Elaine Brazeau closing doors to her mobile home park forever.
KINGSTON — Few knew it even existed, but it’s been there for 30 years. Hidden behind tall trees and brush is 22 acres of the Brazeau Mobile Home Park, situated next to State Route 104 across from Streibels Corner.
The mobile home site, owned by Elaine Brazeau, 80, seems a sanctuary in the middle of the woods. A calico cat perches at the top of a brick chimney belonging to Brazeau’s worn, World War II-era home — one of the few permanent houses on the property. Chickens and turkeys squawk and gobble as they dart across their fenced coop. Behind Brazeau’s home sits an open park area with desolate picnic tables and a single backless basketball hoop.
It’s the remaining signs of life of a once-active community at the Brazeau Mobile Home Park.
John L. Scott Real Estate signs, reading “Land for sale,” now decorate the property. After three decades running the park, Brazeau is calling it “done.”
She applied for a preliminary plat permit to turn the park into 15 one-acre lots, zoned industrial.
Four generations of Brazeau women sit under a canopy near the main office building reminiscing over the lessons learned about humanity from living at the park.
“We had a lot of good years on this place,” said Brazeau’s daughter Ann Mecham, 57. “There’s a story every day in a trailer park.”
Brazeau sits with her hands folded atop crossed legs. Her white hair is curled and pinned up and her feet are fashioned in teal fuzzy slippers. She said she is too old now to take care of the park; her property taxes are too high and it’s too much commotion for a woman her age.
“Taking care of the problems of 30 families a day, it was hard,” said Brazeau’s granddaughter Jerrie Ann “Goog” Drowns, 39, who’s accompanied by Demri, her youngest daughter.
Drowns was known throughout the mobile home park as “The Ax.” Working as a bartender at Kingston’s Drifter’s Tavern, she learned the skills necessary to tell residents they were “cut off” and needed to pack up and leave when they were causing too much trouble. She was also known for taking potential park dwellers on “The Walk” – an interrogation process that worked to weed out the no-good-doers and the down-and-outs.
The women said the last few weeks weren’t easy to tell everyone they needed to leave because the park of 16 trailers and 16 mobile homes was closing for good.
“Everyone here didn’t want to leave. They wanted to stay here until they died but we wanted them gone before we die,” Brazeau said, laughing.
Brazeau has lived on the property for 58 years when she and her husband Bernard “Bud” Brazeau bought the acreage back in 1950. Since, Bud has passed away and it’s too much for Brazeau. She said she’d rather move to Poulsbo.
Her reasons are clear as to why she’s closing the doors on the trailer park and the reason for her Poulsbo destination is in her roots.
“I’m Norwegian. I’m going to Poulsbo,” she said simply.
Drowns said she hopes this time her grandmother will be the one to cause the commotion. She’s been known to plug her autoharp into an amplifier and bust a few tunes.
“Am I worried about Grandma? No. What I’m worried about is the yodeling,” Drowns said. Laughing, she teased that all the years Brazeau asked residents to quiet down could turn on her if someone comes knocking on the door telling her to keep it down.
Although some might say Brazeau is looking forward to moving so she can enjoy a belated retirement, others might say she’s looking for an excuse to take her fancy red Cadillac out of her garage and drive through the streets of Poulsbo’s downtown.
