The first Alki residents

By Lesley Guest

History is handed down like a baton from one relative to the next.

A child asks, before bedtime: "Mama, tell me a story about a time when you were a kid" and as the words spill forth, the fruit begins to grow and ripen on the family tree. The characters who might have just been dead folks in old photographs come alive through story. With any luck, the child hears about the positive features of the ancestors, acquiring the cadence and laughter of inspiring stories.

Two women in the Log Cabin Museum a few weeks ago told those kinds of stories about their great-grandmother, the first

West Seattle baby born of immigrants. Sisters, these two women came to West Seattle and the Log Cabin Museum to plan a family reunion.

Most of their relatives live elsewhere in the United States, and few of them know much about "Nettie" Lowe, named Amelia Antoinette by her parents Lydia and John Lowe. John and Lydia Lowe came to West Seattle in November 1851 with the first party of immigrants riding aboard the schooner Exact from Portland. As you readers probably remember, the immigrants hailed from Illinois originally. What I didn't think much about was the children of the immigrants, and how they influenced history and their families and their world, or that their living descendants could be walking around Alki and sharing stories over sandwiches and macaroni and cheese in a local bakery.

What luck, then, to meet Judy Crandall Crowson of Tacoma and her sister Holly Crandall Silver of Portland, and to chat with them at the Alki Bakery with my five year-old son SamAngelo, who already loves history.

The sisters explained how Nettie's daughter Ruth Foster, their grandmother, born in 1886, told them a few stories about her mother Nettie Lowe. The impression left was that Nettie was a very independent woman, as was Ruth, and frankly, as are the sisters planning the reunion.

"We raised our children by ourselves, without family around," Holly said. "And that's how they did it."

"Can you imagine their perseverance?" Judy mused.

We talked about the original immigrant party, and the women who carried young children with them. They arrived on the shores of what we now call Alki expecting a roofed home for a dwelling, and found instead that the builder of the roof had injured himself and the dwelling was still in construction. When the building finally came together, 24 people lived within its walls.

The land was almost impossibly clean, with luscious mountains surrounding pristine forest and bears and cougars in the midst. The party began to adapt to life in the Northwest - you readers can tell me more about how and what you've learned.

According to a descendent who wrote a family history for the Lowes, the Lowes and their five children lived in the first log cabin built by the immigrants, and right after Nettie Lowe's birth on Oct. 8, 1852, Chief Sealth moved next door with his Duwamish Tribe to their seasonal encampment.

The family indeed enjoyed clam nectar and other delicacies, which the tribe often left on the Lowe's doorstep, and in turn, the tribe would sometimes borrow the clothes hanging on the clothesline, until John Lowe talked to Chief Sealth, who always had the clothes returned.

The young baby fascinated the tribe. They called her "Cranberry Toes" because they though her little toes looked like the wild cranberries growing in the local bogs. Her family named her Amelia Antoinette, which "everyone thought was a lovely name except for the baby herself, who changed it to 'Nettie' as soon as she was old enough to comprehend," says the family history.

Family history also says that one day an Indian came in and took a ham right from Lydia Lowe's wall. She did not want to lose that ham, and she wheeled around and smashed the Indian in the head with a paddle from the hot mush she'd been cooking. He ran away, and she sat down and began to cry, worried that she'd started a conflict. Her husband felt differently, however. He took his gun and found the Indian and asked him to never return, a request which was honored.

About 18 months after the Alki Point landing, the Lowes sold their claim on Alki along with the cabin and moved the family to Chambers Prairie, near Chehalis, where John could herd cattle as he had in Illinois. Lydia and John Lowe would lose two children to illness, and four more children came after Nettie. Lydia Lowe grew tired of the rainy climate, mourning her dead children.

"These women endured so much," Judy says. "When I think of what they endured, it makes light of my own problems."

Judy seems to possess a real appreciation for her ancestors - and it's that kind of respect she might well inspire within her relatives when they journey to Seattle for the family reunion this summer. The family will probably dine at the Homestead restaurant, a place good for grown-ups and the youngsters in the clan, and the family will enjoy the history in the Log Cabin Museum and tour the monuments.

Judy talks about the quilt in the Log Cabin Museum, which is compiled of many different scraps of clothing.

"They're quite functional, but with all these different pieces from different blankets and articles of clothing, they are also preserving memories."

Judy feels the immigrant party had what she calls "wanderlust." And indeed, Nettie's husband, George Foster, recognized that in her.

"When she became restless ... he would arrange a trip somewhere. During the 1880s, she made three trips to California by steamer, besides several to Tacoma and Snohomish. And she would take the children and go camping every summer and be at the beach for a couple of weeks. She showed her children how to dig clams and cook them, pick wild berries and above all to build big bonfires by the beach," says the family history.

Nettie grew up playing with her siblings on the beaches and within the trees and in a natural setting with virgin

Forest, pristine streams and breath-giving views of the mountains. For picnics, the family trekked to the beach for clams, oysters and crabs.

The kids once met a cougar on a path home from school, and sang "Onward Christian Soldiers" at the top of their lungs as they walked home; their father and a friend tracked the animal down and killed it.

Birthdays were ignored, and celebrations were rare. Christmas time was honored with a little fir tree strung with popcorn, cranberries and small red snow apples. Nettie once received a candy rooster, which lasted until a little brother named John came and bit off its head. Years later, Nettie's daughter Ruth hung a candy rooster on their Christmas tree in remembrance of the one who'd lost its head.

Lesley Guest may be contacted via wseditor@robinsonnews.com