Island Senior: a Granddaughter’s Memories of Frank Mullis
Posted July 3, 2017 at 5:57 am by Peggy Sue McRae
Belle and Frank Mullis at the Barnacle – Photo McRae Mullis Family
By Peggy Sue McRae…
The smells of summer, Nootka roses, Ocean Spray, and seaweed often trigger memories for me of childhood summers spent at the beach in my grandparents cabin. Perched on a rocky point with water on three sides the cabin was affectionately named, “The Barnacle”. Decorated with garlands of fishing floats strung by my grandmother, Belle, the doors opening up into the kitchen were raised about a foot high so you had to step over the threshold to enter. This was to keep deer from wandering in.
Like his father George Mullis, my grandfather Frank Mullis was a carpenter. While he applied his skills to a wide variety of projects, the beach cabin was where he unleashed his sense of whimsy. Built with driftwood and salvage the cabin featured a door from an old ship, windows that opened up with carved wooden latches, and a large stone fireplace. He built a round-bottomed rowboat, made us stilts, and taught us how to use them. To our delight he whittled little sailboats out of beach bark using cedar for the masts and magazine pages for sails. We set our little boats adrift on the tide watching them until they got swamped by a big wave.
As a young man Granddad worked for a pile driving operation on the Olympic Peninsula. During that time he became acquainted with the native people. I can remember him singing in the native language. I don’t remember much else but one lesson did sink in. I was about seven years old when I learned how to row. My technique for coming into the beach was to pick up as much speed as I could to run the boat as far up the beach as possible. Granddad gently corrected this tactic teaching me, that as he learned from his native friends, “your canoe is your brother” and should be treated with great care. We sure were some lucky kids.
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Categories: History, Island Senior, Lifestyle, People
6 comments:
6 comments...
Peggy Sue, this is wonderful. You ought to submit it to historylink.org for the “peoples’ history” category. I would love to see you do so for many of the members of your family.
Lovely memories Peggy Sue
Granddad Frank was a gem. Making child size wheel barrows, birdhouses, huge picnic tables and a bridge made from driftwood.
Please go on and on! You write beautifully.
What a wonderful story!!! Thank you for sharing!!
wow Peggy Sue! Thanks SO MUCH for ALL your wonderful writings submitted every week; whether talking about an off island senior trip or this grandpa story, your writing takes us right into your world, appreciation, wonder and all! Not having grown up here, nor having a really special elder in my life like this, I take every word in and so enjoy it, because it is a child’s fantasy, right? plus it reminds me how special the simplicity of the islands and its’ elders was when I moved here in the 80’s; such a treasure! thanks Pam Fry
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