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What's Cookin'?
Marlene rem(00mbers root
By REBECCA WELLS
Marlene Echaniz wears her
Scandinavian ancestry with pride.
Evidence of this is the fact that she
even answered the door for her in-
terview with The Journal decked
out in an ornate, traditional Nor-
wegian costume. Her great-grand-
parents on both sides of her family
immigrated to the United States
from Norway.
Just two years ago she and
her sister traveled to their great-
grandparents' homeland, visiting
the historic farming communities
they came from in hilly, central
Norway. "It was really pretty,"
Marlene recalls.
Still, observing the region's
steep terrain, she could tell the
area wasn't well-suited to produc-
tive farming. "I can understand
why they left Norway at the time,"
she considers.
Since then, the land has turned
into mostly a vacation spot. She
recalls that in those days the first-
born children inherited ownership
of family land in Norwegian soci-
ety and so younger siblings didn't
have much choice but to move on
to a place where they could have
their own property, such as Amer-
ica.
SINCE THEN, the country has
become very wealthy and most
people enjoy a very nice standard
of living. In fact, the Norwegian
economy appears do be doing so
well, the currency exchange rate
is expensive over there compared
to in America and they calculat-
ed the price of gasoline to be the
equivalent of more than $5 per
gallon over there.
"It wasn't that way in the late
1800s, early 1900s," Marlene
notes.
This fall it was her husband
Leo's turn to explore his ances-
try and so the couple traveled to
Spain. Both of Leo's parents emi-
grated from the Basque area of
Spain. During theil" trip to Spain,
Leo and Marlene also celebrated
their 50th wedding anniversary.
"We tried to talk to people; some
people spoke English," Marlene
recalls of their experience in
Spain. At one point, Leo was out
on a dock and a group of men were
excitedly rattling off in a Basque
dialect to Leo, who couldn't under-
stand what they were saying.
Despite their close ethnic ties,
neither Marlene or Leo learned to
speak Norwegian or Spanish from
their parents. The strongest cul-
tural influence both of their fami-
lies tended to pass down to them
was in some of thei traditional
cuisine.
MARLENE'S mother made
Scandinavian pastries and lefse, a
fiat potatobread. She also used to
occasionally make lutefisk, a white
fish cured in lye, but this fish dish
has since fallen out of popularity
in their family. "We don't fix lute-
risk, nobody will eat it," Marlene
explains.
During Leo's childhood, his
mother would traditionally srve
bacalao, or salted cod, at Christ-
mas. Other than these fbod facts,
they didn't know much more about
their cultural heritages but that's
no longer the case with Marlene.
About 10 years ago, or around the
same time she and Leo moved to
their retirement home on Harstine
Island, she saw Scandinavian arts
and crafts exhibited at a festival
hosted at Pacific Lutheran Uni-
versity. Inspired by what she saw,
she began studying r6semaling, a
delicate floral painting style, and
hardanger, a kind of lacy needle-
work.
These arts, she said, "kind of
fell out of popularity for a number
of years."
A few decades ago she had ini-
tially been interested in hardan-
ger and had bought a book to teach
herself the technique in order to
DISPLAYING SOME OF the Scandinavian crafts she has
made at home is Marlene Echaniz with her husband, Leo.
sew an apron with that particular
style. But soon she flt intimidat-
ed by the craft's complexity and
dropped the attempt.
YEARS LATER, she now not
only has an apron adorned with
the dainty hardanger pattern but
she also has a complete Norwe-
gian bunal, a traditional gown
complete with white blouse, plaid
apron and the appropriate jew-
elry and accessories. Each region
in Norway boasts its own unique
patterns and styles of'cl(:)thing and
crafts.
Among the souvenirs Marlene
brought back with her from Nor-
way were traditional Norwegian
fabrics and brocade, which she
used to make her Norwegian out-
fit. "I wore it for one of our lunches
at the community hall and every-
one was horrified. They said 'You
can't wear that to wait tables.
(You'll) get it dirty.' I said, 'It's cot-
ton, it'll wash,' " she recalls.
Her own costume is faithfully
close to what her ancestors would
have worn in the area they came
from before emigrating to Amer-
ica. Marlene also brought back
an authentic Norwegian sweater,
featuring colorthl, intricately knit-
ted patterns and ornate silver but-
tons.
These days she also belongs to
the Western RSsemalers, who meet
at a Scandinavian museum in Bal-
lard and invite proficient instruc-
tors to lead workshops in different
styles of painting. She also studies
rSsemaling with an instructor at
Sons of Norway in Bremerton.
LAST FEBRUARY, she dis-
played some of her r6semaling and
hardanger work at the William G.
Reed Public Library in Shelton.
Marlene has also displayed and
demonstrated her handiwork at the
annual Apple Squeeze on Harstine
Island. She also sells pieces at the
Biggest, Brightest Wood Flame
I I III II I I II I
Breckwell's
"Luxury"P2000
our op o t the hnc peflet slov( enhcmce.s
/out hOltle wth t)r¢ill woo(] lllrrles, (]ncl
modem sf yhu K /he [(lr}:le c er( tmJc: )'Jc/5' (],')r)€
showccses o h90 de?/,.!e [re [dh,(I purlnr(lm(!
• 16 Heat Exchange Tubes
• 80% Steady Sate Effi(iency
° 50,000 BTU
The l=me For Seasont"
Im/IEIPLACE 8HOPSw INC.
N0) 779-30$E 19410 Viking Ave.NW. Pou|sbo (Across from Poulsbo RV)
3801377-6655 ,o9o w. st,wy. 16. s,,rto. (At Gorst o, W,¢,d,)
206) 842"9356 www.herit.gehreplaceshop.com
Paae 16 - Shelton-Mason Countv Journal - Thursday, January 11, 2007
annual Harstine Island Holiday
House Bazaar, though sometimes
she becomes attached to her work
and has trouble parting with it.
Belonging to Vesterheim, a
genealogical society in Iowa spe-
cializing in tracing Norwegian
ancestry, helped her research
her roots and find out where her
great-grandparents had lived in
Norway.
Since their retirement, she has
also been putting down roots on
Harstine Island by participating
in a number of community organi-
zations. Marlene served as secre-
tary and treasurer of)l! Harstine
Island Community Club for four
years before switching to take part
in the Harstine Island Women's
Club.
She has since served as the
women's club secretary for four
years, club vice president tbr one
year and now she's in her second
year as club president. Besides
this organization, she also consid-
ers her involvement in a local Take
Off Pounds Sensibly - or TOPS
- as another a social group.
ORIGINALLY, THE couple
bought the property they now live
on in 1981 and used it just for
camping trips for the first 15 years.
"All of a sudden we said, 'What are
we going home for? Let's just stay
here,'" Marlene remembers.
Right after retiring but before
settling into their home on Har-
stine, the couple took advantage of
their free time to travel by visiting
Europe, Alaska, Australia, New
Zealand, the Cook Islands and Ha-
waii. They also spent six months
driving around the entire United
States. Marlene and her sister
plan to visit England in a couple
of years.
Previously, Leo and Marlene
had worked together in a construc-
tion business. He built houses and
Marlene helped him by taking
care of bookkeeping, designs and
purchases. "I was a jack-of-all-
trades," she says.
In the case of persons who were
interested in building custom
homes she would take their clients
shopping with her and help them
select the fixtures, colors and
home accessories of their choice.
In the case of a home they built in
the hopes of finding a buyer after
it was complete, she picked out ev-
erything herself.
AT TItAT TIME they lived in
the Renton and Seattle area, where
their three children, five grand-
children and one great-grandchild
still reside. For a while, Marlene
also enjoyed working with stained
glass. While she doesn't practice
the art much anymore, she did
create the stained glass work in
their bathroom window.
Leo is a former U.S. Navy sea-
man who finds that retirement
has given him time to devote to his
maritime hobbies. At first he vis-
ited a number of maritime muse-
ums and thought about model ship
building. He quickly decided the
complicated rigging was too much
work for him, so he then choose to
build remote-controlled tugboats
after seeing them displayed at
OysterFest. Now he and his fellow
tugboat pals show off their hand-
made toy sea craft at festivals in
Shelton, Olympia and Tacoma.
Leo has constructed 16 tug-
boats, cranes, rafts, a barge, fish-
ing vessels, a scale-model replica
of the ship he sailed on while serv-
ing in the U.S. Navy and a long
ship of the kind the Vikings built.
Not content with the building
of boats, he and Marlene
forces to construct a doll
(Please turn to page 17.)
by Blaine & Linda
MARBLE FLOORS
No flooring material makes a more
elegant statement than marble. This
natural stone is the product of
tallization of limestone under hi,
temperatures and enormous
within the earth. It has
an incredible rebound in
over the past few years, not that
ever went away, Marble has been
symbol of affluence for centuries,
day, homeowners are utilizing its claS"
sic looks to increase the luxurious fed
of bathrooms and the "wow factor" in
foyers. While marble is rather
relative to other stones, the
sional application of a sealer
out stains. Marble floors in
should be sealed every 12-18 monthS,
Marble used in bathrooms and kitch"
ens should be cleaned and resealed,
every 9-12 months.
There are so many
choices available today in flooring
designs. Before making a final deci-
sion, one that will remain with you
for many years to come, be sure to
discuss the options with someor
with a reputation for knowledge,
creativity, and quality resources.
Here at SHELTON FLOOR COVER"
ING, we hope you'll give us the
portunity to do what we do
- help you find the ideas and
ucts that will transform your homo
into the one you've been drearY"
ing of for years. It easier than
think and begins with a call
427-2822, ! 306 Olympic Hwy
HINT: Tumbled marble
vides a finish with an aged look.
Still Available
at the Mason County
Historical Society Museum
at Fifth and Railroad
Michael Fredson's Short History of
Michael Fredson's
Short History
of Mason County
Written on the occasion
of the county's 150th anniversary
(With 24 photographs)
$2 at the museum
$3 by mall:
Mason County Historical Society
P.O. Box 1366
Shelton, WA 98584
What's Cookin'?
Marlene rem(00mbers root
By REBECCA WELLS
Marlene Echaniz wears her
Scandinavian ancestry with pride.
Evidence of this is the fact that she
even answered the door for her in-
terview with The Journal decked
out in an ornate, traditional Nor-
wegian costume. Her great-grand-
parents on both sides of her family
immigrated to the United States
from Norway.
Just two years ago she and
her sister traveled to their great-
grandparents' homeland, visiting
the historic farming communities
they came from in hilly, central
Norway. "It was really pretty,"
Marlene recalls.
Still, observing the region's
steep terrain, she could tell the
area wasn't well-suited to produc-
tive farming. "I can understand
why they left Norway at the time,"
she considers.
Since then, the land has turned
into mostly a vacation spot. She
recalls that in those days the first-
born children inherited ownership
of family land in Norwegian soci-
ety and so younger siblings didn't
have much choice but to move on
to a place where they could have
their own property, such as Amer-
ica.
SINCE THEN, the country has
become very wealthy and most
people enjoy a very nice standard
of living. In fact, the Norwegian
economy appears do be doing so
well, the currency exchange rate
is expensive over there compared
to in America and they calculat-
ed the price of gasoline to be the
equivalent of more than $5 per
gallon over there.
"It wasn't that way in the late
1800s, early 1900s," Marlene
notes.
This fall it was her husband
Leo's turn to explore his ances-
try and so the couple traveled to
Spain. Both of Leo's parents emi-
grated from the Basque area of
Spain. During theil" trip to Spain,
Leo and Marlene also celebrated
their 50th wedding anniversary.
"We tried to talk to people; some
people spoke English," Marlene
recalls of their experience in
Spain. At one point, Leo was out
on a dock and a group of men were
excitedly rattling off in a Basque
dialect to Leo, who couldn't under-
stand what they were saying.
Despite their close ethnic ties,
neither Marlene or Leo learned to
speak Norwegian or Spanish from
their parents. The strongest cul-
tural influence both of their fami-
lies tended to pass down to them
was in some of thei traditional
cuisine.
MARLENE'S mother made
Scandinavian pastries and lefse, a
fiat potatobread. She also used to
occasionally make lutefisk, a white
fish cured in lye, but this fish dish
has since fallen out of popularity
in their family. "We don't fix lute-
risk, nobody will eat it," Marlene
explains.
During Leo's childhood, his
mother would traditionally srve
bacalao, or salted cod, at Christ-
mas. Other than these fbod facts,
they didn't know much more about
their cultural heritages but that's
no longer the case with Marlene.
About 10 years ago, or around the
same time she and Leo moved to
their retirement home on Harstine
Island, she saw Scandinavian arts
and crafts exhibited at a festival
hosted at Pacific Lutheran Uni-
versity. Inspired by what she saw,
she began studying r6semaling, a
delicate floral painting style, and
hardanger, a kind of lacy needle-
work.
These arts, she said, "kind of
fell out of popularity for a number
of years."
A few decades ago she had ini-
tially been interested in hardan-
ger and had bought a book to teach
herself the technique in order to
DISPLAYING SOME OF the Scandinavian crafts she has
made at home is Marlene Echaniz with her husband, Leo.
sew an apron with that particular
style. But soon she flt intimidat-
ed by the craft's complexity and
dropped the attempt.
YEARS LATER, she now not
only has an apron adorned with
the dainty hardanger pattern but
she also has a complete Norwe-
gian bunal, a traditional gown
complete with white blouse, plaid
apron and the appropriate jew-
elry and accessories. Each region
in Norway boasts its own unique
patterns and styles of'cl(:)thing and
crafts.
Among the souvenirs Marlene
brought back with her from Nor-
way were traditional Norwegian
fabrics and brocade, which she
used to make her Norwegian out-
fit. "I wore it for one of our lunches
at the community hall and every-
one was horrified. They said 'You
can't wear that to wait tables.
(You'll) get it dirty.' I said, 'It's cot-
ton, it'll wash,' " she recalls.
Her own costume is faithfully
close to what her ancestors would
have worn in the area they came
from before emigrating to Amer-
ica. Marlene also brought back
an authentic Norwegian sweater,
featuring colorthl, intricately knit-
ted patterns and ornate silver but-
tons.
These days she also belongs to
the Western RSsemalers, who meet
at a Scandinavian museum in Bal-
lard and invite proficient instruc-
tors to lead workshops in different
styles of painting. She also studies
rSsemaling with an instructor at
Sons of Norway in Bremerton.
LAST FEBRUARY, she dis-
played some of her r6semaling and
hardanger work at the William G.
Reed Public Library in Shelton.
Marlene has also displayed and
demonstrated her handiwork at the
annual Apple Squeeze on Harstine
Island. She also sells pieces at the
Biggest, Brightest Wood Flame
I I III II I I II I
Breckwell's
"Luxury"P2000
our op o t the hnc peflet slov( enhcmce.s
/out hOltle wth t)r¢ill woo(] lllrrles, (]ncl
modem sf yhu K /he [(lr}:le c er( tmJc: )'Jc/5' (],')r)€
showccses o h90 de?/,.!e [re [dh,(I purlnr(lm(!
• 16 Heat Exchange Tubes
• 80% Steady Sate Effi(iency
° 50,000 BTU
The l=me For Seasont"
Im/IEIPLACE 8HOPSw INC.
N0) 779-30$E 19410 Viking Ave.NW. Pou|sbo (Across from Poulsbo RV)
3801377-6655 ,o9o w. st,wy. 16. s,,rto. (At Gorst o, W,¢,d,)
206) 842"9356 www.herit.gehreplaceshop.com
Paae 16 - Shelton-Mason Countv Journal - Thursday, January 11, 2007
annual Harstine Island Holiday
House Bazaar, though sometimes
she becomes attached to her work
and has trouble parting with it.
Belonging to Vesterheim, a
genealogical society in Iowa spe-
cializing in tracing Norwegian
ancestry, helped her research
her roots and find out where her
great-grandparents had lived in
Norway.
Since their retirement, she has
also been putting down roots on
Harstine Island by participating
in a number of community organi-
zations. Marlene served as secre-
tary and treasurer of)l! Harstine
Island Community Club for four
years before switching to take part
in the Harstine Island Women's
Club.
She has since served as the
women's club secretary for four
years, club vice president tbr one
year and now she's in her second
year as club president. Besides
this organization, she also consid-
ers her involvement in a local Take
Off Pounds Sensibly - or TOPS
- as another a social group.
ORIGINALLY, THE couple
bought the property they now live
on in 1981 and used it just for
camping trips for the first 15 years.
"All of a sudden we said, 'What are
we going home for? Let's just stay
here,'" Marlene remembers.
Right after retiring but before
settling into their home on Har-
stine, the couple took advantage of
their free time to travel by visiting
Europe, Alaska, Australia, New
Zealand, the Cook Islands and Ha-
waii. They also spent six months
driving around the entire United
States. Marlene and her sister
plan to visit England in a couple
of years.
Previously, Leo and Marlene
had worked together in a construc-
tion business. He built houses and
Marlene helped him by taking
care of bookkeeping, designs and
purchases. "I was a jack-of-all-
trades," she says.
In the case of persons who were
interested in building custom
homes she would take their clients
shopping with her and help them
select the fixtures, colors and
home accessories of their choice.
In the case of a home they built in
the hopes of finding a buyer after
it was complete, she picked out ev-
erything herself.
AT TItAT TIME they lived in
the Renton and Seattle area, where
their three children, five grand-
children and one great-grandchild
still reside. For a while, Marlene
also enjoyed working with stained
glass. While she doesn't practice
the art much anymore, she did
create the stained glass work in
their bathroom window.
Leo is a former U.S. Navy sea-
man who finds that retirement
has given him time to devote to his
maritime hobbies. At first he vis-
ited a number of maritime muse-
ums and thought about model ship
building. He quickly decided the
complicated rigging was too much
work for him, so he then choose to
build remote-controlled tugboats
after seeing them displayed at
OysterFest. Now he and his fellow
tugboat pals show off their hand-
made toy sea craft at festivals in
Shelton, Olympia and Tacoma.
Leo has constructed 16 tug-
boats, cranes, rafts, a barge, fish-
ing vessels, a scale-model replica
of the ship he sailed on while serv-
ing in the U.S. Navy and a long
ship of the kind the Vikings built.
Not content with the building
of boats, he and Marlene
forces to construct a doll
(Please turn to page 17.)
by Blaine & Linda
MARBLE FLOORS
No flooring material makes a more
elegant statement than marble. This
natural stone is the product of
tallization of limestone under hi,
temperatures and enormous
within the earth. It has
an incredible rebound in
over the past few years, not that
ever went away, Marble has been
symbol of affluence for centuries,
day, homeowners are utilizing its claS"
sic looks to increase the luxurious fed
of bathrooms and the "wow factor" in
foyers. While marble is rather
relative to other stones, the
sional application of a sealer
out stains. Marble floors in
should be sealed every 12-18 monthS,
Marble used in bathrooms and kitch"
ens should be cleaned and resealed,
every 9-12 months.
There are so many
choices available today in flooring
designs. Before making a final deci-
sion, one that will remain with you
for many years to come, be sure to
discuss the options with someor
with a reputation for knowledge,
creativity, and quality resources.
Here at SHELTON FLOOR COVER"
ING, we hope you'll give us the
portunity to do what we do
- help you find the ideas and
ucts that will transform your homo
into the one you've been drearY"
ing of for years. It easier than
think and begins with a call
427-2822, ! 306 Olympic Hwy
HINT: Tumbled marble
vides a finish with an aged look.
Still Available
at the Mason County
Historical Society Museum
at Fifth and Railroad
Michael Fredson's Short History of
Michael Fredson's
Short History
of Mason County
Written on the occasion
of the county's 150th anniversary
(With 24 photographs)
$2 at the museum
$3 by mall:
Mason County Historical Society
P.O. Box 1366
Shelton, WA 98584