Historians David Dilgard and Margaret Riddle haven’t officially worked together since Riddle retired last year from the Everett Public Library. Still, they’re a team. Together they’ve been recognized with the Washington State Historical Society’s highest honor.
On Saturday, they’ll be at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma to accept the society’s prestigious Robert Gray Medal for lifetime achievement. The award recognizes long-term contributions to Pacific Northwest history.
Riddle and Dilgard, who worked together at the library for more than 30 years, join a distinguished list of past recipients. They include Murray Morgan, author of “Skid Road: An Informal Portrait of Seattle”; Norman H. Clark, who wrote “Mill Town: A Social History of Everett”; University of Washington anthropologist Erna Gunther; and Walt Crowley, the former journalist who founded HistoryLink, a comprehensive state history Web site.
“We feel really honored to be following after him,” said Riddle, 67, who has written essays on Snohomish County for HistoryLink.
Dilgard, 64, is surprised to find himself in such august company. “It’s very intimidating. I admired all these people,” he said. He remembers being inspired by Morgan’s “Skid Road.”
“It was the first time I ever read local history,” he said. “Local history is valid. It has meaning. It is worthy of investigation and worthy of intellectual energy.”
For decades, the pair spent their energies gathering oral histories from elderly people in the community, partnering with the UW on digital collections, presenting local history programs, starting an inventory of historic Everett buildings and nominating some to the National Register of Historic places.
Those are the big things. Just being in the library’s Northwest Room to help people seeking information is no small thing.
“David and Margaret always stressed the importance of making material available,” said Everett Public Library Director Eileen Simmons. “Sometimes people want to preserve it, and hold it close. Their whole philosophy, from the time they began, is the more it’s out there, the more it will be used, and the more information will come back to you.”
Simmons calls the Northwest Room “kind of a community hangout.” Dilgard continues to work in the Northwest Room, where historian Melinda Van Wingen joined the staff after Riddle’s retirement.
“The commitment the library and the city have made to our local history is really remarkable in a community this size,” Simmons said. “David and Margaret have taken the resources they have been given and made them into a resource we can all be proud of. They have given us so much.”
Simmons said Dilgard is a wonderful storyteller, gathering history and passing it along. Riddle, she said, was an “early adapter” of technology. “Margaret has always been so forward-thinking about how to get the most information to the most people in the best way possible,” she said.
Among groups involved in their award nomination are the Snohomish County Historical Preservation Commission, Historic Everett, the City of Everett Historical Commission, and the League of Snohomish County Heritage Organizations.
And Robert Gray? Both winners passed my history quiz, identifying the explorer who found the Columbia River in 1792.
“Robert Gray had a momentous conversation with Captain Vancouver about whether and where the Columbia River existed. It was a major oversight of George Vancouver — yeah, right you found a giant river,” Dilgard said. “It was one conversation you wish you could eavesdrop on.”
Earlier this spring, an Everett Public Library podcast tour of the Evergreen Cemetery, narrated by Dilgard and produced by a team of librarians, received the state Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation’s 2009 State Historic Preservation Officer’s Award.
“It’s never the lottery,” Dilgard quipped.
With the Robert Gray Medal, he isn’t sure if they’ll have to share. If so, Dilgard said, “we’ll flip a coin. The winner gets the medal.”
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
