Friday the 13th has always had a legend of bad luck, but this July was a very lucky day for Richard and Virginia Johnson. Or was it luck? We’ll get to that later.

In 1948, long before Normandy Park became its own city, Richard (90) and Virginia (89) purchased a beautiful plot of land – the place that they would one day settle and have six kids. However, prior to that Richard was growing up in the wilds of Minnesota and Virginia in Queen Anne, WA.

With sparkling blue eyes and a head of bouncy, silver curls, Virginia describes her summers. “I loved prowling around the Suquamish woods with the local Indian children. I had read all sorts of books about Indians and thought they’d know all about the woods and different plants. I don’t think they knew anymore than I did!”

Richard, tanned and shaded by a dapper straw hat, shared about being in the ROTC and then graduating as an Aeronautical Engineer. He served at Wright Field in Ohio and also worked at Boeing on the B-29 Program. At the same time, Virginia was training to be a nurse at the U of W. So, how did these two come together? Well, the U of W Nurses Training Program put on a dance for the visiting military. Virginia giggled, “Three of the nurses, in my group, got our husbands from that dance!” Richard, the strong silent type, just sat back and smiled.

Virginia continued, “After the war, we came back to Seattle and settled in Normandy Park. My aunt said, ‘How could you move way out in the country with four kids?!’ Back then Marine View Drive wasn’t even paved, yet, and the area called Normandy Province was called The Farm.” Richard chimed in, “For about $15 a month, you could have your horse kept there. It was about 20 acres and was owned by the School District.”

“When the horse-shoer would come, the whole community would gather ‘round to watch. One night, a horse leaped up and came down on a post. It ripped him open all the way from his lower leg up to his head! The owner hot-footed it to the vet in Five Corners, but the vet said that he didn’t work on large animals. The owner said, ‘now you do!’ and brought him to the horse, which ended up with probably a hundred stitches”, Virginia shared.

Somewhere in there they managed to have six children, Virginia went back to school and worked as a psychiatric nurse practitioner and also wrote the Normandy Park news for the Highline Times, Richard continued on at Boeing, from which he ended up retiring after 37 years, and they also found the time to help get Normandy Park incorporated into a city in 1953.

You see, prior to that, the city wanted to put a sewer plant in Normandy Park’s 20-acre area, called The Cove. That was when they joined the other locals and got busy on the phones and gathered support and volunteers. It was “do” or their wonderful area would die.

The neighborhood sounded magical and I’m not surprised that they wanted to protect it. “The kids could run all over the place. We didn’t have to worry about them”, Richard said and then Virginia added, “Mother’s didn’t work, back then, families had one car, neighbors bossed your kids around and fed them, if the parents didn’t get home by dinner time, and fed your pets when you went on vacation. In a four-block radius there were about 50 kids. I still have the old school bell that I used to call the kids back home. Mrs. McAbee, the bus driver, would ask the kids if they made their beds, then would come and have coffee, once a year, to check their beds. All our kids worked and went to college, without taking out loans”.

The Johnsons were also on the team to get one of the first private pools dug and gather funds to build a clubhouse and an impressive community center. Richard said, “It was an astonishing group effort to fulfill a vision. The younger generation is carrying it on, too.”

So, back my original comment about Friday the 13th. I don’t think that it had anything to do with luck that Richard and Virginia were honored with their own bench at The Cove. It was their hard work and heart for the community of Normandy Park that spurred their children and grandchildren on to presenting them with their memorial bench.

Come to think of it, I’ve often parked myself on a bench without giving much thought as to how it got there or to whom it might be dedicated. So, the next time we start to settle down on a bench, let’s have a look and see if it has something to say.

At The Cove, Richard and Virginia might be saying, “Welcome to our lovely neighborhood. Have a sit and rest awhile.”