Stanwood church welcomes visitors to marvel at its daffodils

STANWOOD — Clusters of daffodils are splashes of yellow on the verdant acreage around Freeborn Lutheran Church, which welcomed visitors for the third Freeborn Daffodil Festival, which was held on consecutive Saturdays starting March 12.

“It’s a fun thing,” said Kris Huston, office administrator for the church. “We’re a small congregation and it brings out a lot of people.”

About 45 people regularly attend the church. The festival draws up to 100 visitors per day.

The church, at 2304 300th St. NW, was built in 1904 and expanded in the 1960s. The original chapel was restored five year ago.

A band played upbeat Christian music while guests wandered around during the festival, admiring the chapel and a display of glass art from the Pilchuck Glass School. Outside, they snapped photos of cheerful daffodil blooms and explored the nearby botanical garden created by David Thomsen.

Thomsen, 72, goes to Freeborn Lutheran Church and is heading up several projects on the surrounding acreage, including the Pilchuck Living History Farm and Bonhoeffer Botanical Gardens. He’s working on getting conditional use permits to continue the projects.

“It’s a work in progress all the time here,” said Linda Greenleaf, who worships at the church. “Summer is really busy.”

The atmosphere in and around the church is amazing, she said. It’s welcoming and beautiful, which is what the seven volunteers in charge of the daffodil festival wanted to showcase.

Friends Anita Olson and Pat Begley came from Everett to see the flowers. Olson grew up in Arlington. The little church she went to as a kid had a young, energetic pastor who worked with other pastors in Freeborn and Silvana, so she’s familiar with Freeborn Lutheran Church. She and Begley sat for a few minutes in the chapel before viewing the daffodils outside.

“It reminds me of the little churches we used to have,” Olson said.

They came to Freeborn last year but it was winter and they didn’t see any daffodils. They plan to come back to see the flowers again in the future.

“It’s such a pretty little area,” Olson said. “And the way they fixed up the property, you don’t have to go anywhere, you can just find a bench and sit and look.”

The restored chapel has the original pews from a century ago and electric lights modeled to look like gas lamps on the walls. It’s a small, quiet space. Usually services are held out in the main room, but special occasions such as Good Friday service, weddings or memorials take place in the historic chapel.

Outside, the church shares 24 acres with a preschool, cemetery and Thomsen’s history farm and botanical gardens. Daffodils pop up all over in the spring. Thomsen scattered 400,000 bulbs around the area more than four years ago and many continue to bloom each year.

As a child, Thomsen used to go with his mom to historic homestead sites.

“Everything was all rotten away except the daffodil beds because the daffodils are still coming up,” he said.

That’s what inspired him to plant daffodils around the church. The early daffodils are blooming now but more will bloom in the coming weeks, he said.

the Beyond the daffodils, botanical gardens feature hundreds of native plants. Thomsen can point out birches, ferns, pond plants and 18 species of willow. A boardwalk winds around a marsh and kiosks have been set up with information about the plants. Pieces of glass art are on display in the marsh, perched above the water on dark, reflective pedestals.

“In 10 years, I might not be here, and in 20 years, I definitely won’t be here, but I sure hope these gardens and that old church will be,” Thomsen said.

Huston and other volunteers hope to make the daffodil festival an annual event. They’ll wait and see when the daffodils start blooming next year before setting a date. Last year, the festival was in April. This year, the flowers came up in March. They might add vendors and new activities next year, but the flowers remain the focus of the event.

“We just decided it’s so beautiful, we should really do something with the daffodils,” Huston said.

Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com.

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