By HARRIET MUHRLEIN

A continuation of “A look back at Woldmere, ‘a place for rest and resort,’ page 21, April Kingston Community News.

The participants in the Woldmere “world” entered into the activities with enthusiasm. They rowed, swam, hiked, bird watched, planned, wrote and produced plays, played cards, wrote poetry, held campfires, stayed up until dawn, slept until noon (or later). The rest and relaxation there seemed to provide the enthusiasm to return to teaching at the University in the fall.

Harold Osborne enthusiastically read the “Woldmere Annals” (all 50,000-plus words); he included brief bits of it in the Community News of May 1997. The Annals were written by Mrs. Edith Thomas, wife of Professor Harlan Thomas, from 1906-1933. She included stories and pieces written by others at Woldmere. Each family received a copy after the close of each season to keep the fun alive.

In 1910, some of the professors stayed up late playing Whist (a card game).  Two of the very late-nighters also wrote poems which were put at the plates of others at breakfast.

“There was an apostle who fisht
While others were playing at whist.
He’d be fishing all day
By himself in the bay
If no one would row as he wisht.”

Another 1910 afternoon activity was a two-hour mock wedding. The bride and maid of honor were two of the tallest professors in the group. The groom and best man were young women. The teen girls who planned and wrote the ceremony dressed each participant in their costumes — mosquito netting from head to toe for the bride. The Best Man wore her kid gloves and an opera hat. The “maid” of honor (Professor Padelford) towered over the Best Man as they walked toward the fern-covered altar.

An almost yearly activity was a hike to Port Gamble. The group would leave Woldmere at 2 a.m. with packs loaded with coffee pots and pans and food for their breakfast. They lighted the trail to town with kerosene lanterns and tried to quietly walk along the streets in Kingston to the county highway (now Barber Cutoff), then to the woods outside Port Gamble. Mrs. Thomas wrote that they awakened every watchdog in town.

Hiking to Port Gamble and back was not far enough for some of the young men.  They hiked to Poulsbo before returning.

— The Kingston Historical Society meets the fourth Wednesday of each month, 10 a.m., in the Kingston Community Center. Online: www.kingstonhistory.org. Contact columnist Harriet Muhrlein at harrietmuhrlein@comcast.net.