Although Gust and Ruth Skarberg technically may belong more to Clinton than to Langley their ties with Langley are strong. For many years Gust was manager of the Island County Fair based in Langley and at the 1974 convention of Fairs in Olympia he was elected president of the state organization. His Fair also won top state honors that year. In the 1960s he owned a lumber yard on the Bayview road in what is now Whidbey City.
During his high school years Gust was a member of the championship basketball team at Langley High School in 1931.
The history of the Skarberg family on South Whidbey reads almost like that of an entire Swedish colony. First to come to the area was Gust’s grandfather, Carl John Skarberg and other relatives including Carl and Ole Skarberg, Mrs. Andrea Nordstrom, Mrs. Emil Erikson, Mrs. Albert Johnson and Mrs. Winifred Mattson. All owned farms on the Deer Lake Road, now called Skarberg Lane.
Gust’s parents, John and Karen Skarberg emigrated from Sweden, lived briefly in High Point where Gust was born in 1913, then moved to Seattle where their son, Alvin was born in 1918. The following year they joined their relatives on Deer Lake Road, purchasing a farm there. Strawberries, chickens and vegetables were the chief products of their farm but they also had several cows. They had bought their farm from a blind man who had built a split shake fence around the entire property. The old log house on the property was remodeled and enlarged but it burned down in 1938 and a new house was built to replace it.
Gust and Alvin attended the old Deer Lake grade school which later burned. Gust recalls that the school was the center of social activities. Evenings folks would light up lanterns and walk to the school to attend whatever festivities were going on. Besides running their farms the men of the various Skarberg families also worked at the Crown Lumber Company in Mukilteo, going to and from work with John Jensen in his fishing boat.
Gust married Ruth Galbreath, daughter of Floyd and Mary Galbreath who settled in the Midvale area in 1925, coming from eastern Colorado. Floyd Galbreath bought the Clinton Union Store in 1936 from Carl Helland and operated it for 10 years, then sold it to C. H. Muzzall. The Galbreaths had four children, Ruth, June, Robert and Beth.
All four of the Galbreath children married into local pioneer families when they grew up and all still live in South Whidbey. Ruth became Mrs. Gust Skarberg, June married Ben Schumacher, Beth wed Wendell Thorsen and Robert chose as his wife, Evelyn Olson.
Another member of the Skarberg family who became an important part of the Clinton com-munity was Algot, and his wife Justina. Their story was written especially for this Volume by their daughter, Alice Skarberg McDonald. It follows.