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What's Cookin'?
Dorothy's loire of writing leads to
60-year hi of Sherwood Creek
.... ! i::;ii!i!i:
4 ): r
"f
DOROTHY CLARK GORNICK began keeping a diary as
a teenager on Nantucket Island and has faithfully en-
gaged in that practice ever since. Because of her work
on the election board and at the post office in Allyn,
she came to know most families there and created a
book documenting the area's growth.
.,:,;}source when she FiJ/
acrw ers. Wa':.Years in Sherwood Valley in
F.,ut World'1989 for the Mason County His-
Wa mtatd reran torical Society. The book has
. .:been reprinted with additional
By MARY DUNCAN
Former Allyn resident Dor-
othy Clark Gornick began
recording weather conditions as
a girl on Nantucket Island
where she was raised. Then in
high school she started keeping a .......
diary, a practice which she has ......
continued tbr 73 years. That's
roughly 26,645 days of writing.
With the slightest hint of a
Nor'easter's accent, Dorothy ex-
plains, "I like writing and
smnebody gave me a diary for
(:hristmas. I thought that'd be fun
.o I just started in and I've just
k(,pt it up."
She wrote throughout her col-
lege days at Simmons College in
Boston and during her marriage
to a Navy man when she saw the
w()r ld.
"! ltAVE wonderful records of
bc.ing in typhoons and
quakes. The first three
tur 1 was married we lived ':
Puerto Rico and my husband was
stationed with the radio station
ib(>r(,,' she says. "Then we just
i;ot back to the States and he got
ordered out to the Orient so we
were in the; Philippines and
China.
It was through Navy friends
that she and her husband, Jerry
(/.lark, discovered Mason Coun-
ty. "My husband's ship came into
the Bremerton Navy Yard so we
were up here the summer of
1939," Dorothy recalls.
band had quite a:lw
service and we were
ward to retirement. So
shipmates, Navy
said, 'Don't buy
you'w: been to the
ington.'
"When we came up here we
just fell in love with it," she en-
thuses. "We were looking for a
place in September. The real es-
tate man brought us to Shelton
and we thought it was a nice little
town, and that's what we wanted
tube near, Then he said, 'I have
one more place to show you on the
ay back to Bremerton.' We
stopl)td in Allyn and went up
Sherwood Creek Road and the
salmon were coming up.
"You could almost walk on
them, they were so thick in Shear-
"SO I HAVE voted here 60
years," she adds with pride. Dor-
othy attended the celebration this
June to honor those who had voted
for 50 years or more. "It was a
wonderful idea. I thought it was
great and I got my certificate and
all."
Dorothy continued to diligent-
ly detail people and events when
Jerry retired and the couple came
back to established their home on
Sherwood Creek. "We just loved
it," she affirms.
The information which she
hu recorded during her 60 years
in Mason County became a re-
pictures and a 1999 finale.
Dorothy lived in Allyn 54
years. "I worked on the election
board every year and then I also
worked in the Allyn Post Office
from 1950 to 1960," she notes. "I
knew so many people there."
Then she and her second hus-
band Tony Gornick moved to
Shelton six years ago.
"YOU WONDER why I wrote
the book. We were the fourth
family to live up in the valley.
The others had homesteaded. So I
knew everybody. I thought it
would be fun to write it for the
historical society, which I did,"
she explains.
In addition to her love of writ-
ing, Dorothy has had a lifelong
love of history because, she says,
her ancestors go back to Eng-
land. "And then I like people and
I like places," she adds.
Dorothy describes her ap-
proach to writing the 50-year his-
tory of the valley. "I worked six
months on it. I spent a lot of time
at the courthouse delving into
deeds and things like that, so
there are maps and everything
in the book. Then I followed each
place up Sherwood Creek, right
up through the 50 years, all the
different people that owned it. So
it's really a wonderful reference
book."
What she could not find in ex-
amining old records, Dorothy
could supplement from her own
chronicles. "Well, there again
my diaries came in handy. You
see, I had written so much down
in my diaries: so-and-so moved
in and who was in the family, so
that was one of my resources."
DOROTHY RELATES infor-
mation on the other three fami-
lies who lived on Sherwood
Creek six decades ago.
"Wesserlings were the home-
steaders, Henry and Sophie, and
then there was Mrs. Wesserl-
ing's brother, Charlie and Ma-
mie Clark. They were no rela-
tion to us. Then there was an old
couple, Millie and Ed Kennedy.
He was a Spanish War veteran."
Another early family to occu-
py the valley were Benjamin
"Harry" Dove and his wife Jen-
nie. Their dmlg!tter, Margie
' Beeson Mervey, nust have
been about 6," she says, when her
father came to work in the Navy
yards. "They owned the acreage
across the road from us."
She continues, "Then Navy
friends of ours, the ones who had
told us not to buy until we came to
Washington - because she was a
Washington girl - they came
and bought the acreage next to us
and built a log house." Marion
"Corny" Cornelius and his wife
Maurine visited Dorothy and
Jerry in 1942, built their home
two years later and sold their
property to their daughter and
son-in-law, Hazel and Roger
Scott, in 1949.
"Then from there it just ex-
panded," she says of the early
property owners. "It went from
no school buses, no telephones
and one line of electricity up
there, in the 50 years, when I
wrote the book 10 years ago, to
five school buses and electricity,
telephone and TV cables all un-
Share your good news:
weddings, engagements
and anniversaries
The Journal is happy to share
news of your engagement, wed-
ding or anniversary. Forms are
available in the office at Third
and Cota. Black-and-white
prints, or good color prints, are
satisfactory for pictures.
Pictures are available at the
office for pickup as soon as the
article is printed. If you wish pic-
tures returned by mail, please
stamped envelope.
Deadline is 2 p.m. Monday.
However, news of engagements,
weddings and anniversaries is
always printed on a space-avail-
able, first-come-first-served ba-
sis. Occasionally, space con-
straints or an overabundance of
coming events will force us to
hold one of these stories a week,
or during peak seasons, two.
derground and I don't know how
many families up there now."
Dorothy guesses there are over 50
families in Sherwood Valley
now.
OVER THE years, Dorothy
left the valley only once for an
extended period of time. "My
husband Jerry died in '55 and
then I was still working at the
post office. In '59 I met my second
husband. He was from Monta-
na." The couple lived near Yel-
lowstone National Park where
he owned a trailer court and she
worked for a park concession-
aire. They returned to Allyn and
Sherwood Creek after he retired
m the late '60s.
Although she and Tony moved
to Shelton six years ago, Dorothy
still has regular contact with her
Allyn friends and another his-
torical link - the birthday club
in Allyn. "It started in 1926, I
think. We meet on the third
Wednesday of each month. It's
just been wonderful and it's gone
on all these years. And now I've
been a member the longest and
the oldest," she smiles and
laughs softly.
"Franny Peterson is third
generation," Dorothy adds,
speaking of the group. "Her
grandmother was one of the
original ones. There were four
women that started it and they
decided that they'd like to get to-
gether so they took their kids with
them. They had to walk, you
know, quite a distance."
Dorothy also has fond memo-
ries of another Allyn resident.
"Emma Dahl lived in the north
end of Allyn. She and I used to
work on the election board and so
I got to know her very well. I told
her one time, 'Emma, you must
know everybody in Allyn,' and
she said, 'No, I don't. You reach a
point when you are old and so
many are gone.' That's what I've
reached now too," she comments.
YET HER indomitable spirit
and love of writing and history
led to the reissuance of her book
this summer. "It was fun," she
declares, "and everyone seems
quite enthused about it, especial-
ly people that knew the people."
The recipe Dorothy shares is
one which she says she has had
for many years. She often takes
it to potlucks.
Beet Perfection
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1 3-oz. pkg. lemon-flavored ge-
latin dessert powder
1/2 C. sugar
]/ tsp. salt
1 16 oz. can julienne-style beets
2 C. cold water
/2 C. vinegar
2 tsp.cream-style horseradish
2 C. finely chopped cabbage
In a saucepan combine gelat-
ins, sugar and salt. Drain beets.
If there is not one full cup of beet
liquid, add water to make it one
cup. Add liquid to saucepan in-
gredients and stir over moderate
heat until dissolved.
Add cold water, vinegar and
horseradish. Stir well.
Chill until syrupy and then
fold in beets and chopped cab-
bage. Pour into an 8"x12" pan:
)f
Έ;?:4
Olson, Ellis to exchange voWS
Hannah Mary Olson and Tracy Steven Ellis,
of Shelton, will be united in marriage on s s
day, October 9, at Shelton Civic Center. Hann,.
the daughter of Larry and Janice Olson of She,:tl
owerS '-
She works at Ferguson and Gardner FI _ ..:oe
Gifts in Shelton. Tracy's parents are ta" e
Smith of Onalaska and Ronald Ellis of Sheltom
graduated from Shelton High School in 1989 m
received a certificate in radio broadcast.ng_o’S
Clover Park Technical College. Tracy is the u'
director at KMAS Radio in Shelton.
Rummage iter00S
needed for sale
at youth center
Cross Roads Youth Center, lo-
cated at Second and Cota streets
in Shelton, is accepting rum-
mage sale items from 3 to 5 p.m.
today and tomorrow.
The center's fund-raiser sale
is set for 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Satur-
day at the center. It will offer
household items, tools,
equipment including
dio items, computers,
fishing and boating gear.
For more ]
the sale, those intere
432-0461.
Sund?y breakfast
set a 40 et 8 clt00
gravy for $2.50.
Proceeds help fund
8's charitable
scholarships.
Those attendin
back (alley) door
building, the second s
the 100 block of West
one with a question maY
5060.
The public is invited to the 40
et 8 Charity Breakfast in Shelton
from 9 a.m. to noon this Sunday,
September 26.
The menu will include hash-
browns, toast or biscuit, choice of
ham, bacon or sausage, and eggs
to order (including omelets) for
$3.50. The veterans' organization
will also serve just biscuits and
"Nothing could be finer" than to come to a
JOE'S DINER POTLUCK RE
Joe and Lois Simpson Saturday, october 1
802 Terrace Blvd. 4 p.m. -
Kids and Kids' Kids Welcome/
Sharon -- 426-2516 * Patty -- 427-2921 * Lois
include a self-addressed, Thanks for your patience. Chill overnight.
" ' ANNUAL
SEE US BEFORE YOU BUY " 180 DAYS SAME AS CASH
85% Efficient
Realistic Burn &
Unique Logs
40,000 BTU's
Lifetime Warranty
Mobile Home
Approved
POWERFUL
GAS STOVES
DV4OSTEP TOP
#:< [
i:, i i ii |
Fifty Years in Sherwood Valley, first published In 1989,
has been updated by author Dorothy Clark Gornick
and reprinted, with new photographs, by the Mason
County Historical Society. Copies are available at the
society's museum, Fifth and Railroad in Shelton, and
at the Coffee Readery on State Route 3 in Kllyn.
o,c_.,N’_
World's Beat Built Spa
5 Year Warranty
Maximum Therapy
Financing Available
Come in...
See the Best
STARTING AT
EFFICIENT
WOOD STOVES
WORLD'S
BURNS 18
CLOSE wALL
IDEAL FOR
HOME
Lifetime
Sakes alive
She's 65
.Bir$hday
Page 8 Shelton.Mason County Journal. Thursday, eptember 23, 1999
What's Cookin'?
Dorothy's loire of writing leads to
60-year hi of Sherwood Creek
.... ! i::;ii!i!i:
4 ): r
"f
DOROTHY CLARK GORNICK began keeping a diary as
a teenager on Nantucket Island and has faithfully en-
gaged in that practice ever since. Because of her work
on the election board and at the post office in Allyn,
she came to know most families there and created a
book documenting the area's growth.
.,:,;}source when she FiJ/
acrw ers. Wa':.Years in Sherwood Valley in
F.,ut World'1989 for the Mason County His-
Wa mtatd reran torical Society. The book has
. .:been reprinted with additional
By MARY DUNCAN
Former Allyn resident Dor-
othy Clark Gornick began
recording weather conditions as
a girl on Nantucket Island
where she was raised. Then in
high school she started keeping a .......
diary, a practice which she has ......
continued tbr 73 years. That's
roughly 26,645 days of writing.
With the slightest hint of a
Nor'easter's accent, Dorothy ex-
plains, "I like writing and
smnebody gave me a diary for
(:hristmas. I thought that'd be fun
.o I just started in and I've just
k(,pt it up."
She wrote throughout her col-
lege days at Simmons College in
Boston and during her marriage
to a Navy man when she saw the
w()r ld.
"! ltAVE wonderful records of
bc.ing in typhoons and
quakes. The first three
tur 1 was married we lived ':
Puerto Rico and my husband was
stationed with the radio station
ib(>r(,,' she says. "Then we just
i;ot back to the States and he got
ordered out to the Orient so we
were in the; Philippines and
China.
It was through Navy friends
that she and her husband, Jerry
(/.lark, discovered Mason Coun-
ty. "My husband's ship came into
the Bremerton Navy Yard so we
were up here the summer of
1939," Dorothy recalls.
band had quite a:lw
service and we were
ward to retirement. So
shipmates, Navy
said, 'Don't buy
you'w: been to the
ington.'
"When we came up here we
just fell in love with it," she en-
thuses. "We were looking for a
place in September. The real es-
tate man brought us to Shelton
and we thought it was a nice little
town, and that's what we wanted
tube near, Then he said, 'I have
one more place to show you on the
ay back to Bremerton.' We
stopl)td in Allyn and went up
Sherwood Creek Road and the
salmon were coming up.
"You could almost walk on
them, they were so thick in Shear-
"SO I HAVE voted here 60
years," she adds with pride. Dor-
othy attended the celebration this
June to honor those who had voted
for 50 years or more. "It was a
wonderful idea. I thought it was
great and I got my certificate and
all."
Dorothy continued to diligent-
ly detail people and events when
Jerry retired and the couple came
back to established their home on
Sherwood Creek. "We just loved
it," she affirms.
The information which she
hu recorded during her 60 years
in Mason County became a re-
pictures and a 1999 finale.
Dorothy lived in Allyn 54
years. "I worked on the election
board every year and then I also
worked in the Allyn Post Office
from 1950 to 1960," she notes. "I
knew so many people there."
Then she and her second hus-
band Tony Gornick moved to
Shelton six years ago.
"YOU WONDER why I wrote
the book. We were the fourth
family to live up in the valley.
The others had homesteaded. So I
knew everybody. I thought it
would be fun to write it for the
historical society, which I did,"
she explains.
In addition to her love of writ-
ing, Dorothy has had a lifelong
love of history because, she says,
her ancestors go back to Eng-
land. "And then I like people and
I like places," she adds.
Dorothy describes her ap-
proach to writing the 50-year his-
tory of the valley. "I worked six
months on it. I spent a lot of time
at the courthouse delving into
deeds and things like that, so
there are maps and everything
in the book. Then I followed each
place up Sherwood Creek, right
up through the 50 years, all the
different people that owned it. So
it's really a wonderful reference
book."
What she could not find in ex-
amining old records, Dorothy
could supplement from her own
chronicles. "Well, there again
my diaries came in handy. You
see, I had written so much down
in my diaries: so-and-so moved
in and who was in the family, so
that was one of my resources."
DOROTHY RELATES infor-
mation on the other three fami-
lies who lived on Sherwood
Creek six decades ago.
"Wesserlings were the home-
steaders, Henry and Sophie, and
then there was Mrs. Wesserl-
ing's brother, Charlie and Ma-
mie Clark. They were no rela-
tion to us. Then there was an old
couple, Millie and Ed Kennedy.
He was a Spanish War veteran."
Another early family to occu-
py the valley were Benjamin
"Harry" Dove and his wife Jen-
nie. Their dmlg!tter, Margie
' Beeson Mervey, nust have
been about 6," she says, when her
father came to work in the Navy
yards. "They owned the acreage
across the road from us."
She continues, "Then Navy
friends of ours, the ones who had
told us not to buy until we came to
Washington - because she was a
Washington girl - they came
and bought the acreage next to us
and built a log house." Marion
"Corny" Cornelius and his wife
Maurine visited Dorothy and
Jerry in 1942, built their home
two years later and sold their
property to their daughter and
son-in-law, Hazel and Roger
Scott, in 1949.
"Then from there it just ex-
panded," she says of the early
property owners. "It went from
no school buses, no telephones
and one line of electricity up
there, in the 50 years, when I
wrote the book 10 years ago, to
five school buses and electricity,
telephone and TV cables all un-
Share your good news:
weddings, engagements
and anniversaries
The Journal is happy to share
news of your engagement, wed-
ding or anniversary. Forms are
available in the office at Third
and Cota. Black-and-white
prints, or good color prints, are
satisfactory for pictures.
Pictures are available at the
office for pickup as soon as the
article is printed. If you wish pic-
tures returned by mail, please
stamped envelope.
Deadline is 2 p.m. Monday.
However, news of engagements,
weddings and anniversaries is
always printed on a space-avail-
able, first-come-first-served ba-
sis. Occasionally, space con-
straints or an overabundance of
coming events will force us to
hold one of these stories a week,
or during peak seasons, two.
derground and I don't know how
many families up there now."
Dorothy guesses there are over 50
families in Sherwood Valley
now.
OVER THE years, Dorothy
left the valley only once for an
extended period of time. "My
husband Jerry died in '55 and
then I was still working at the
post office. In '59 I met my second
husband. He was from Monta-
na." The couple lived near Yel-
lowstone National Park where
he owned a trailer court and she
worked for a park concession-
aire. They returned to Allyn and
Sherwood Creek after he retired
m the late '60s.
Although she and Tony moved
to Shelton six years ago, Dorothy
still has regular contact with her
Allyn friends and another his-
torical link - the birthday club
in Allyn. "It started in 1926, I
think. We meet on the third
Wednesday of each month. It's
just been wonderful and it's gone
on all these years. And now I've
been a member the longest and
the oldest," she smiles and
laughs softly.
"Franny Peterson is third
generation," Dorothy adds,
speaking of the group. "Her
grandmother was one of the
original ones. There were four
women that started it and they
decided that they'd like to get to-
gether so they took their kids with
them. They had to walk, you
know, quite a distance."
Dorothy also has fond memo-
ries of another Allyn resident.
"Emma Dahl lived in the north
end of Allyn. She and I used to
work on the election board and so
I got to know her very well. I told
her one time, 'Emma, you must
know everybody in Allyn,' and
she said, 'No, I don't. You reach a
point when you are old and so
many are gone.' That's what I've
reached now too," she comments.
YET HER indomitable spirit
and love of writing and history
led to the reissuance of her book
this summer. "It was fun," she
declares, "and everyone seems
quite enthused about it, especial-
ly people that knew the people."
The recipe Dorothy shares is
one which she says she has had
for many years. She often takes
it to potlucks.
Beet Perfection
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1 3-oz. pkg. lemon-flavored ge-
latin dessert powder
1/2 C. sugar
]/ tsp. salt
1 16 oz. can julienne-style beets
2 C. cold water
/2 C. vinegar
2 tsp.cream-style horseradish
2 C. finely chopped cabbage
In a saucepan combine gelat-
ins, sugar and salt. Drain beets.
If there is not one full cup of beet
liquid, add water to make it one
cup. Add liquid to saucepan in-
gredients and stir over moderate
heat until dissolved.
Add cold water, vinegar and
horseradish. Stir well.
Chill until syrupy and then
fold in beets and chopped cab-
bage. Pour into an 8"x12" pan:
)f
Έ;?:4
Olson, Ellis to exchange voWS
Hannah Mary Olson and Tracy Steven Ellis,
of Shelton, will be united in marriage on s s
day, October 9, at Shelton Civic Center. Hann,.
the daughter of Larry and Janice Olson of She,:tl
owerS '-
She works at Ferguson and Gardner FI _ ..:oe
Gifts in Shelton. Tracy's parents are ta" e
Smith of Onalaska and Ronald Ellis of Sheltom
graduated from Shelton High School in 1989 m
received a certificate in radio broadcast.ng_o’S
Clover Park Technical College. Tracy is the u'
director at KMAS Radio in Shelton.
Rummage iter00S
needed for sale
at youth center
Cross Roads Youth Center, lo-
cated at Second and Cota streets
in Shelton, is accepting rum-
mage sale items from 3 to 5 p.m.
today and tomorrow.
The center's fund-raiser sale
is set for 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Satur-
day at the center. It will offer
household items, tools,
equipment including
dio items, computers,
fishing and boating gear.
For more ]
the sale, those intere
432-0461.
Sund?y breakfast
set a 40 et 8 clt00
gravy for $2.50.
Proceeds help fund
8's charitable
scholarships.
Those attendin
back (alley) door
building, the second s
the 100 block of West
one with a question maY
5060.
The public is invited to the 40
et 8 Charity Breakfast in Shelton
from 9 a.m. to noon this Sunday,
September 26.
The menu will include hash-
browns, toast or biscuit, choice of
ham, bacon or sausage, and eggs
to order (including omelets) for
$3.50. The veterans' organization
will also serve just biscuits and
"Nothing could be finer" than to come to a
JOE'S DINER POTLUCK RE
Joe and Lois Simpson Saturday, october 1
802 Terrace Blvd. 4 p.m. -
Kids and Kids' Kids Welcome/
Sharon -- 426-2516 * Patty -- 427-2921 * Lois
include a self-addressed, Thanks for your patience. Chill overnight.
" ' ANNUAL
SEE US BEFORE YOU BUY " 180 DAYS SAME AS CASH
85% Efficient
Realistic Burn &
Unique Logs
40,000 BTU's
Lifetime Warranty
Mobile Home
Approved
POWERFUL
GAS STOVES
DV4OSTEP TOP
#:< [
i:, i i ii |
Fifty Years in Sherwood Valley, first published In 1989,
has been updated by author Dorothy Clark Gornick
and reprinted, with new photographs, by the Mason
County Historical Society. Copies are available at the
society's museum, Fifth and Railroad in Shelton, and
at the Coffee Readery on State Route 3 in Kllyn.
o,c_.,N’_
World's Beat Built Spa
5 Year Warranty
Maximum Therapy
Financing Available
Come in...
See the Best
STARTING AT
EFFICIENT
WOOD STOVES
WORLD'S
BURNS 18
CLOSE wALL
IDEAL FOR
HOME
Lifetime
Sakes alive
She's 65
.Bir$hday
Page 8 Shelton.Mason County Journal. Thursday, eptember 23, 1999