source business plan for starting a medium-sized wildlife rehabilitation center — “and it just kind of dawned on me that we really need one here,” she said.

“And who better to start it than a pair of veterinarians who are also licensed wildlife rehabilitators?”

A litter of orphaned possums were among the rescuees being cared for one day in June.

At the time, she said, there was no such facility anywhere in Western Washington between the Oregon border and Lynnwood — north of Seattle. There had been one in McCleary, she said, but it closed in 2002. “They were seeing 2,000 animals a year when they closed,” said Wilkins. “So that left a huge gap.”

Hines was 100% on board as soon as her partner proposed it to her. They set up the nonprofit organization and started operations in May 2019 under the name Twin Harbors Wildlife Center.

“It’s been fabulous, because I can bring what I learned at a large center (PAWS Wildlife Center in Lynnwood) — when I was there, they were seeing close to 8,000 animals a year,” said Hines. “So we’re kind of using that as a basis, but incorporating things we like from all different centers and then adding our own spin based on what works with us.”

The pair were amazed by the local support that flooded in once they got the word out through social media.

“We put up our first Facebook post, and we immediately had thousands of callers,” said Wilkins. “When we first opened up, we had a private donor give us the

money to get our 501(c)3 and our business license, and the Quinault Indian Nation bought all of our supplies to get started.”

A

t this point, the physical operation is almost completely removed from the domestic veterinary practice. Only the initial intake room is in the same building as the clinic.

“When the animals first come in, we do triage and immediate medical work in the clinic,” said Hines. “But if they’re not an intensive care kind of case, they go right to the other buildings for the volunteers to take care of them.”

One structure serves as the “intermediate ICU,” with several small individual stalls to limit the activity of patients that require time to heal broken bones and other traumatic injuries. Another is the hub of volunteer activity, housing a plethora of small tanks and cages for small birds and baby animals. Also on the grounds are an assortment of outdoor enclosures that can accommodate everything from mice to large birds.

The center has about 50 trained volunteers, they said. Roughly half of those handle basic regular animal care,

WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021 29

such as feeding and bathing, as well as cleaning cages. The rest provide transport, help with fundraising or paperwork, and perform other services as needed.

“We’ve been so lucky with our volunteers, like Amy Bledsoe,” said Hines. “She showed up one day just on a whim, and she’s still here!”

They also are thrilled that three of their regular volunteers have begun hands-on training to become licensed rehabbers themselves.

“O

ur five-year plan is to have some paid positions and to take in some of the bigger animals,” such as bears and deer, said Wilkins.

The latter will require a fair amount of construction for appropriate enclosures.

“We hired a grant writer (this past spring) after we met her on a whale-watching trip in Hawaii,” said Wilkins. “We told her, ‘If you can write a grant to pay for your salary, we’ll hire you part-time; and as you continue to get grants, we can eventually hire you full time and maybe you can move out here. So, for now, she lives in Hawaii and writes grants for us 20 hours a week!”

Wilkins said they have a partial grant to build a raptor flight — a large enclosure where large birds can be flight-tested to ensure they can be safely returned to the wild. Currently, Twin Harbors Wildlife Center must transport rehabilitated eagles and other raptors to other facilities for such testing.

The minimum standard dimensions of a raptor flight are 20 feet in width, 16 feet in height and 100 feet in length, Wilkins noted; but they are planning to erect a round one, 60 feet in diameter, rather than a rectangle.

“We’ve got $30,000, and we need $60,000,” she said. “We have a very nice man who’s willing to front us the money to build the flight, and then we’ll apply for reimbursement through a grant.”

The center also relies on an Amazon Smiles account and community donations for ongoing expenses. Food, cash and caging materials are always appreciated.

A bald eagle whose left wing had been broken by a gunshot stayed at the wildlife center for several weeks before transferring to a larger facility where it could be flight-tested. It was kept in a stall at the center’s “intermediate ICU” to keep it from moving around too much while its wing healed. A special hood had to be used to sedate it for X-rays.

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WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021

T

he center’s capacity is constantly shifting based on caging and permits, Wilkins said. On the day this interview took place, they were caring for several orphaned baby squirrels, possums and

ducklings; an evening grosbeak that had been attacked by a cat; a juvenile Canada goose with a poorly developed foot; and a bald eagle that had suffered a gunshot wound.

“It changes every day,” she said.

They currently have only a partial permit for eagles and other raptors because they don’t yet have a raptor flight.

They also have a partial permit for certain waterfowl because they don’t have the water tanks required for long-term care.

Still, they never turn away a wild animal that needs immediate care.

“We find a solution for everything that’s brought to us,” said Wilkins. “We’ve taken a bear, a deer, otters — you name it, we’ve taken it. And if we can’t keep it here, we find a place for it to go after it’s stabilized.”

She said they work closely with Western Washington’s other rehab facilities.

For long-term care, they send otters and some other critters to PAWS in Lynnwood; raptors to West Sound Wildlife Shelter on Bainbridge Island; and deer to Center Valley Animal Rescue in Quilcene.

“We have relationships with everybody, and it works really well,” said Wilkins.

“They’re all very, very supportive.”

“O

ne of our goals for the near future is putting in an education center so we’ll have a place people can visit,” said Wilkins. “So even if they can’t go out and see the animals, we’ll have videos and pictures up.”

On her own dime, Wilkins shares her home with a collection of older macaws whose owners have either died or moved into convalescent centers where they can’t keep the birds. She also houses what she calls her budgie mafia: about 30 parakeets.

“Another thing we’re thinking about adding (at the wildlife center) is like a parakeet experience, where you can walk into a cage and have the birds fly around you,” she said. “They may not be wild animals here, but they’re wild somewhere.

So that will allow the public to have some interaction.”

Though it’s been slow going, the duo is pleased with their progress to date on their fledgling facility.

“It’s kind of a hodgepodge right now, but it’s coming together,” she said. “I think eventually it’ll be a really nice facility, and hopefully attract some tourists when we get that educational center put up.”

TOP: Sonnya Wilkins, right, and assistants work to stabilize an orphaned bear cub, one of two brothers that were treated in January 2019 and sent to an Idaho bear rescue for rehabilitation. (Courtesy photo) BOTTOM: This juvenile Canada goose was fitted with a customized plastic boot to help its deformed foot develop properly.

WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021 31

Moments from 2017’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors,” with Emma Dorsch (right, center) in the title role.

PHOTOS BY ART OESTREICH

Why I love it here I

BY IAN DORSCH

t’s the night before Thanksgiving 2017, and we’re in a mostly empty theater: six singers on a bare black stage, our accompanist at the gleaming black Steinway, my wife Joy and I watching and working together to finish blocking out the last scenes of Gian Carlo Menotti’s Christmas opera, “Amahl and the Night Visitors.”

Menotti’s score is achingly beautiful here, even with just piano and voices — the child and his mother sweetly fretting over each other before they are parted. As the last notes bloom out into the empty hall, we are all on the verge of tears.

At this moment, these singing actors are not professionals, although some of them certainly have the training and experience to follow that path.

These are our family, our friends, our former students. We are discovering this American masterpiece together on this dark Thanksgiving eve, drawing a straight line from this quiet moment back to the composer’s pen in 1951, from a rainy Grays Harbor night to New York City a lifetime ago.

My first experience with “Amahl” 32

had come about 15 years earlier, when I was hired on as the choirmaster for a semi-pro production in Mount Vernon, Washington. I had immediately fallen in love with Menotti’s playful-yet-heartfelt writing, and I’d always hoped that I would have a chance to come back to it someday. I never imagined that it would be here, in Aberdeen, directing a cast of local singers — and that they would literally be moving me to tears with their performances.

If you have spent any time at all enjoying musical or theatrical productions in Grays Harbor, you have almost certainly heard someone say it.

It’s almost a mantra at this point: “We have so much talent on the Harbor!”

And it’s true: From 7th Street Kids to the musicals at the Bishop Center for the Performing Arts, our little community puts on productions that often rival the big cities’.

This is not a coincidence. Our area has an astoundingly rich tradition of excellence in music education, community music and community theater. At least one of our musical

WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021

institutions, the Grays Harbor Symphony, goes back nearly a century to 1925, and the Grays Harbor Music Teachers Association was founded in 1946 — one of the oldest MTA chapters in Washington state.

I grew up in Aberdeen in the 1980s and 1990s — a time when Pat Wilhelms’ high school choirs were winning awards around the state, and Bob Richardson and Bob Neisinger were regularly tackling major works with the Grays Harbor Civic Choir and Symphony. Marianna and Gene Stensager were among the outstanding local educators and musical leaders teaching private lessons.

The opportunities available to young musicians were on par with those of a much larger city — opportunities created through the hard work of generations of music educators who have found the Harbor to be fertile ground, a place where a driven and passionate teacher (or, as has often been the case, a family of teachers) can put down roots and make a real difference.

This is why I love it here: It’s a

place where it’s not too crowded, where promising students can be recognized and nurtured, and where there is room to create something new and surprising. It’s a place where people aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty, where it’s about the work and the process rather than contests of individual egos. And it’s a place where the arts are accessible to and supported by people from all walks of life, not just the wealthy or highly educated.

As we stand on this stage on this 2017 Thanksgiving eve in this beautiful, still moment, we have the feeling that in some small way, we have touched something greater than ourselves. We are connected to each other and to all the singers who have come before us, walking a pathway that has been lovingly cultivated by the many extraordinary teachers, directors and musicians who have called the Harbor their home.

We are deeply thankful to have our own small part in this tradition, in this community that embraces and supports the arts — and that is so fiercely proud of its artists.

Ian Dorsch is a graduate of Aberdeen High School, Grays Harbor College and Western Washington University. He teaches voice privately and at GHC, and co-directs the Grays Harbor Opera Workshop. He also works as a test engineer and composer for media. His latest game, “Praey for the Gods,” is coming soon to Xbox and PlayStation.

KAT BRYANT / COAST

Ian Dorsch, right, at home with (from right) his wife, Joy, and their children, Emma and Sam.

WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021 33

LAST SHOT

I

A Reminder of the Past

BY LUC Y H A RT

recently traveled to Cohassett Beach and Westport to revisit old childhood haunts. I was trying to find traces of Harm’s grocery store at the intersection of Montesano and Ocean Avenue, where Harry Harm sold ice cream (two scoops for a nickel) and had a roller rink in the back turned into a dance floor on the weekend.

34

Instead, I found this wonderful barn tucked in behind the El Rancho parking lot. I don’t know its history, but I think it is a darling reminder of the past. I hope someone comes to rescue it soon.

Lucy Hart is an artist and co-editor of “Cohassett Beach Chronicles.” She now lives in Seattle.

WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021

Editor’s note: Amateur photographers are welcome to send high-resolution images depicting some element of life on the Washington Coast to be considered for the Last Shot. Please include a photo title and description, as well as a short bio and contact information. Send your submissions to editor@ washingtoncoastmagazine.com.

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WASHINGTON COAST MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021 35

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