South Whidbey People and Families
The individual and family profiles contained in this section are largely from Lorna Cherry’s three-volume set of South Whidbey History books which are available for sale in our Museum and online.
We are currently working at building out this section, making corrections and adding photos. Please check back next week when we plan to have this completed.
Click on the Alphabetical Listing Below to Access Links of the Bios
Highlighted Notable South Whidbey People
Jonathan ‘Joc’ Salisbury
Jonathan 'Joc' Salisbury was already in his mid-40s when he and his family headed west in 1889. They landed first in Tacoma, where they purchased a hotel to run, then headed up to Alaska in 1890 to set up accommodations for miners up there. According to a family...
Wickliff and Ellen Newell
This article on the Wickliff Newell family appeared in last Spring's "Now & Then" newsletter of the South Whidbey Historical Society. A HARDSCRABBLE LIFE ON SOUTH WHIDBEY YIELDS SUCCESSLogging, farming and fishing were the three main occupations of...
Luther L. Moore
Luther L. Moore and His Revealed Remedy…. Imagine a natural remedy that would purify the blood and cure everything from asthma to venereal disease--including conditions in between such as ague, alcoholism, asthma, bowel problems, consumption, constipation,...
Virgil & Mabel Auvil
Virgil Auvil was born in 1896 in Auviltown, West Virginia, the eldest of 10 children. His father, Wayne, was a farmer who ventured west after his father died in 1909. He worked on farms in Snohomish County.After serving in WWI , Virgil and his brother, Ray, became...
Thomas John Johns and Mary Jane Johns
Thomas John Johns arrived as a 19-year-old on South Whidbey in 1859, shortly after Ed Oliver, but a little before William Johnson.He was born New Year’s Eve 1840 in Plymouth, England, the son of a British sea captain. Young ‘Tommy’ as he was called, became...
Austin ‘Deke’ Marshall
In 1937, Austin Marshall opened “Austin’s Store in Freeland. It was located along the highway and is more recently remembered as the Gay 90’s pizzeria.“Deke” was born in Langley in 1894 and died in Freeland in 1974. When asked why friends called him...
The Primavera Family
Joseph Primavera was born in Bologna, Italy and came to Seattle in 1899 where he owned and operated a saloon. Ten years prior, Victor’s mother, Martina had left Italy, to come to Seattle to work in her aunt’s boarding house.Joseph and Martina met, fell in...
Leon and Marie Burley in a 1981 interview about life on South Whidbey
If you want to know what life was like on South Whidbey in the 1920s and '30s, then watch this excerpt of an interview that Bill Steiner did in 1981 of his neighbors, Leon and Marie Burley, of Maxwelton. Leon's parents moved from Nebraska to the Ravenna...