Memoir tells mid-century Granite Falls life

Published 10:17 pm Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Joan Rawlins Husby will sign copies of her book, “A Logger’s Daughter: Growing up in Washington’s Woods” from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday at the Granite Falls Historical Museum, 109 E. Union St. in Granite Falls. The museum will be open during the town’s Christmas tree lighting ceremony.

Joan Rawlins Husby said real-life characters in her new book could have modeled for Norman Rockwell paintings of Americana.

The Stanwood resident captured childhood memories from the Granite Falls area in “A Logger’s Daughter: Growing up in Washington’s Woods.”

She grew up in Robe with four brothers and sisters, in the 1940s and ’50s. She wrote that it was easy to be nostalgic about the ’50s, although the Korean War was top of mind early in the decade.

“Life, in retrospect seems carefree,” she wrote. “Most kids respected authority, although as in every generation, if there was a chance to put one over on the teacher, kids did it.”

Poor Miss Easton, the typing teacher.

The book details what happened when she stepped outside the classroom.

Husby’s parents, Delbert and Marie Rawlins, grew up on hardscrabble farms in North Dakota, married during the Great Depression and were among many North Dakotans who came west for work.

Joan was born while they were on the road, with no money, in Olympia.

“Things looked desperate,” Husby said. “Then a man hired my father to cut pulpwood in the Robe Valley.”

They arrived in Robe with a cook stove tied to the bumper of an old Essex and followed an abandoned railroad grade to the pulpwood camp at the base of Green Mountain.

Delbert Rawlins built the family home for $500. They raised most of the food. The girls learned to sew. Fun time was spent exploring and hiking.

“We rode the bus about nine miles to schools in Granite Falls,” she said. “In the summer we picked berries to earn money for school clothes. When the boys were older, they worked for the Forest Service at Verlot.”

Friend Carolyn Meagher met Husby about 10 years ago at a writer’s group.

“I was impressed with her warm smile, her writing skills, her wonderful observations about life in general and her sense of fun,” Meagher said. “She’d already written and published a series of delightful children’s books.”

Husby is a meticulous researcher, Meagher said.

“Since I grew up in the same era, many of her stories took me back to my childhood,” Meagher said. “My favorite story in her book is ‘Low-Tech Fun in a Pre-Tech Age’ because it echoes many of my memories, too.”

Copies of Husby’s book may be purchased by visiting www.rainsongpress.com.

One measure of a nurturing childhood, as portrayed in the book, is that all five Rawlins children graduated from college. During her teaching career, Husby taught school in Everett, Marysville and Langley.

Her sister, Lois Drake, painted the picture on the book cover. Brother Bill Rawlins contributed to the research.

“Capturing history,” Husby said, holding her new book, “is like a treasure chest I’m holding in my hand.”

Columnist Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451 or oharran@heraldnet.com.