HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019 Issue 2 - An Immigrant's Daughter.pdfSwitchboards to
Selfies currently on
exhibit at RHM.
Board Report by
Colleen Lenahan,
Vice President.
Docent Report
by Kate Dugdale,
Public Eng. Coord.
Museum Report
by Elizabeth P.
Stewart, Director.
V olunteers for the Renton History Museum have been
collecting oral histories with notable Rentonites, from
Mayors and City officials to businesspeople to farmers
to Boeing and PACCAR workers. Today we have just over
150 taped and transcribed interviews in our collection. Every
single one of these life stories captures invaluable insights
into everyday life in Renton, as well as history-making events
and trends.
Teacher Dusalina K. Cavaletto is an example of this.The
child of Italian immigrants, Dusalina was born in Black Diamond
in 1900 and moved to Renton with her family as a ten-year-old.
After that she was a long-time Renton resident, leaving only a few
years before her death in 1988. Dusalina worked in the Renton
School District for more than 40 years, mainly as a school
librarian. Her vivid recollections at age 85 reveal life as it was in
early Renton. The interviewer was Lorraine McConaghy.
Also In This Issue...
RENTON HISTORICALSOCIETY & MUSEUM
Spring
March 2019
Volume 50
Number 2
Continued on page 5
2 4 103
AN IMMIGRANT'S DAUGHTER
QUARTERLY
Excerpts from the oral history
of Dusalina Cavaletto
2 | RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM
T he need to communicate is central to our identity as human beings, but how
has communication changed as technology continues to evolve over time?
From fountain pens to typewriters, from switchboards to smartphones, from
handwritten letters to Facebook, as our communication technology changes, so do
our messages. Exchanging ideas has never been faster or easier, but can we even
hear each other through all the noise? Switchboards to Selfies uses Renton artifacts
to explore this local, national, and global story.
From
NOVEMBER
20
to
APRIL
27
NEW RENTON COMMONS
EXHIBIT
Renton History Museum
staff had the honor in the
past few months to work
with the Low Income
Housing Institute (LIHI)
on exhibits interpreting
the Edmund E. Duff
house at the new Renton
Commons building at
215 Whitworth Ave S.
Concrete Contractor
Duff built his Arts &
Crafts house on this
site in 1930, in part to
demonstrate the beauty
and durability of this
new building material.
He died in 1939, but
CELEBRATING 50 YEARS
OF RHS NEWSLETTERS
This issue kicks off
Renton Historical
Society’s 50th year of
publishing newsletters.
The first newsletter
was published in
March 1970. At first
the newsletters simply
informed about Society
business and mentioned
new artifact donations.
Soon, though, “old-
timers” began providing
short reminiscences
that were published
alongside the nuts
and bolts information.
Those colorful stories
his wife Jane lived
there until her death in
1964. Despite LIHI’s
best efforts to have the
historic house moved,
the home was torn down
in 2018, but the history
lives on in the new
multifamily dwelling.
eventually evolved into
the lengthy, researched
articles you enjoy today.
The newsletters hold
an amazing amount of
Renton history and are
available to researchers
in our library. Do you
have a favorite?
witchboards
A Look Back At How We Connect
SS
elfiesto
Duff house, 2018
SPRING QUARTERLY, 2019 | 3
MUSEUM REPORT
QUARTERLY
Spring 2019
Elizabeth P. Stewart
Director
At the Renton History Museum, we spend a lot of
time thinking about how to serve our community.
Who is our community? Members, visitors, the
public? Students, seniors, lifelong learners? What do they—
you—want from us? What do you enjoy, and what makes
you think? To help answer all these questions, we conduct
surveys, we keep track of comments on Facebook and
reactions on Twitter, we note attendance at programs and
exhibits, and, of course, we listen when you talk to us or
email us with suggestions and questions.
Because if our work does not move you in some
way, we’re not doing our jobs. We know from surveys, for
example, that everyone who comes to the Museum is looking
for a learning experience. That’s not a surprise—going to a
museum is a great way to follow your passions. But many
of our visitors are also looking for a social experience, and
that was a surprise when we learned it. These visitors want
to have a good time with their out-of-town visitors or their
kids or their date, while sharing something that’s important to
them: a uniquely Renton sense of place.
Recently we gained an insight from a new employee
at the City of Renton. Our mini-coal mining exhibit had sat in
the lobby of City Hall for some time, featuring mining artifacts
that included a mule whip. This gentleman pointed out that
for people of color, especially those from the South, a mule
whip symbolizes slavery and human brutality—not the most
welcoming first impression of our city and not accurate in a
place where enslaved people came to escape. We removed the
exhibit and we are considering what next to put in City Hall.
What does any of this have to do with history? If
we aren’t bringing you stories that spark your curiosity and
preserving objects, photos, and oral histories that provide
new insights into the past, we’re not meeting your need to
understand Renton. Most importantly, we want to make this
city a place where every time you turn a corner, you think
about who and what was there in the past. That’s our mission:
to give you roots here through a shared knowledge of Renton.
* Follow-up to my June 2018 column about new census
questions: In January 2019 Judge Jesse M. Furman of the
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
ruled that the federal government could not proceed with
adding a citizenship question to the census, since by the
government’s own estimate it would discourage 6.5 million
people from responding to the census at all. The case will
probably go to the Supreme Court.
by Elizabeth P. Stewart,
Museum Director
Gallery survey filled out recently.
RENTON HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
Sarah Samson
Graphic Design & Layout
Karl Hurst
City of Renton Print &
Mail Services
RENTON HISTORICAL
SOCIETY BOARD
OF TRUSTEES
Laura Clawson, President
Colleen Lenahan, Vice President
Jessica Kelly, Treasurer
Antoin Johnson, Secretary
Lynne King, 2019
Betsy Prather, 2021
Denise Dhakal, 2022
Doug Brownlow, 2022
Elizabeth Stewart, Board Liaison
MUSEUM STAFF
Elizabeth P. Stewart
Museum Director
Sarah Samson
Curator of Collections &
Exhibitions
Kate Dugdale
Public Engagement
Coordinator
Nezy Tewolde
Office Aide
RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM
235 MILL AVENUE S
RENTON, WA 98057
P (425) 255-2330
F (425) 255-1570
HOURS:
Tuesday - Saturday
10:00am - 4:00pm
ADMISSION:
$5 (Adult)
$2 (Child)
Coal mining mini-exhibit
removed from City Hall.
4 | RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM
UPCOMING
EVENTS
DIAMONDS IN THE
ETHER: TUNING IN TO
NORTHWEST RADIO
HISTORY
April 4
6:00-7:00 pm
With a mixture of vintage
audio, historic images, and
expert storytelling, Feliks
Banel revisits the power of
radio in the Evergreen State
then and now, and looks ahead
to the unpredictable future of
local radio in our communities.
THE LOCKS, THE LAKE,
AND THE LOSS OF THE
BLACK RIVER
April 18
6:00-7:00 pm
David B. Williams, co-author
of Waterway: the Story of
Seattle’s Locks and Ship Canal,
will share stories about the
political shenanigans, and
far-reaching social, economic,
and environmental impacts of
the canal’s construction and
operation, particularly in Renton.
TAKE A STAND AGAINST
CYBERBULLYING
March 14
6:00-7:00 pm
Join Dr. Michelle Bennett
for a workshop for parents
and educators on the topic of
cyberbullying. Participants in
the workshop will learn tools
to recognize and evaluate
instances of cyberbullying.
VICE PRESIDENT’S
MESSAGE
T he start of a new year is always a good time to re-evaluate
where we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re headed.
For the Renton Historical Society Board, this means updating
our Strategic Plan to lay out our goals for the next five years of the
Museum’s operations.
Our previous Strategic Plan was adopted in September 2010, and
the five main strategic goals of the plan were as follows:
1. Operate a professional museum that Renton can be proud of;
2. Nurture a more diverse set of stakeholders;
3. Capture Renton stories;
4. Tell Renton stories; and
5. Create community interest.
As part of the planning process, we took a look back at what we – Board, staff, and you,
our community – have accomplished together over the last 8 years. Here are some high points:
We have come a long way on the goal of “creating community interest.” The
Museum’s temporary exhibits and their associated programs have brought in a wide array of
audiences for topics like pets, women’s history, and, most recently, the extremely timely and
relevant topic of confronting racial stereotypes. Program attendance numbers continue to grow,
and opportunities for partnerships help us bring in first-time visitors.
To capture and tell Renton stories, we have identified areas of our collection that need
bolstering, developed a Collections Plan, revitalized our oral history program, and continued
to bring Renton stories forward to the present day to make them relevant to today’s audiences.
Efforts in this area are ongoing, as we want to continue to be representative of our diverse
community and provide a venue for the community to tell their stories.
The area of “nurturing a more diverse set of stakeholders” is one that still needs our
attention going forward. As we make our plan to guide the next five years of the museum, one
of our priorities is growing a fully-staffed and diverse Board. We want to continue making
renovations and updates to our physical infrastructure to ensure that the appearance of the
building is representative of the quality of our exhibits and programs. We also want to continue
breaking down barriers that prevent members of our community from connecting with our
Renton stories, ensuring that all decisions of the Museum are guided by the principles of
diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion.
We’re setting new goals in the area of “operating a professional museum that Renton
can be proud of.” In the next five years we aim to adopt an HR policy for Museum staff, install
a new point-of-sale system, and develop a value statement to guide our work with partners.
We have continued housing and cataloging the artifacts in our care, though we are now finding
ourselves running out of storage space for our ever-growing collection.
To help us achieve these goals, we are proud to welcome two new members to the
Board in 2019: Doug Brownlow and Denise Dhakal. Doug and Denise show a passion for our
work and are excited to get started bringing their talents and expertise to board. If you would
like to help us achieve these goals over the next five years, please consider joining us!
by Colleen Lenahan,
Vice President
Colleen Lenahan
Vice President
SPRING QUARTERLY, 2019 | 5
FROM BLACK DIAMOND TO RENTON FOR THE KIDS
Lorraine: Your dad was a miner?
Dusalina: Yes.
L: Had he been an immigrant from Italy?
D: Yes, he came to this country when he was fourteen years
old, with his father. And then his father left him with an
uncle, and he went back to Italy to get the rest of the family,
and he died while he was back in Italy. So my father was
left here with his uncle in Michigan, working in the mines
there. He went from there to some mines in Colorado, and
eventually came to the Northwest.
L: Do you happen to know if the mines he worked in in
Colorado were coal mines in the southeastern corner of
the state?
D: They were coal mines, because he worked in coal mines
in Michigan. He eventually got to Washington in 1892. My
mother was married in Italy, and she came here in–let’s see.
When was the Seattle fire?
L: 1889.
D: She left Seattle the day before the big fire on her way to
Franklin. When they got to Franklin, there was a pall of
black smoke coming from Seattle. Of course there was just
one train going up in the evening and coming down in the
Continued from page 1 Cover photo:
Renton High School teachers,
1932. L-R: Katheryn Watt
(Business), Dusalina Cavaletto,
Merle French (History), and
Florence Dean (Science)
(RHM# 1985.058.10831)
AN IMMIGRANT'S DAUGHTER
Renton girls Helen Goodall, Della Anardi, Dusalina Cavaletto, and Tilda Plano, ca, 1913. (RHM# 1997.080.7929)
6 | RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM
morning, and all it was one passenger car on the end of a coal
train. So they found out the morning after there had been a big
fire in Seattle that had practically burned out the whole town.
L: And she was married in Italy?
D: Yes, and her husband went back to Italy, and he died there.
Then she married my father, in Franklin.
L: There must have been a network of sorts among the Italian
miners in the United States that they knew where to go. They
seem to have followed a kind of pipeline.
D: Well, don’t you think that all nationalities did that, more or
less?
L: Oh, yes, I do. Was it by letter, do you think, or actual
publications?
D: I don’t know, but probably a great deal of it was just by
word of mouth. They’d come into Seattle, and there were
already Italian businesses established in Seattle, and they
went out from there to the various mines–and there were lots
and lots of mines in this area at that time. There were three
big ones up in Black Diamond alone.
L: Your sixteen-year-old brother–had he been in school?
D: Oh, yes. But they had a habit–and I think it was probably
true in all mining towns–that when they graduated from the
eighth grade, and that was all the schooling we had there, the
bosses from the mine would come over and entice the boys
to work, usually in the bunkers. Not down in the mines, but
in the bunkers.
L: What would his alternatives have been if he wanted to go on
to school?
D: He would have had to leave Black Diamond–there just
wasn’t anything else beyond eight grades.
L: Did your older brother go on to high school, once you had
moved here [to Renton]?
D: No, he came down here and got a job, and then went to
business college in Seattle. That was about all he could do
since he’d been out of school for a number of years. There
wasn’t any way he could make up all that time he’d missed
and go into high school. They didn’t have much here in the
way of a high school at the time, anyway. It was just one big
room in the old Central School.
L: Going back a little, I wonder if you can tell me how you
perceived your father’s job. It interests me that he himself
continued to work here as a miner, after moving here to
Renton, after deciding it was a life he didn’t want for his son.
D: Well, he worked in the mines here, and then when these
mines closed, he went into construction. He helped to build
one of the first highways across Snoqualmie [Pass]–he was a
powder man.
L: Setting charges?
D: Yes. He wound up being almost stone deaf, which wasn’t
unusual. He liked that kind of work.
L: Did he become at all involved in the move to organize the
mines here?
D: Oh, yes. He was a member of the union.
L: Do you remember any picket lines yourself?
D: The only thing I remember about the picket lines–and you
know the mine was right over in here–we had a big slag
Miners at the Renton Coal mine, ca. 1915. Angelo Cavaletto is 4th from right. (RHM# 1970.009.0733)
SPRING QUARTERLY, 2019 | 7
dump there, and in the evenings, men would sit around
and we kids would go over and they always had bonfires.
As a child, all I got out of it was the fun, and I’m sure it
wasn’t that way. Most of the miners were working ten hours
a day for two and a half [dollars], or something like that.
Nowadays it wouldn’t even buy you shoelaces for your
shoes. But, of course, you could get a good pair of shoes for
two and a half in those days.
SCHOOL DAYS
L: How do you remember school? You were a bookish girl. Did
you enjoy it?
D: I loved school. At the end of that first semester, the seventh
grade was moved over to the new high school. So part of our
seventh year was in that room up above what was at that time
a bank, and half of it was at the high school. For the eighth
grade, we came back to Central School. Of course, they had
moved the high school people out of there, so the eighth
graders had a beautiful big room next to the principal’s office
and it was very nice.
L: Were you thinking of going on to the University?
D: No, I went to Ellensburg [Normal School]. I wanted to be
a teacher. When I went to Ellensburg, and after I taught five
years up in Ravensdale, I came to Renton at the Renton High
School. I was there for thirty-six years and I loved every day
of it. I hate to brag, but I’m going to. I don’t think there was
ever a school district anywhere that was better than Renton’s.
I was one of these fortunate people that served under three of
the finest educators we had. The first one I had was just for a
year, and then he went to Eugene, and his name was Howard
Goold. And then E. W. Campbell and Oliver Hazen. I don’t
think any district was ever as lucky as we were to have three
such fine people.
L: What year did you start teaching here?
D: In 1927.
LIFE IN ITALIAN HOMES
L: Was your home bilingual?
D: No, my mother and father both learned how to read and
write and talk English. I was very thankful for that because
when we moved here–I don’t know whether you know
enough about Renton–but up on Cedar Street there was
house after house after house occupied by Italians. We didn’t
move up onto the hill–we moved down here. And most of
the people in this block were Finnish, except one family that
lived across the street, and they were French. If they wanted
to talk to each other, they had to talk English. If my family
had moved up on Cedar Street, they probably would have
been like a lot of the old-timers up there and never learned
how to speak English.
L: I wonder if it was any kind of sacrifice for them not to
speak their native language in their own home?
D: Well, now, this is the funny part of it! My father was
Piedmontese and my mother was Genovese, and if they
spoke their own dialect, they couldn’t understand each other.
It was the funniest thing you ever heard of – really, it was.
Cast of Renton High School play " Back to the Farm," 1917. Dusalina Cavaletto is back row, 2nd from left. (RHM# 1994.068.3862)
8 | RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM
H ello all! I’ve been at the Renton
History Museum for almost five
months now, and I really enjoy
the variety of work that I get to do here.
A major part of my job is to oversee the
museum’s volunteer program. Related
to that, one of the projects that I’ve been
working on since practically my first
day is a revamp of the museum’s docent
program. For those who don’t know, a
docent is a volunteer who guides visitors
through the museum and shares learning
experiences. Our current docent corps
work hard but are few in number, which makes it hard to
fulfill every tour request that we receive. Docents contribute
significantly to our ability to serve the public, and it is one
of my goals for the museum to have a more substantial
group of active docents.
What does a docent program revamp look like?
For the first months, it was all research. One part of this
process is rewriting the museum’s current docent training
manual, which covers everything from an overview of
Renton’s history since time immemorial, to practical visitor
engagement strategies (how to ensure that tour participants
are getting the most from the experience). For example, a
lengthy chapter in the old manual covered the history and
culture of the Duwamish people. This section needed to be
updated to reflect the full story of Duwamish in Renton, as
well as the Museum’s commitment to acknowledging the
complicated and sometimes painful history of this place.
Related to that, in the new manual it is now our policy
to start each docent tour with a land acknowledgement
statement, acknowledging that the Museum stands on the
DOCENT
REPORT
by Kate Dugdale, Public
Engagement Cooridinator
ancestral land of the Duwamish people.
The new docent manual also has an expanded
section on Visitor Engagement. I included engagement
strategies that I have used throughout my almost nine years
of museum education experience. One of these is something
called Object Based Learning. People come to the museum
to see objects; objects are what set us apart from classroom
learning. One of my goals of this revamp is to compile
and expand our education collection, objects that docents
can allow visitors to handle in tours to help them learn.
Hopefully, this information can help docents relate to visitors
and present our history in an interesting and meaningful way.
After research and writing and editing, the next
step in this revamp project is recruiting new docents, and
that is where I could use your help! I am actively looking
for people who are interested in becoming a docent here at
the museum. By increasing our docent corps, we can more
easily share Renton’s stories with the public.
All you need to become a docent is a willingness
to learn about Renton’s history and an interest in sharing
that history with others. There are several benefits
to becoming a docent. Docents have the opportunity
to create their own tours working with the Public
Engagement Coordinator, giving them the freedom to
choose the story they tell. Docents also gain knowledge
about Renton’s history and important skills such as public
speaking. And of course, as a museum volunteer, docents
receive benefits such as free admission to the museum,
organized visits to other museums and locations of
interest, behind-the-scenes opportunities, and invitations
to all Thank You events for volunteers. If you or anyone
that you know is interested in this volunteer opportunity,
please contact me for more information!
Kate Dugdale
Public Engagement
Coordinator
Docents provide an invaluable service, introducing kids and adults to
Renton history.
Docents and volunteers have access to special training (and delicious
food) at volunteer events.
SPRING QUARTERLY, 2019 | 9
MEMORIAL
DONATIONS
November 11, 2018 - February 10, 2019
Ken Baker
Connie Baker
Michael Barilleaux
Carrie & Greg Bergquist
Janet Belmondo
Al & Shirley Armstrong
Cleo & Wendell Forgaard
Bob & Olive Corey
Janet Henkle
Bill Heath
Ron & Sharon Clymer
Richard Hoyt
Lori Hoyt
Tom & LoRayne Kerr
Connie Baker
Linda Knowle
Ron & Sharon Clymer
Cleo & Wendell Forgaard
Richard Warren Lucotch
Al & Shirley Armstrong
Bill Anardi & Darlene Bjornstad
Mary Jean Cooks
Nancy & Paul Duke
Cleo & Wendell Forgaard
Pam McFadden
Cleo & Wendell Forgaard
Donna Nelson
Bill Anardi & Darlene Bjornstad
Alvina Popke
Hazelle Dubois
Howard T. Townsend
Cleo & Wendell Forgaard
John Webley
Cleo & Wendell Forgaard
MEMORIAL
DONATIONS OF
$100 OR MORE
Linda Knowle
Marsha & John Nissen
Donna Nelson
Orville Nelson
Peter & Shirley Newing
Hazel Newing
Della Pistoresi
Mary Jean Cooks
MEMORIAL
DONATIONS OF
$500 OR MORE
Richard Warren Lucotch
Judith Lucotch
Elizabeth (Lil) Menzel
Margaret M. Gambill
GENERAL
DONATIONS
Don & Carmel Camerini
Ron & Sharon Clymer
Shirley Custer
Michael Dire
Diana Durman
Karren Emmons
Barbara Fujita
Janet Graham
Don & Judy Gunderson
Dan & Elizabeth Hemenway
Derric & Irma Iles
Lynne & Mike King
Bruce MacDonald
Judith Matson
Herb & Diana Postlewait
Dennis Sipila
Rachel Thomas
Carolyn & Gary Vrablick
GENERAL
DONATIONS OF
$100 OR MORE
Karen Boswell
Dorothy Finley
Kurt & Laurie Hanson
Jessica Kelly
JoAnne Matsumura
Shirley Moretti
Lynn & Ray Peretti
Sandra Polley
Rentonites, Inc.
GENERAL
DONATIONS OF
$500 OR MORE
Nancy Fairman
NEW MEMBERS
Adrienne Coppinger
Raymond & Diane Lewis
BENEFACTOR
MEMBERS
Derric & Irma Iles
PATRON
MEMBERS
Norm & Carol Abrahamson
Dan & Elizabeth Hemenway
Eleanor Boba & Alan
Humphrey
LIFE
MEMBERS
Kurt & Laurie Hanson
GIFT MEMBERSHIP
DONORS
Judy Leu
Margaret M. Gambill
UPCOMING EXHIBIT...
We are pleased to
announce our next
temporary exhibit,
Hero's Feast: Finding
Community Through
Dungeons & Dragons.
The curator is UW
Museology graduate
student Allison Moore;
this exhibit will be the
basis for her Master's
thesis. Dungeons &
Dragons, a popular
game in the 1980s,
has recently made a
resurgence in popular
culture. Allison has
already collected several
oral histories and has
made connections with
community members
to source artifacts,
photographs, and stories
for this exhibit. The
exhibit will run from
May to October.
10 | RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM
And that was true of all Italians. If they were just a few miles
apart, they couldn’t speak the same language. Queer but true,
and interesting.
WHAT IMMIGRANTS BROUGHT
D: I’ll never forget one time when we were organizing the
Retired Teachers [Association], and we had one teacher
here, her name was [Florence] Guitteau, and she got up and
made a speech, as she usually did, for she could talk a leg off
anybody. But she said, telling about Renton, “Renton didn’t
amount to anything until the Italians came here. They taught
us that it paid to plant vegetables instead of only flowers.
That was the first time Renton had ever had vegetables.” The
people from the British Isles had beautiful flowers, and that’s
all they planted in their gardens, but we raised food in our
gardens. And we had lovely, lovely flowers, too.
L: In this part of town, did people keep chickens?
D: Oh, yes! We raised practically everything we needed in
the way of food. We had fences all around, of course, at that
time. And that lot there [gesturing out the window to the
north] belonged to us, and that was occupied by a full garden.
And we had fruit trees and raspberries and strawberries
and currants and gooseberries and chickens and sometimes
rabbits. Of course, we raised all our own vegetables, and
those we could keep all winter, we did. We never bought
carrots or onions or potatoes or anything like that.
We had beautiful flowers, and a pear tree out here in
the front yard, and an apple tree in the back yard. And a great
big cherry tree. Then we had one tree of Royal Annes, but we
never got any cherries off it because they’d ripen so fast, the
robins always beat us to it. Then later on, we had peach trees
and we had wonderful peaches.
So we were perfectly happy. And during the
Depression we had plenty to eat. In the house next to that
little one there, they lived here before we moved in, and
when I was in high school, the father of the family was killed
in a mill accident up near Snoqualmie. He left a widow with
five children, and they always said they never suffered from
the Depression because they had plenty of food from our
garden. We shared with everybody.
L: You mentioned earlier that a lot of the Italians liked to
live on Cedar [Street]. Were there other ethnic “islands”
in Renton?
D: We had a lot of Finns around here, but as far as the rest of
them, I don’t know. I know there were a lot of Italians living
over where the high school was built. We were pretty spread
all over.
L: Did the Catholic Church tend to be a congregating place
for Italian folks?
D: That was everybody. There were a lot of Yugoslavs in town,
too. I remember them. But they were like the Italians, too,
spread out in lots of places. There were a lot of Italians in
North Renton, too. They moved all over. This was a close-
knit community. During the Depression it was a case of
everybody trying to help everybody else.
JAPANESE EXCLUSION
L: Mentioning the truck farming down the valley towards
Kent, who owned those?
D: I think various people owned them. One of the big owners
had a daughter who went to our high school and he lived up
on the hill. I can’t remember his name.
L: But it was too early for it to be Japanese immigrants?
D: No, but it wasn’t long before they came here. When the
Japanese were deported from here, there were lots and lots
of them that went. They had to go, of course, which was a
tragedy, and one of the great tragedies of the whole war.
L: Did they return after the war?
D: Yes, some of them have returned. But a great many of our
prize students were Japanese, and they’ve never come back.
There are several families that have come back, and they
were nice people, just awfully nice.
Miss [Gertrude] Schlauch, one of our high school
teachers, and I went over when they were loading them up
over here at the street depot. We went over to say goodbye to
some of them. We had many cry on other people’s shoulders
— it was an awfully, awfully hard thing.
L: Do you remember if there was much debate here at the time
in the newspapers or in peoples’ homes about the wisdom of
interning the Japanese?
D: Well, a good many hotheads decided they ought to get
rid of them, but the people who stopped to consider might
have figured out what would happen. When the Japanese
left, there wasn’t much going on in the valley anymore. They
were wonderful, wonderful gardeners. But I don’t wonder
that they’ve resented it all these years.
L: Did anyone try to come in and to take over those truck
farms during the war and try to operate them?
D: Yes, everybody who could grab an acre or two did it. But
there are still Japanese farmers in the valley. Some of them
have come back, but it’s not like it used to be. And, of
course, the valley isn’t the way it used to be in those days.
There were no buildings, no big warehouses–it was all just
purely agricultural. And beautiful–it was a beautiful valley.
If you are interested in volunteering for our Oral History Team,
we have positions for researchers, interviewers, and transcribers.
No experience is necessary; training is available. Please contact
Public Engagement Coordinator Kate Dugdale at 425-255-2330
or kdugdale@rentonwa.gov.
Renton High School basketball team, 1940. President Roosevelt signed
Executive Order 9066 in February 1942 and basically overnight all
the Japanese students (like Ted Nakanishi, upper left, and Hiroshi
Nakanishi, upper right) disappeared. They were first held at the
Puyallup fairgrounds before being sent out of state to places like Tule
Lake in California and Minidoka in Idaho. (RHM# 1992.084.3500)
SPRING QUARTERLY, 2019 | 11
Join us for hors d’oeuvres and activities as we celebrate another year of participation with the
Renton Historical Society and the Renton History Museum! The meeting is open to Society
members, prospective members, and museum volunteers. Introduction of new Renton Historical
Society trustees, awarding of the George and Annie Lewis Custer Award for Heritage Citizenship,
volunteer awards, and raffle drawing will all be a part of this exciting event. Reservations required.
Please RSVP by May 31. No regrets, please.
On
JUNE
5
at
6:00 PM
SAVE THE DATE! JOIN US FOR THE
RHS ANNUAL MEETING
MEMBERSHIP FORM
Please select a membership level:
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Life membership $750
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Please make checks payable to Renton Historical Society.
Please consider making a tax-deductible donation!
Your donations help us provide new exhibits and
exciting programs.
Donation: $
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Renton History Museum
235 Mill Avenue South
Renton, WA 98057
Phone: 425.255.2330
Fax: 425.255.1570
rentonhistory.org
CVV code:
Total: $
RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM
235 Mill Ave. S
Renton, WA 98057
Library in the new Renton High School, 1932. Dusalina Cavaletto worked here as the school librarian for many years.
(RHM# 41.9163)
IN HINDSIGHT...