Olywa Days of Change

How a Data Report on Racial Bias in Corrections Affected My Career – By Pat Holm

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I am proud of that work. It took discipline to stay with it and finish the paper. This paper and the story in the Seattle Sun pretty much destroyed my ability to ever get another job in the DOC research shop, however. I had tried getting the attention of my supervisor and the bosses above him about what I had discovered. But unequal treatment of minorities was not anything they were interested in, that is until I went public. So, in many ways I do not regret that I did what I did.

The Communist Party in 1970s Olympia – Ann Vandeman – By Bethany Weidner

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“The Party people were the only ones who consistently linked race and class and I was attracted to that. Those people and their ideas helped me answer big questions I had at that age: why aren’t people nicer and what about fairness? I found them sympathetic because their values were consistent with the ones I had come to.”

Moldy Mansion: Tales of Dumpstering and Billboarding – By Regon Unsoeld

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There were in fact two such households. The first, appropriately called the Moldy Mansion, was located on the water side of West Bay Drive within a few hundred feet of Harrison Avenue. It was a two-story structure with a beautiful view of Mount Tahoma (Rainier) at Steh-Chass (Budd Inlet) near the southernmost point of the Salish Sea. A jungle of dense blackberry vines wove around the house and all the way down to the water.

1972 Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan – By Ramona Bennett

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There’s a lot involved in moving 1,500+ miscellaneous Indians in 400 or 500 cars cross country. Our Northwest organization, Survival American Indians Association, raised support from the Episcopal church, other denominations, many individuals of all races and politics for travel, food, campsites, and medical services with help from American Indian Movement (AIM) chapters.

Our Experiences at the Evergreen Labor Center – Lee, Shortt-Sanchez, Gilman

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We are all longtime Olympia folks and three of many who learned and organized at the Labor Center with Dan Leahy. We did not differentiate between our work at The Evergreen State College Labor Education Center and our working-class roots. We each tell about our involvement with the Labor Center and how it affected our lives. Dan Leahy passed away in 2022.

Blue Heron Bakery – By Margie Schubert

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Blue Heron Bakery was founded in 1977 by Greg Reinemer, Carmela Courtney, Doug Martin, Martha Wolfe, and Terry Taylor. Harry and I moved to Olympia with our one-year-old daughter, Delphine, to cover for Terry for a month. It turned into 10 years. We rented a grounded houseboat across the street from the bakery and shared one position, deciding daily who was working at the Bakery and who was staying home with Delphine.

Women in the Trades: A Multi-Generational Tale – By Jean Eberhardt

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Women were recruited via persuasive media campaigns to join the war effort as “Rosie the Riveters” to work in the factories that were emptied by the men who were drafted to fight overseas. My grandmother became a machinist in her late 30s and developed a steady hand for guiding hair-thin bits chucked into the drill press through metals. She fabricated specialized tiny parts for war planes and then later for commercial jets.