EVERETT — When you turn on a faucet in Everett, you have three generations of the Colwell family to thank.
Frank Colwell started working for the water department when it was founded in 1916 and passed on the tradition to his son, Howard. This month, Howard’s son, Pat, is celebrating his 35th year with the department. That marks 100 years of Colwell family service.
"This is unique," city utilities Director Tom Thetford said. "I don’t think you can go to many organizations and find 100-year service from a family in any field."
Mayor Ray Stephanson recently gave Pat Colwell an award commemorating the century of service. Colwell’s father died in 1970 and his grandfather passed away in 1956.
Rick Osborne started planning the commemoration more than a year ago after Colwell casually told him about his family’s work history. He and several other colleagues of Colwell in the water department chipped in to pay for the award.
"To tell you the truth, I was sort of envious when he told me," Osborne said. "Not many of us get to follow in our father’s footsteps, much less our grandfather’s footsteps."
Colwell is not sure exactly what his grandfather did for the water department when he started working there, but when he died in 1956 he was a foreman who oversaw pipe-laying and maintenance work.
Colwell pointed to his grandfather in a sepia-toned photograph of him standing in a tunnel with a flashlight in 1931, rocks strewn before him. Back then, the water department sometimes used rock tunnels to carry water.
A later photograph published in The Herald in the 1950s shows Howard Colwell standing on the rim of a huge hole in his rain gear. Below, several men are gathered around a large wooden pipe.
Until the late 1960s, Everett had many wooden pipes and leaks were relatively common. Water blowing up through the soil signaled where the problem was, and workers excavated the land to get to the leak.
"They’d drive a fence post into it if the leak was big enough, or else they’d put a wooden wedge in there, and the wood would swell up from the water," Colwell said.
Colwell first joined the water department as a summer worker in 1964 — when he worked under his father. He still recalls the bloody hands he got from cutting brush by hand.
The water department offered him a full-time job in 1967, but he turned it down because he already had another offer from the Scott paper-products plant. He changed his mind the following year and returned to the water department. He’s been there ever since.
During his 35-year tenure, Pat Colwell has worked as a laborer, water quality-control operator, dispatcher, heavy-equipment driver and pump-station operator. Today he checks the city’s tanks, reservoirs and pump systems.
Colwell’s job is vital but sometimes unappreciated.
"Nobody thinks about their water until someone turns on the faucet and nothing comes out," he said. "It’s a valuable commodity, but it doesn’t get a lot of press like police and fire. But suppose there’s a fire and they turn on the hydrant and nothing comes out. Who’d they call? Us."
Colwell, 58, plans to retire by age 62.
"Unfortunately, Pat is not married and does not have kids," Thetford said. "So the tradition will die with his retirement."
Reporter David Olson: 425-339-3452 or dolson@heraldnet.com
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