Lummi Island Grange #925 (LIG)

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Overview

Grange Officers:

Membership

Lummi Island Grange Membership Application
Please print, and fill out the application and bring it with you to a Lummi Island Grange meeting (first Wednesday of each month at 6:30pm), and the Secretary will complete the application process with you.
             Welcome to the Lummi Island Grange!

Grange Events

Annual Dinner for Citizen of Year

Holiday Bazaar

Halloween Dinner

4th of July Pancake Breakfast

A truly wonderful annual event each summer on Lummi Island is the Fourth of July Weekend Pancake Breakfast. It is held each year on the Saturday falling closest to the holiday. This event involves many of the islanders, working in shifts, to prepare, cook, and serve a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, pancakes, juice, and coffee. It is a glorious pandemonium for all the workers, who cherish the efforts, and return each year to participate. It is also a long family tradition for many of the attendees, their visiting friends and families, to come together in this special community event.   

Island Parade

Salmon BBQ

The Lummi Island community has a long tradition of holding an all-island Salmon Barbecue at the end of each summer. Originally, the Salmon Barbeque was held on Labor Day weekend, and it was a fun event where a delicious Salmon meal was served, and islanders could bid farewell to the many summer visitors that would be leaving after their stay on the island, to head back to school or jobs on the mainland. At that time, the Barbecue was held at a park at Lane Spit, and the cooks would nail salmon filets onto cedar planks, and prop them up in front of beach fires to cook. In later years, the Barbecue was moved to the Beach School, and after the meal, the tables would all be taken down, someone would spread powdered wax on the gymnasium floor, a local band would strike up the music, and everyone would dance the night away.
Today, and for many years, the annual Salmon Barbecue is held at the Lummi Island Grange Hall. A decendent of Mac Granger, one of the original barbecue cooks at Lane Spit, has been donating the Salmon for the past several years, and the men of the Grange barbecue it on grills outside the building, and many islanders contribute all the other wonderful side dishes for the meal. The Lummi Island Salmon Barbecue is one of the main annual fund raisers, that allows the Grange to continue its contributions to the community.

Rent the Grange

For rental contact:  LeslieDempsey@live.com   460-223-6225

Imagination Library

The Lummi Island Grange sponsors FREE BOOKS for all Lummi Island children, ages birth to 5 years old. This is provided thorough Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.

Each month a registered child receives an age appropriate book with the goal to inspire the love of reading. Reading is the foundation of all learning and by reading aloud to a child, the foundational building blocks of learning are established.

If you have a child or grandchild you would like to register, please contact Carolyn Jenkins for more information. 360-303-7070
Note:  The child may live off Island, but books can only be sent to Island addresses.

Help this program by depositing your crushed aluminum cans in the collection bin at the Grange. It is located on the Right side of the Parking lot entrance.

How did the Island Grange start?

March, 1929 – M. Granger, Master;  Colonel Blizard, secretary;  Mrs. Ruby Taft, lecturer.
” W.H. Kaufman of North Bellingham was on island organizing a Grange.  A charter was sent for and the society will soon be in working order.”  
                                         

The Lummi Island Grange was formed in 1930. Meetings were initially held in member’s homes. Sometime in the mid-1930’s, the Alf family, which had run the building as Alf’s Tavern (rumored to be operated as a speakeasy during Prohibition), donated the building to the Grange. The room between the kitchen and main hall, was originally a woodshed and was,at some point, dragged over and joined to the Grange bldg (the main hall). The entry, restrooms, and kitchen were added much later, we believe around 1972. The historic Grange Hall is lovingly cared for and used as a gathering place for a wide variety of island events.

In the late 1990’s Granges were given the option to remain a traditional Grange or become an Action Grange – eliminating most of the ritual and ceremonies and focusing instead on activities and programming to support and enhance the wider community. The Lummi Island Grange members voted to become an Action Grange; the only Grange in Whatcom county to do so. Membership had declined to just a few members, but began to grow and flourish after becoming an Action Grange. The Lummi Island Grange has always been unique from the other county Granges as the island was never a farm based community. So being an Action Grange has helped the community to see us as a current, viable organization, rather than an antiquated entity with secret handshakes.

Paul Davis
“Will Kaufman was my maternal Grandfather. I didn’t know he organized the Lummi Island Grange.  M. Granger would be Melzior (Later Melzer) Granger, who was the Patriarch of the Island Granger Clan.  The “Colonel” was of course Jackie’s Great-grandfather, and Ruby her Grandmother.  Ruby and Frank Taft created The Willows Inn.  There is, of course, some confusion about the Granger family and the Grange and the Grange Hotel near Point Migley.  The Grange Hotel and the Granger family are in no way related to the National Grange organization of which ours is a branch.  It is just a coincidence that the first Lummi Island Grange Master was a Granger.. It must confuse some people.

Will lived on a farm at Smith Road and Hwy 99 (now I-5).  He was politically active and a union organizer and County tax assessor.  My paternal Grandfather, Robert Abraham Lincoln Davis bought this property when it was platted in 1908.  He was President of Washington Wholesale Grocery and lived in a big house on the same block as the Roeder house in Bellingham.  My two grandfathers didn’t know each other until my parents started dating in high school – or maybe when they married after college.  I wonder how my grandfathers got along – they were political adversaries.  I knew them both, but never saw them together.”

The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry

The National Grange, a.k.a. The Grange, officially named The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, is a social organization in the United States that encourages families to band together to promote the economic and political well-being of the community and agriculture.  Washington has the largest membership of any state, at approximately 13,000.

As a non-partisan organization, the Grange supports only policies, never political parties or candidates. Although the Grange was founded to serve the interests of farmers, because of the shrinking farm population the Grange has begun to broaden its range to include a wide variety of issues, and anyone is welcome to join the Grange.

 

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