Tell Us Your Old Mission Story

I’m always telling people that everyone on the Old Mission Peninsula has a story to tell, and that I wish I could get around to everyone and tell their story. There are just so many cool stories out there.

I’ve had this idea to do a “Ride Along With Jane” series, where I take people for rides and put my phone on my dashboard and make a video of our conversation. Like Carpool Karaoke, but not as much singing. I mean, there could be singing, but the main reason for the ride would be to hear your story, upload it to the Gazette’s YouTube channel, and then publish it in the Gazette.

But that hasn’t materialized so far, and I’m not completely sure everyone wants to be on YouTube – myself included! So I’ve been procrastinating on that idea.

But … I really want to get your stories on the Gazette, so I’m inviting you to write them up and send them in. They don’t have to be long or polished — even a few paragraphs will do. Write it like you’re telling a friend over coffee. The Gazette has always been a place where neighbors talk to neighbors, and this is no different — just a chance to preserve a little piece of the Peninsula’s living memory.

Some ideas to get you started:

Maybe your great-grandparents homesteaded here when the Peninsula was mostly orchard and open sky. What’s their story?

Maybe you grew up spending summers at the family cottage on the bay, catching perch off the dock before breakfast. Tell us about it.

Describe a favorite place: the way the light falls across West Bay on an October morning, the smell of cherry blossoms in May, or the particular quiet of a winter afternoon at the lighthouse.

Tell us about an old photo tucked in a drawer or album that captures a moment on Old Mission — describe who’s in it, when it was taken, and what was happening that day. It could be a family portrait in front of a cherry harvest, a photo from a church picnic decades past, a photo from a school event in the 1960s … all of those images carry history, and they deserve to be seen.

Tell us about a cherished family recipe — the story behind it and the recipe itself.

Tell us something about the Peninsula that you wish more people knew.

And don’t feel like you have to have generations of family behind you. Maybe you moved here just a few years ago and already feel like you’ve found the place you were always meant to be. Tell us why.

To submit your story, send it to me via email, [email protected]. You can paste it into the email or attach it as a Word document. Include any photos you’d like to share — scans or good-quality photos of prints are welcome.

Old Mission has been shaped by generations of people who loved it. Help us tell their stories — and yours.

Some examples (and those of you who’ve written stories – send more!):

• Brit Eaton wrote about his near-miss at the afterlife during a sailboat excursion gone wrong.
• Jill Weisell Dike wrote about her memories of spendings summers at Neahtawanta.
• Kris Hains wrote about working at Peninsula Fruit Exchange in the 1980s.
• Tom Dalluge wrote about saving the American Chestnut tree.
• Dave Murphy wrote about an amorous swan on East Bay.
• Harry Vann Phillips wrote about forest bathing at Old Mission State Park.
• Kent Ackerman wrote about his 18 years serving the OMP as our UPS driver.
• My husband Tim wrote about his time working as a guard at the Mexican Drive-In at Bowers Harbor, his childhood growing up in Old Mission (Part 1 and Part 2), the family histories of Marty Reay and Vi Solomonson, and that time he accidentally did the Empire Hill Climb.
• Rudy Rudolph wrote about OMP native and veteran Robert Tompkins, who was killed in the USS Mount Hood explosion.
• Karen Reiser wrote about three ghostly hauntings on the Old Mission Peninsula.
• Mary Morgan, the keeper of Old Mission history stories at Peninsula Community Library, shared this mystery photo, which sparked lots of discussion.
• Jon Dayton wrote about celebrating 50 years with his wife Amy Jo.
• Barb Wunsch and Tim Carroll wrote about the Wilson family, why we don’t have billboards on the OMP, and a chance encounter in Washington D.C.
• My dad wrote about The Metropolis, the remains of the boat located off Old Mission Point.
• And of course, I’ve written about all kinds of things — our homemade raft in 1966, getting a new Arctic Cat snowmobile in 1969, my grandma’s WWI letters discovered in the back of a closet, Tim’s Grandpa Draper and his crew building Center Road in the 1940s, Tim’s and my first home at the Wunsch Condos, and lots more in Jane’s World. The photo at the top of this story is from a story I did about the history of the Old Mission Legion.

Whatever brought you to Old Mission — or kept you here — I’d love for you to share it with the Gazette community. I look forward to your stories!