He was taller than most men, with a shock of white hair that reached below his shoulders. His bristling moustache and goatee served to emphasize his lean, angular face which was dominated by piercing dark eyes. Without question, Paul Cunningham was a presence to be reckoned with, and his arrival in the Bayview area in March of 1905, together with his wife Mary, and their grown sons, Lemuel and Steve, had a major impact upon the area.
They had come from Wheatland, Wyoming, to join their relatives, the Mackies, newly settled in the Maxwelton area. After studying the south end of the island, Paul Cunningham decided that the most strategic spot in the whole area was between Lone Lake and the end of Useless Bay, which at the time, came up to present State Highway 525. It was less than half a mile from the lake.
Before his death, Cunningham took a prominent role in the early day development of the county fair. Paul and Mary Cunningham are buried in Bayview Cemetery.
Cunningham’s two grown sons, Lemuel and Steve, bought up homestead rights on the property extending from the present Meinhold Road (north of the Bayview School), to the present Howard Road. Lemuel and his wife, Gertrude, settled on the ten acres that presently make up Whidbey City Shopping Center which was developed in the 1960s by Hardin Cherry. They built a two-story house on the Bayview Road. It became a landmark over the years until destroyed by fire in 1984.
It was in that house that Lemuel established the first semblance of a funeral parlor on South Whidbey. In the same house, he and Gertrude became the parents of four children, Leonard, Marjorie, David and Nina. Two older children, Paul Jr., and Cora, were born in Wyoming prior to their parents’ arrival in Bayview.
Lemuel supplemented his income from his farm and mortuary business by becoming the Watkins route man for all of Whidbey Island and Camano. However, he still managed to find time to serve as president of Island County Fair for a time. He also served two terms as Island County Commissioner for South Whidbey.
Lemuel and Gertrude’s oldest daughter, Cora, married Daniel Cook and they settled on a farm on the Maxwelton Road between Ewing and Sills Roads. Cora became well known as a local historian, publishing several articles on early-day history in the Whidbey Record. She also was active in the Island County Historical Society prior to her death in the 1960s. The Island County Historical Society museum at Coupeville features her doll collection. She was the mother of three children, Dan, Corlyn, and Carolyn. Both Lemuel and Gertrude are buried in the Bayview Cemetery.
The only remaining member of Lemuel and Gertrude’s family, who has remained consistently on South Whidbey, is their daughter, Marjorie, who married LeVoy Hagglund. She and her husband established their home in the Midvale area where their five children were raised, Albert, Marion, Roy, Harold, and John. All five graduated from Langley High School, as did Marjorie.
After graduating from Bellingham Normal School (now Western Washington University), Albert became a teacher in Sultan. Marion works for the Greyhound Bus Company and he and his family make their home on Newman Road, near Freeland. Roy and his wife, Cathy Darrow, Harold and his wife, Toni Lemma, and John and his wife, Melanie Saperstein, all live in Midvale on portions of the Hagglund farmsite, adjacent to their mother, Marjorie, who continues to live in the original home she and her husband, LeVoy, established. LeVoy died in the 1970s.