Shirley Suttles passed away peacefully on Friday, Nov. 26. She was 88. Shirley Janet Smith was born March 25, 1922 in Seattle, the third child of Walker Conger Smith and Marie Beidel Smith. Her parents were both active in the labor movement. Her father was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, the editor of several labor newspapers, and the author of “The Everett Massacre” and numerous IWW pamphlets and editorials. He died in 1927, when Shirley was only five years old, leaving Marie with Shirley and her older sisters to support as a worker in a dry-cleaning plant through the Great Depression. Walker’s writings and Marie’s cheerful and stoic determination had a strong influence on Shirley’s development and choice of career as a writer.
Join San Juan Island National Historical Park staff and volunteers for the annual old-fashioned Holiday Social, tree-trimming and cookie potluck from noon to 3 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 4, at English Camp. Visitors are invited to bring holiday cookies and ornaments to hang on the tree, which will be erected in the old British Royal Marine Light Infantry barracks building — just as it was likely done in the mid-1860s when the camp was in its heyday.
The festive season is one of traditions, whether it be food, family gatherings or the chance to give back to the community. This December, Island Stage Left will bring all the classic traditions of story-telling to the Roche Harbor Pavilion. There is even the opportunity to enjoy the performance by the fireside — the pavilion’s and yours.
An artist would be hard pressed to find a creative place that is closer to nature than Danny Stough’s: At the end of an island road named for an edible mushroom, in a place with an ancient feel, amid standing cedars and cedars that have fallen and become nurse logs, a place where the soil yields surprises (like the spring that was revealed when a neighbor dug a foundation for a house).
It has been a tough financial year for many people. Your neighbors want to ease your mind a bit this holiday season. The community Thanksgiving dinners are a chance to relax, eat well, enjoy local company and not worry about the cost. They also provide a way to give back to the community through volunteerism.
Professional opera singers bring a comic farce featuring Donizetti’s highly melodious music to San Juan Community Theatre on Nov. 13. The Seattle Opera’s Young Artist Program presents “Viva la Mamma!” at 7:30 p.m. on the Whittier stage.
Penelope Haskew has lost her months. The group of children assigned to play the roles of January through December are not yet on stage. Instead, they are outside, eating snacks on a park bench. Their energy is high and excited as Haskew shoos them inside, Pop Tarts and all. “I did children’s theater as a child, and I remember it being the best of everything … I loved the way that anything you could think of, you could do … everything seemed so possible,” Haskew said. This sense of narrative possibility infuses Haskew’s new piece, “Stars Lore: A Mythological Musical,” Nov. 19-21 at San Juan Community Theatre.
Children and parents are rehearsing for the family theater production at the San Juan Community Theatre, “Stars Lore: A Mythological Musical,” Nov. 19-21. “Stars Lore,” written and directed by local Penelope Haskew, features 53 island children in grades K-6, with music from Teddy Deane, Richard Hieronymus and Ian Byington.
Joe Wheeler and Kimmie Wilson are pleased to announce the birth of their daughter, Lena Jean Wheeler. Lena was born at Skagit Valley Hospital on Oct. 13, 2010, at 7:35 a.m. She weighed 6 pounds 14 ounces and was 22 inches long.
June 9, 1970 was the centenary of the writer Charles Dickens’ death. For most, the date would mean no more than a celebration of the famous author. For six-year-old Gerald Dickens, however, it meant something more personal. Dickens is the great-great-grandson of Charles Dickens, and the centenary marked a realization of this important relationship.
Chamber Music San Juans host some special guests Nov. 7 (today): the accomplished string quartet Odeonquartet. They will play a selection of Russian pieces at the San Juan Community Theatre, beginning at 2 p.m. Fresh from a Moscow tour earlier this year, the musicians will play an array of Russian chamber music — from Pavel Karmanov’s 1997 minimalist, baroque-informed string quartet; to Glazunov’s 1892 richly-orchestrated cello quintet.
There were many wet eyes during the curtain call in the American Legion Hall, downstairs, Saturday night. Miguel Andreas Herbert’s comedy-drama “Only a Ridgeline Away,” about two Vietnam War veteran buddies who live together at the California State Veterans Home in Napa Valley, was staged at the Legion, its first test as an off-theater, on-the-road production.
Stephanie Ann Sandwith and Dallas Paul Osburn were married on Sept. 18, 2010 at the home of Joe and Janice Chaves on “Rancho San Lorenzo” in Los Alamos, Calif., at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.
