Potluck to honor MI volunteer emergency responders

Potluck to honor MI volunteer emergency responders

March 6th in Camp Hoskins at Fort Flagler

Marrowstone Island residents are invited to bring a dish to share and honor all the active and retired FF/EMTs and those who supported them.

The event will begin at 4 PM.

Please place your potluck dish on the designated tables and find a place to sit, leaving your table service to reserve your spot. Then go to check the "Memory Timeline" table and write down or draw your memories or attach copies of any photos or momentos you have brought.

Prior to eating at about 5 PM, there will be some welcoming remarks.

After eating, there will be a short program followed by an invitation to islanders to share memories.

Feel free, at any time, to add your memories to the Timeline, and check out the items others have brought.

Ann Welch and Karen Russell will video tape the event. Ann and Karen are encouraging everyone to step forward with personal memories and talk about their experiences as a volunteer, EMT, or a recipient of the Marrowstone Island ambulance services. We will have all of the reminiscences on tape for posterity, and stored at the Jefferson County Historical Society Research Center. It will be a special moment in time preserved for future residents of the island who might like to see how our community spirit made this island special.

We hope you can come to make this a special event to honor our Island volunteers.

Suggested distribution of potluck courses based upon the first letter of your last name (subject to change)

A - B Appetizers

C - H Desserts

I - M Salads

N –U Entrees

V -Z Vegetables

Please bring your own table settings and beverages. You may bring wine for yourself. Coffee will be provided.

Information about honorees and events

We wish to collect some information about the emergency services volunteers we will be honoring on March 6th and any events associated with them and emergency services.

The list of names and information we have collected so far from people responding to requests I've posted on the Island Net, and from MEMS records is in this file -http://lifeworkps.com/HPH/MI/Potluck/List-of-MI-FF-EMT.pdf

We hope you will review it and send me Pete Hubbard any updates, changes or additions you can think of.

In particular. Might you know the following?

    1. When was the fire station and the ambulance were built? Who built them?

    2. When was the first fire truck or ambulance purchased?

    3. Other notable events

The Timeline

We're planning to have a "Memory Timeline" at the March 6th potluck to reminisce about events and islanders who volunteered over the past 30+ years to support and be our island emergency responders. The Timeline will be a long (about 15') piece of butcher paper spread across 4-5 tables. Pens, pencils, crayons and scotch tape will be available for you to use to write down or draw or attach photos to the paper. We hope you will encourage others to do the same.

We'll "seed” the Timeline with some of the information from the http://lifeworkps.com/HPH/MI/Potluck/List-of-MI-FF-EMT.pdf file. This may make it easier for you to recall something about that person or event that you might want to write or draw on the Timeline to share with others.

Please consider doing the following:

    1. If you have been helped by a Fire Fighter or EMT, begin now to work on a list of things you want to record on the Timeline - saying what happened and what kind of help you received. (You might also add a 'thanks'.)

    2. Make copies of any pictures you may have, so you can tape them to the Timeline. Marge Illman said she will bring copies of the photoes of the designs she made for the sweatshirts. .

    3. Think about what we can do with the Timeline after the party is over.

    4. Tell your neighbors who may not be on the Island Net about this event and ask them to help you with names and dates.

    5. Contact me (email to Pete Hubbard, or 385-0105) if you (or anyone you talk with) wants to help with the planning of this event.

Dress and memorabelia

It would be fun for everyone who has them, to wear your Marrowstone Island sweatshirts, hats, or any uniforms you may have (ex: old MEMS blue jump suits, orange jackets or current volunteers' shirts.).

If you have memorabelia about any aspect of emergency services on Marrowstone, please bring it and place it on the separate memorabelia table next to the Timeline tables.

    1. Sandy Barrett will be bringing this wooden placque made by Ted Buckland.

    2. John Illman will be bringing a baseball cap that was given to him and other volunteers two years before MEMS was absorbed by District 11.

    3. Laurie Tillman has kept a scrapbook of MEMS. She'll display it on the table.

    4. Let me (email to Pete Hubbard, or 385-0105) know what you will be bringing to the event so I can add it to this list.

Inventory

There may come a time in the future when someone will want to do more research about emergency services on the island. We produced a lot of products for the potluck and learned where resources were being stored. Below is a listing of thelocation of those objects. Let me know if I missed anything.

    1. Pete Hubbard has ...

        1. Approx. 20-30' of extra butcher paper.

        2. Three (3) 2' x 3' signs.

    2. Steve Burns has a PPT (PowerPoint) slideshow with pictures and articles. Jefferson County Historical Center may get a copy of it.

    3. Sandy Barrett has ...

        1. 18 foot butcher paper Timeline containing pictures, articles and personal notes from 1975 thru 2010;

        2. "Thank You Volunteers" poster with several pictures.

        3. Two posters of lists of volunteers with some pictures.

        4. Laurie Tillman's MEMS scrapbook.

    1. MEMS building.file cabinet

        1. MEMS minutes

        2. Wooden placque (above) made by Ted Buckland.

    1. The large 4' x 6' MEMS sign is in the fire station building.

    2. Misc

Stories

Laurie Tillman sent me this email today 3/9/10 -

Thanks for your references.

The building was built in 1983 ..... I believe that Rod Lovegren framed it but not sure.....note to myself, ask Les Hunt.

The interior was completed by Bud Burns and Les Hunt. I do not know how much of the actual construction they were involved with.

Both of them continued to fix things as needed such as leaks in the plumbing.

We should get a copy of the dates Chuck Boggs read because there are dates that would be useful to us. For example, I do not remember clearly about turning over an amb. to them in the 80's.... can't remember what one it was or what we did for our second one. So intended to pursue this with him to figure it out.

Russ and I were approved by the board to purchase an ambulance we read was available in Bakersfield and flew down with intent of driving it home. Russ was quite savy regarding mechanics and equipment and when we looked it over, felt like it had been mis=represented. They were very upset when we walked away from it. Of course it made a problem that we no longer had transportation home, having purchased one way tickets based upon buying this vehicle. So we did a little shopping and bought a little Ford product whose name I do not remember. It was 107 degrees that I remember and the air conditioner (which it had) did not work and of course that was after paying and driving it away.

We drove north on old 99 and we alway will remember the odors from the fields as we went along..... all the crop smells... because we had windows all the way down. Grapes and every other imaginable thing that grows in that central valley.....

So we returned to the house in Auburn WA we still owned although living in the mobile home on Marrowstone. Russ picked up the ads the day after we returned and found a Ford amb. right there in town. He checked it out and that turned out to be the one we bought and used. First we took it to a dealer in Burien who re-engined it.

We have pictures in the scrapbook when we 'moved' into it - in front of our 'new' building. This was a very big deal, a new building and a new ambulance. Mike Zehren from Chimacum came over and helped us figure out stocking the interior of it. So I will guess that is about 1986. We sold our Auburn house in '87 - that's the only way I remember that. I don't remember who built the cabinets in the building but I'm sure it wasn't Les or Bud. It was great to have a place for supplies, those that needed shelf space as well as a place to put O2 bottles etc. We had definitely moved beyond Jeanne and Lisa's place by then, besides Jeanne had dropped out several years earlier.

Sometime during those early years, the Garden Club took on the task of landscaping the front. Jim Humphrey donated the rhodies from his place.... I think he might have started them (Pink Pearl) from cuttings but unsure. The huckleberry was put in on th enorth figuring it would stay small enough for the windows and the south side was planned out by Betty Werschkull (in Garden Club) and she liked berms. So we ended up with the bed to the south that no one wanted to take care of or at least not after the first couple of years. Mowing was an added problem and finally the fire dept. decided to keep it mowed when they came over to mow their place.

Some of the interesting tidbits that I had to deal with was the stuff Jeanne had begged off of other districts. Included were such items as old military surplus bandages. I even still have a couple of those packages. As we built a better financial base, I was able to upgrade most of our equipment and the board was really supportive when I asked for things. One thing we bought and used was called a 'stair chair' made to fold, smaller sized wheels and could move a patient down stairs or out of narrow hallways. It was not used extensively but enough that it paid for itself.

The funds by this time were coming in not only from the transports we made but from tax dollars. Chimacum was annoyed to have to pay it to us.

If I remember right, it was about 1/5th of the total revenue they collected. Marrowstone was part of their district and someone on our board got this info from the assessor's office. So at that point, we began to have money to actual function with proper equipment.

Guess any thing else will wait for another day. That is enough for now Pete but it might have some value. Memory not being as good as once it was, I may have some stuff wrong. And Les is still available to double check on things. He did a really big job for us. Oh, that reminds me. Earl Butts was our maintenance man for the vehicles in the early days. Earl was a Fire Commissioner and very dedicated to the island. Nice man. I think Russ looked after them some but don't remember who else.

Laurie

http://lifeworkps.com/HPH/MI/Potluck/Main.htm