Helen and Bob Stygar
Tell Their Story
Tell Their Story
Pssst--One more thing: Helen's birthday is May 5, and she will turn 96 this year. She holds up four fingers and says, "Four more years--then it's a party!" (She came to John's party and was disappointed that we didn't have dancing.) So we'll all be wishing you Happy Birthday, Helen. And Best Wishes, Helen and Bob, and thanks for sharing some Enumclaw history!
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(As posted on Patch March 30, 2013) Some of our local folks remember well the "history" John is getting to now, and can add to what we are learning about it. If you have elders in your family who have memories and stories from this time period or earlier, consider posting a blog and capturing that bit of history to share with us all. Or add a comment to any of John's entries. (OK, so this is Doreen writing under John's helmet--we decided my "comment" on anecdotes from long-time residents Helen and Bob Stygar would take up three comment blocks, so better to do it here and keep it as part of the history index.) So:
While studying the creamery exhibits at a recent visit to the Enumclaw Plateau Historical Society Museum, docent Helen Stygar shared some of her history. "Working at the creamery was my first job. I had graduated from EHS in 1935 and then went to school in Seattle for a couple years. But then my dad said I had better come home as they were hiring at the creamery, so I started working there in 1937. But I worked in the office, not with the cream."
Helen Stygar worked in the Cooperative Creamery office in the 1930s.
Helen showed us the museum's collection of high school annuals and asked if we had yearbooks when we graduated. "Everybody does," she said, "but I don't! In 1935 they were building a stadium, and there wasn't money for a yearbook, so our class didn't get one! Look at all these yearbooks. But no 1935. Because they were building a stadium!"
Enumclaw High School Annual
In 2013, Helen was still perturbed that EHS didn't produce one in 1935.
In 2013, Helen was still perturbed that EHS didn't produce one in 1935.
Helen's father, Alfred Janson, had come to this country from Sweden. Her mom Jennie was also Swedish, and had lived in Wakefield, Nebraska. She and Alfred met in Seattle where both came because they had relatives there. They married and had three daughters, Ruth, Helen and Evelyn.
The Janson family moved to Enumclaw when Helen was in the second grade. Her father worked in the woods and later did carpentry at the mill. The family lived in house # 4 at the upper mill, Camp Ellenson-- Helen says everybody just called it "the Camp". Later Alfred moved his family to town and over the years built two homes where Helen and her sisters grew up. (Her sister Ruth later married Fred Farman, of Enumclaw's Farman Bros. Pickle Co. Evelyn now lives in California and, according to Helen, has written a family history, which we historians would love to see....)
Helen spent her childhoon in Ellenson, the White River Lumber Company housing.
Helen moved to town after her father built this house on Marion Street.
Bob and Helen Stygar at the Enumclaw Plateau Historical Society Museum, where they are board members
"You know, I met her in a tavern...." Bob says, with a bit of mischief. "Oh, don't say that! Now I have to explain how I happened to be there. That sounds like I went to taverns! Well! The company, you know, was having some kind of celebration, an anniversary I think, and they held it there, you know, because they had really good food." "Yes," says Bob. "I ate there a lot. A great dinner for $2.50!" Bob further explained that the Red Rooster (near the top of hill where the Muckleshoot complex is) was the "tavern" part of the operation and the Red Hen was the restaurant. "It had a really good smorgasbord dinner and they would bring food over to the tavern," where, in fact, that celebration Helen attended was held. (We assured Helen we totally understood and her good reputation was not compromised.) (BTW, the local history of taverns/saloons is featured in John's page on alcohol and tobacco.)
Bob Stygar, treasurer of Enumclaw Historical Society, was born back in Wisconsin. At the end of World War II he arrived in the Northwest from overseas, and was stationed at the Tacoma shipyards while still in the Navy. Later he worked at Boeing, with the railroads, then the post office; and finally 31 years at Rohr Industries. Along the way he met Helen, and they married in 1957.
Bob Stygar at the Centennial Dinner
At the museum, Helen tells Doreen her story.
