Neary-Sighted

As one of the co-founders of the Lakewood History Museum, naturally I'm being asked about the announcement that the museum may have to close. You might want to read the article first. Then here are some thoughts:

- When we started the museum, there was an assumption that a lot of people who grew up here in the 20s and 30s would donate. Certainly, some have, and we are grateful. But donations have not met expectations.

That may well be the fault of our historical society. We may not have asked as effectively as we could have. It's not from lack of energy. A committee has been working very hard to translate good feeling for the community into a museum where we can interpret the Chief Leschi and turn-of-the-century periods that were such an important time. So far, the support just hasn't been there.

- The museum does make a rent payment now for the space in the Colonial Center. Some people have questioned that expenditure since we also need to save for a permanent home. To be honest, I am a bit frustrated with people who don't like the rent payment. If I had a nickel for every time someone said to me "Oh, I bet someone will donate you a storefront/land" then we'd have our $25,000 in nickels.

What Lakewood needs is someone to actually make a donation of space in support of local heritage. As someone who screens donation requests for my company, of course I know these donations don't just happen. Again, it might be our fault for not asking correctly. But what Lakewood needs are people to donate, not people who say there must be a donor somewhere.

- The other thing that's surprised me is the lack of interest in city government and the City Council for history. Frankly, I don't blame my colleagues. They're actually being pretty logical about it. If you asked a City Council member who cares about Lakewood history, they would list three people named Walter, Becky and Glen. There are about 13,000 people who vote regularly in Lakewood elections.

If there's no sense voters care about Lakewood history, it's not going to show up on the radar.

Government goes to those who show up.

And again, I'm not blaming anyone. You could argue the historical society has not done enough to mobilize the interest that we know is out there. There are plenty of volunteers in the historical society and the Landmarks and Heritage Advisory Board who work hard, but in obscurity. I know I could have done more, but my day job has got very busy. The people fortunate enough to still be employed are all working hard. Which brings me to the final thought ...

- It's a lousy economy in which to be running any sort of nonprofit. My day job includes getting requests for support; clearly, a lot of these nonprofits have just become incredibly desperate. Nonprofits in general are suffering. Many that provide human services will sink despite crushing human needs. Surely arts and culture groups will go down first. As a member of the Pierce County allocations committee for ArtsFund, I despair for coming months. Some potential donors will have suffered horribly in the stock market alone. You will see a lot of museums reducing efforts or closing.

In other words, it ain't just a Lakewood thing. This is not the first time hard economic times have threatened arts and culture. How ironic and yet inevitable ... a museum locked into a cycle of history.
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This week's city manager report brings up two issues that will likely get a lot of attention, and a third item well worth of mention.

Traffic Impacts of Bridgeport Way Project: I'm just going to do light editing of the city manager's report: The area involved is 59th Ave SW to Steilacoom Blvd SW.

The contractor will be doing roadway excavation between Gravelly Lake Drive and Mt Tacoma for the placement of concrete curb and gutter beginning the week of March 22and lasting for two weeks. There will be excavation work for the placement of new traffic signal foundations throughout that area.

As a result, the roadway excavation and placement of curb and gutter will require 24 hour closure of the curb-side south bound lane on Bridgeport Way between Gravelly Lake Drive and Mt Tacoma Drive. Traffic also may be shifted to utilize the center turn lane during peak hours. Intermittent northbound lane closures will occur along the entire stretch from Mt Tacoma Drive to Steilacoom Boulevard.

In other words, it will be a mess. But if you remember how the light signal poles were tilting, and how dangerous it's been to walk along Bridgeport, this is good news. Please, please be patient and take your time driving.

Housing at Steilacoom and Lakewood Drive: Many folks know this as the site of one of Lakewood's early schools, and a place where there's been a lot of wildlife preservation. I think we've all hoped nothing would get built on the residentially-zoned sections there, but it is privately owned.

What that means is you may see construction soon for Oak Grove Village development, a 254-unit Oak Grove Village multi-family residential development approved for construction on the northeast corner of Lakewood Drive and Steilacoom Boulevard. Says the city manager's report: "The project will preserve the majority of the oak trees on the site, while providing the City with a new well-designed residential complex."

Do they have the right to build there? Sure, a property owner does. Should Lakewood continue to zone for high density? No. Should projects like this get tax breaks? No. I'll keep at it, but meantime I wanted you to know you might soon see construction there.

And congratulations: While we are at it, our mayor, who also has the title of Brigadier General, Doug Richardson, retired from the Army Reserve after 32 years of combined active and reserve service. I admire Doug for many reasons, his sense of duty and service one of them. I hated missing the ceremony but the work project I've been on demanded me. He received the Distinguished Service Medal and the applause and congratulations of many people at Fort Lewis ceremonies.
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So this is why I will be taking flowers to a grave in Seattle next Thursday.

They will be for the gentleman at the left there, Thomas Prosch.

At living history events, I portray Charles Prosch, a real-life guy who published a newspaper in Lakewood and Steilacoom in the 1850s and 1860s.

Living history grows into you, I think. When I become Charles, I inherit a proud family legacy. I also, for those few minutes, inherit one of his sons, Thomas.

Thomas Prosch was the founding editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

My character, Charles, is full of bluster. I get the biggest laughs from people when I brag how I will build Steilacoom into the next San Francisco. Today, we know it didn't turn out quite that way. Charles was like that. I love the man, but he drove several newspapers and a couple other businesses into the ground. That was his style.

The other laugh I get from folks is when I insist they should move to Washington because it hardly ever rains here. I'm dead serious. Charles would say that. He insisted those stories of rain were trumped up by the California press, trying to prevent people from settling in Washington.

Thomas was different. He learned from his dad what not to do in terms of business. He bought the family press out of bankruptcy and founded the Tacoma Tribune before later moving the family to Seattle.

Thanks to his foresight, they all died well off. By what I've seen in his writings, he was much more earnest and serious than his father.

Thomas was also a gutsy journalist. Example: He printed that the Seattle police chief was going to brothels.

The police chief sued Thomas for libel.

Thomas' response to the lawsuit? He printed the names of the prostitutes and the places the chief was visiting.

I admire his courage. This was a guy who had to walk seven blocks up the downtown Seattle hillside from the newspaper to get home every night.

To prepare for living history, I've spent a lot of time in various places digging up information about this family. Call me stupid and silly, but when I dress up in my wool suit I love Thomas like a son.

Years ago, Richard Talcott, of a longtime Olympia family, showed me an album that Thomas had put together for one of his daughters. She died of TB in 1912 when she was 19. It was a beautiful album, full of loving memories of the girl. There were all sorts of things in there, like letters the girl had exchanged with the wife of one of Seattle's founders, Doc Maynard.

Two people wrote deeply loving letters to the girl after her death, addressed to her afterlife, and put them in the album: Her father, Thomas, and her grandfather, Charles.

So call me stupid and silly again, but after I read the album, I took flowers to the girl's grave.

The album shows the girl's grave as quite lovely, with an angel sailing over a large marble tombstone. That's long gone. Clearly, there was vandalism. Thomas, Charles and Virginia all lay there with plain simple concrete plates covering them. But I didn't mind. Vandalism happens. I left flowers for the girl, and prayed thanks to her and her family for what they were and what they had done.

So now Thomas's newspaper is gone ... at least in the form he would have known.

I have to drive past Seattle Thursday on business. So I am going to Lakeview Cemetery a second time.

This time the flowers will be for Thomas.

I wonder what he would think. He would have seen so many papers come and go. The idea of only one or two newspapers in a town would have been foreign to him. From the broadsheets of old England, to the blogs of today, the normal state of the printing press is to have many, many voices printing in one community.

Would Thomas understand? Would he accept his paper's fate? Or was he a hard-nosed-enough businessman to find it astonishing the paper lasted as long as it did? Would he be impressed that a group of spunky folks is trying to make a go of the P-I as an online paper?

I dunno. I only know we failed his legacy. We couldn't keep his tombstone standing. We couldn't keep his little girl's tombstone standing. We couldn't keep the printed edition of his newspaper standing.

Somehow, I feel like we failed Thomas. Yet ... this is how life and history work. And I'm betting he knows it's all part of the grand cycle of history. I hope he does.

I'll think on all these things at the grave. And leave flowers shining bright for Thomas. The lesson of his life enriches me. The lesson of his life humbles me, and humbles all we strive to do.

The flowers will fade. Things do.

But the memory will survive as long as I breathe.


More information about Thomas at a UW site and at Historylink
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