By Emily Gilbert / South Whidbey Record

LANGLEY — Herbert Bacon joined the ranks of Whidbey Island’s centenarians in August.

Bacon was born Aug. 26, 1918, on a farm near Billings, Montana. He grew up helping his family on the farm during the Great Depression. He moved to Seattle in 1942 — when he joined the Navy before World War II.

He started as a hospital corpsman and later worked in pharmacy.

After the war, Bacon stayed in Seattle where he met his wife, Rachel, also known as Lila, when they were dancing one night. They married, had four kids and lived in the Wallingford neighborhood. During that time, Bacon started as a maintenance handling supervisor at Boeing and continued to work there for more than 30 years.

Bacon and his wife bought property in 1958 on Bells Beach Road in Langley while still living in Wallingford. The house was next to his older brother’s home.

“It was just a cabin back then,” Bacon said.

The family used it on weekends and for vacations. There were only about 15 families living along the beach year-round during that time. It was the family’s escape from the city and his job at Boeing. “A hideaway, you might say,” he said.

They would fish, crab and dig clams on their beach. They would also go water skiing — without wetsuits — during the summer.

One Memorial Day weekend, Bacon and his older brother were skiing together. In the time it took for him to glance back at his brother, Bacon hit a sandbar and landed on his neck.

Though in pain, Bacon took the boat out of the water, cleaned it and drove home to Wallingford before his wife took him to the hospital.

“That’s just the kind of guy he is,” daughter Carol Clark said. He broke the vertebrae in his neck and spent two weeks in the hospital.

“The doctor said it was good no one was tailgating me on my way home … would’ve been curtains for me,” Bacon said.

Bacon moved to the cabin full-time in the early 1980s and had it rebuilt. Since then, he’s been an active member of South Whidbey Lions Club and the Langley United Methodist Church.

“I’m the oldest member of the church, and I guess I’m the oldest of the club, too,” he said.

Clark said her father has helped many of his South Whidbey neighbors, mowing lawns or with other tasks. He was featured as a Hometown Hero in the South Whidbey Record in 2001 for his neighborly spirit, which he said was the result of the kindness his family received during the Great Depression.

His daughter added that Bacon is rarely ever sitting down and “always has a project he’s working on.”

This story originally appeared in the South Whidbey Record, a sibling paper of The Daily Herald.