Strawberry barreling plant tales from those who were there

You are invited to witness an event that will never happen again on Orcas Island. On Saturday, May 28 at 2 p.m. in the Olga Community Club (known to most as the Olga Energetic Club), a few long-time Orcas Islanders who witnessed the short-lived but ever-so-plentiful era of the Marshall Strawberry industry on Orcas Island will be in one place telling the tales and reliving the experiences they had in the fields and at the historic strawberry barreling plant, known as the Artworks Building.

May 24, 2016 9:37 am

You are invited to witness an event that will never happen again on Orcas Island. On Saturday, May 28 at 2 p.m. in the Olga Community Club (known to most as the Olga Energetic Club), a few long-time Orcas Islanders who witnessed the short-lived but ever-so-plentiful era of the Marshall Strawberry industry on Orcas Island will be in one place telling the tales and reliving the experiences they had in the fields and at the historic strawberry barreling plant, known as the Artworks Building.

Scheduled to be there will be Betty Jean Rodenberger Densmore, John Willis, Janet Christiansen Booth, Irene Barfoot O’Neill, Joyce Nigretto, Darlene Kent, Betty Willis Marcum and many more. We are hoping that others with stories will also come and join in as well as those who just wish to learn more about this era and the Marshall Strawberries it produced.

The event will be moderated by Clark McAbee, Director of the Orcas Island Historical Museums, and it will be incorporated into the museum’s “Hearing Orcas Voices” oral history project that preserves voices and memories of Orcas past.