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Whidbey Xtra! WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2015 | Vol. 1, No. 26 | WWW.WHIDBEYNEWSTIMES.COM | FREE
New DVD chronicles life of Central Whidbey settler By RON NEWBERRY
rnewberry@whidbeynewsgroup.com
Nearly every day, Dave Engle steps back in time. The journey takes several steps, actually. He travels by foot from the small house he shares with his wife Dolores on Ebey’s Prairie. He walks across his property, through the trees and under a mighty horse chestnut tree to reach the front porch of a grand old place where he, his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents once called home. “That’s the same door that’s been there for years and years and years and years,” he says as he takes the final steps to the entrance. Engle unlocks the door and allows filtered light to shine on history. Inside the 19th Century Victorian home is a wooden staircase and faded wallpaper that dates back generations. Immediately noticeable on the wall at the end of the entryway, are two framed photographs of Engle’s great-grandparents -— early Coupeville pioneers Flora Augusta Pearson Engle and William B. Engle. “That desk over there, that’s Toppy’s,” Engle said, sharing his great-grandmother’s affectionate family nickname. “That’s where she did most of her writing.” Flora Augusta Pearson Engle often sat at that antique desk, but throughout her busy life she rarely sat still. She was a prolific writer, using a pen to both record history and push for change in a bustling, young frontier town. And she wasn’t shy about voicing her views and organizing efforts to bring improvements to her community. “Flora was a mover and shaker,” said Rick
Photo by Ron Newberry/Whidbey News-Times
A new film by the Island County Historical Museum chronicles the life of Dave Engle’s greatgrandmother Flora Engle. Castellano, executive director of the Island County Museum. “She’s responsible for the first board sidewalks in Coupeville. She got tired of having mud on the hems of her dresses. “She helped spearhead an effort to restore the Davis Blockhouse.” Castellano spent more than a year working with a video production company to bring to life the words found in Flora Engle’s vivid writings. The result is a 42-minute DVD produced by the museum and Reel Life Videos titled, “The
XTRA SPECIAL!
Life and Times of Flora Augusta Pearson Engle.” The DVD sells for $21.99 plus tax with the proceeds benefiting the museum. It is the second DVD the museum has made with the same production company, following the award-winning video about Sunnyside Cemetery in 2013. “The challenging part was to try to tell a meaningful story about her in 42 minutes,” Castellano said. “It was impossible. “What we decided to do was to broaden it out more and make it more about her life and
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times.” The times were the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Flora Engle arrived in Coupeville in 1866 at the age of 15 after a fourth-month trip by steamship from New York “around the horn” of South America to San Francisco and ultimately to what was then Washington Territory. She was part of the second Mercer expedition known as the “Mercer Belles” that traveled from New England to the Pacific Northwest in an effort to bring educated young women to teach and to balance the gender ratio in the young frontier region. She made the trip along with her mother Susan Brown Pearson and her brother, Daniel Orlando Pearson, following the first expedition of “Mercer Girls” two years earlier that included her two older sisters Georgianna and Josephine Pearson and their father Daniel Pearson. The Mercer expeditions were organized by Asa Mercer, the first president of the University of Washington. His expeditions inspired the television series, “Here Come the Brides,” which aired from 1968-70. In 1876, 10 years after her arrival, Flora Engle married William Ballinger Engle, a successful farmer who had come to Whidbey Island in 1852 aboard a ship captained by Thomas Coupe, the town’s founder. “She knew a lot of the early settlers —Captain Coupe and his wife and the Crocketts,” Castellano said. “They were friends with all of those people. She was a very prolific writer. She wasn’t a trained historian but what she wrote down really gives us a vivid picture of what was going on back then.” SEE ENGLE, PAGE 3