 |
| Year unknown. Found in the Kelly-Gailey Lineage Book. |
Over the weekend I made a trip here without much hope of finding anything of interest (or relevance) in my search for information on the house.
But, let me say, the amazing people who volunteer at the Bainbridge Historical Museum were so kind and do a great job in preserving the history of the Island.
I was led to a room full of books and file cabinets and given access to everything. I was happy to find one slim file called "Yeomalt Beach Community" and sat down at the long tables and began to sort through the modest collection of maps/articles. Included in the folder was also a group of oral histories written by the name of a person I didn't recognize,
and yet,
the stories seemed familiar about life on the beach in the 1920/30's and I put them aside while I sifted through the other photocopies.
It took a few minutes before I noticed a penciled comment at the top of each photocopy of the oral histories that read,
"Received from John Gailey-Doe" (not real name, but Gailey is)
As in, the son of Eileen Gailey?
Hurray!
I have no idea who the woman is that wrote the stories (but I'm going to find out) and I spent over an hour photo copying everything and began reading them on the ferry as I returned to Seattle on Sunday. They are random stories of life on the beach in the 1920 and 1930's along with a few other from another person who had information dating back to 1905. When held up against a vast amount of photos we received from the "Doe" Family a few years ago, this adds more pieces to putting together the puzzle of the history of the house. I still don't know what year the house was built and that's my current mission.
My hero at the Historical Society then asked me John Doe's name and within minutes unearthed a document I will only describe as potentially "Mecca" that dated back to 1896.
I held my breath as a volunteer went into the archives and moments later handed me a package of documents that potentially contained early purchase documents.
to be continued......
