By Moira Stockton, Research Assistant

Dr. Laura Laffrado, Director of the Ella Higginson Recovery Project, is featured in the latest issue  of the Readex Report.  After using Readex’s Early American Newspapers database, a digital archive featuring national and local newspapers, Dr. Laffrado found two previously unrecovered poems by Ella Higginson. The poems were written early in Higginson’s career and were not widely circulated.

In the Readex Report, Dr. Laffrado explains her work with resources such as the Early American Newspapers database in locating Higginson’s writings. Dr. Laffrado has catalogued over 800 Higginson pieces from physical and digital archives. Laffrado writes, “This recent availability of digitized American newspapers with varying circulations and from all U.S. geographical regions has opened unique possibilities for discovering lost works and references.”

The earliest of the two new poems, “Just Once,” appeared in the Daily Nebraska State Journal on October 21, 1888.

If we, who never met, should meet,
        And, after meeting, come to know
That, if we had but sooner met,
        We might have loved each other so;

If, after meeting many times,
        The thought should swell into regret
That God had not ordained it so,
        That we in freedom could have met;

If, looking in each other’s eyes—
        The while both knew the same sweet care,
And all but passion—conquered—we
        Should read the same thought written there;

If, knowing, then, that we must walk
        Henceforth in ways as far apart
As sea to sea, because we saw
        What trembled in each other’s heart;

Then, if but for one single time,
        Well knowing, too, that it was wrong,
Our lips should meet in one last kiss,
        Replete with passion, tender, long;

Would this, I say, be sin so black—
        Let those all sinless cast the stone—
That a whole blameless after life
        Could never for it quite atone?


The second poem, “O, Puget Sound,” appeared in the Tacoma, Washington publication Every Sunday on September 13, 1890.

O, Puget sound that sparkles at my feet,
How soft thou art! How pure, and cool, and sweet!
        One great, red poppy in the sunset’s sheen,
        The sky above, the golden haze between—
Sunbeams and moonbeams on they bosom meet.

Thou proudly bearest many a white-winged fleet
Upon thy channel’s quiet, peaceful street,
        And purple skies to kiss thee ever lean—
                O, Puget sound!

Care that would rack my bosom canst cheat
Canst cool and quiet passion’s restless heat:
        And when I stoop to thy arms, soft and green,
        I feel thy kisses thrill with rapture keen,
And my sad heart with thy heart, passionate beat
                O, Puget sound!


To read about Dr. Laffrado’s fascinating work on the Ella Higginson Recovery Project in digital newspaper archives, follow this link:
https://www.readex.com/readex-report/value-digitized-newspaper-collections-researching-neglected-womens-writing-two-newly?cmpid=RDX.RDXRPT

By Moira Stockton, Research Assistant

In Federation Forest State Park in Enumclaw, Washington, a special grove of trees is dedicated to Ella Higginson. The Ella Higginson Grove is on land donated in 1952 by Higginson’s closest friend, Catherine Montgomery.

Two photos of the grove were sent to Dr. Laura Laffrado, Director of the Ella Higginson Recovery Project, after her op-ed about Higginson’s thoughts on the overdevelopment of the Pacific Northwest appeared in the Seattle Times. To read Dr. Laffrado’s op-ed, click this link: https://virtualmocassins.com/ellahigginson/2019/02/24/laments-over-unbridled-growth-in-our-beloved-northwest-are-nothing-new-dr-laura-laffrado-for-the-seattle-times/

An unidentified newspaper reports in January 1952 on the grove’s establishment, “This transaction has been completed recently by the way of a gift from Miss Catherine Montgomery, a retired faculty member of the Western Washington College of Education. One of the factors of a close friendship between these two distinguished women was their shared love of the Northwest’s beautiful outdoors.”

The article continues, “The newly acquired Ella Higginson Grove adjoins the Federation Forest on the east side, and has some frontage on the transcontinental highway, with close proximity to the White river which borders the south side of the whole park. This grove will prove a valuable and important addition to the park, not only in its beauty, but from an historic standpoint, as the old Naches Trail, a favorite of early pioneers, enters the park at the Higginson Grove boundary.”

Catherine Montgomery was born on Prince Edward Island in 1867. She moved to Bellingham, Washington in 1899 to accept a position as one of the founding faculty members of what would become Western Washington University. Higginson and Montgomery were close friends until Higginson’s death in 1940. When Montgomery died in 1957, she left her entire estate to the Federation Forest Park. Her estate was eventually used to construct the Catherine Montgomery Interpretive Center.

Montgomery is remembered for proposing the idea of the Pacific Crest Trail in 1926. To read more about her involvement in the Pacific Crest Trail’s beginnings, see “Meet the mother of the Pacific Crest Trail”: https://www.pcta.org/2017/mother-pacific-crest-trail-catherine-montgomery-48060/

Federation Forest State Park exists today because of the admirable efforts of members of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs of Washington, formerly known as the Washington State Federation of Women’s Clubs. Jeanne Caithness Greenlees, former president of the Snohomish district of the Federation, was a timber conservationist who proposed the idea of the park to Esther Maltby, the sixteenth state president of the Federation. Maltby and Helen Sutton, who also served as a state president, worked together on the park’s dedication, which took place in 1949. To learn more about the history of Federation Forest State Park, watch this video produced by the Federation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG5z__oU5Yc

To more about the General Federation of Women’s Clubs of Washington State and how to get involved, visit their site at: https://www.gfwcws.org/

By Moira Stockton, Research Assistant

On November 2, 2018 a reception was held in honor of the unveiling of the bronze bust of Ella Higginson in Wilson Library at Western Washington University. Film crew Talking to Crows was present to record the event. The edited video has been released for public viewing!

The reception featured speeches from Dr. Laura Laffrado, Director of the Ella Higginson Recovery Project; Dr. Mark Greenberg, Dean of Libraries; Professor Elizabeth Joffrion, Director of Heritage Resources at Western Libraries; and Dr. Brent Carbajal, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs.

Guests witnessed an exceptional vocal performance by artist Olivia Pedroza, who performed three of Higginson’s poems that had been set to music. Pedroza’s performance starts at 36:04 in the taping of the reception.

To watch the video on YouTube, as well as other Ella Higginson videos: https://youtu.be/Uf3tIGqiho8

To watch the video on Vimeo.com: https://vimeo.com/309681607/249eb76107

To learn more about the film company Talking to Crows, visit their site: https://www.talkingtocrows.com/

By Moira Stockton, Research Assistant

Dr. Laura Laffrado, Director of the Ella Higginson Recovery Project, received the Society for the Study of American Women Writer’s (SSAWW) Edition Award for her book Selected Writings of Ella Higginson (2015) at the SSAWW conference in Denver, Colorado on November 10, 2018. Of the Edition Award, the SSAWW website reports, “The SSAWW Edition Award is given every three years at the Society for the Study of American Women Writers’ conference in order to recognize excellence in the recovery of American women writers.”

Dr. Laura Laffrado: I promise I will keep this brief. I am utterly, utterly delighted by this, and especially delighted that this award comes from an an organization so dear to my heart, the Society for the Study of American Women Writers. I think I can safely say that the last time Ella Rhoads Higginson’s name would have been publicly proclaimed in the great state of Colorado would have been at the turn of the twentieth century, at the peak of her fame. This would have been around the same time that a review in the Chicago Tribune of her latest book of short stories described her as the author “who put the Pacific Northwest on the literary map.” That was an accurate assessment. Higginson would publish over eight hundred works in her lifetime—I catalogued all of them—she was the recipient of a variety of national literary awards, her poems were set to music and were sung by the major dramatic singers of the day such as Enrico Caruso, and she was elected first Poet Laureate of Washington State. Despite all that, for reasons that every single person in this room understands, she was completely erased from the literary record, pretty much without a trace. It has been one of my pleasures in recovering Ella Higginson to find her self-designed gravestone, a gravestone she designed long after she had been forgotten, on which she had had engraved, “Ella Higginson, Poet – Writer,” just waiting for the moment when sometime in the future she would be found and recovered. I would like to thank the organizers of this wonderful conference. I know how many moving parts there are in a thing like this, and this has been just such a deep pleasure. I would like to close by reading a poem, if you will, by Ella Higginson celebrating her beloved Pacific Northwest, the region with which her writing is most closely associated. This is “The Snow Pearls” from 1897:

I love the pale green emerald,
The ruby’s drop of flame,
The rare and precious sardonyx
        Of deeply envied fame;
I love the opal’s restless fire
        With green lights interwove,
And e’en the royal amethyst,—
        But most of all I love
The string of snow-pearls set around
        This great blue sapphire, Puget Sound.

The modest garnet, finely cut,
        Gleams like some rich old wine;
I hold the diamond’s crimson flash
        As something half divine;
The turquoise—chill December’s gem—
        Blue as the blue above,
Is precious unto every heart—
        But more than these I love
The string of snow-pearls linked around
        This cool, blue sapphire, Puget Sound.

When up Mount Baker’s noble dome
        Struggles the morning sun,
And waves of crimson and of gold
        Across the pale sky run;
When every fir-tree flashes out
        Like a tall gilded spire,
Sweet as a hope rooted in Heaven,
        Springs a soft, sudden fire
Upon the snow-pearls strung around
        This deep blue sapphire, Puget Sound.
Take, then, all the jewels of the earth
        Which only gold can buy—
Not one is worth that glistening chain
        Linked in God’s pale green sky!
Let him who will, roam East or West,
        On prairie or on sea,
Searching for empty gems—but oh!
        Let us contented be
With these pure snow-pearls clasped around
        Our own blue sapphire, Puget Sound.

The bronze bust of Ella Higginson. Photo by the Ella Higginson Blog.

The bust of Ella Higginson has been unveiled! 

At 11:30AM Friday November 2nd, the bronze bust of Ella Higginson was installed in the North foyer of Wilson Library at Western Washington University.

Matt Waldman from Western Washington University’s carpentry shop prepares to install the bust. Photo by the Ella Higginson Blog.

From left to right, Pat Schuette and Matt Waldman from the university carpentry shop, and Matt Glenn of BIG Statues in Provo, Utah. Photo by the Ella Higginson Blog.

The reception for the bust took place that afternoon in the Wilson Library Reading Room. Students, staff, faculty, and passionate community members flooded the Reading Room to celebrate with speeches, live music, and free food! Also present were two of Russell Carden Higginson’s (Ella Higginson’s husband) great-great-great nephews representing the Higginson Family. 

The life-size-and-a-half,  hollow-cast bronze bust was sculpted by Matt Glenn in his studio in Provost, Utah. Glenn’s company, BIG Statues, provides bronze sculptures for memorials and parks all over the US. One of Glenn’s recent projects was a memorial for women veterans installed in Las Cruces, New Mexico. To read more about Matt Glenn’s work, visit https://www.bigstatues.com/

Dr. Laura Laffrado, Director of the Ella Higginson Recovery Project, and Matt Glenn of BIG Statues in Provo, Utah with the bust of Ella Higginson. Photo curtesy of Western Libraries, Western Washington University.

The first to speak was Dr. Mark Greenberg, Dean of Libraries, who welcomed guests into the Mabel Zoe Wilson Library. He noted the beautiful friendship that spanned three decades between Mabel Zoe Wilson and Ella Higginson. Next to speak was Elizabeth Joffrion, Director of Heritage Resources, who described the lively research relationship between Dr. Laura Laffrado, Director of the Ella Higginson Recovery Project, and the resources in the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies. Dr. Brent Carbajal, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, affirmed Western Washington University’s support for the preservation of women’s achievements in our current political climate. Finally, Dr. Laura Laffrado took the podium to paint a picture of Ella Higginson’s life, from her family’s trek from Kansas to Oregon, her arrival in Whatcom, her first big literary breaks, her international fame, her obscurity after WWI, and now her literary recovery. The last speaker was Dr. Laffrado’s research assistant, Marielle Stockton, who demonstrated Ella Higginson’s love for the people of Whatcom County with a brief survey of her memorial poetry. 

Dr. Mark Greenberg, Dean of Libraries. Photo by Rhys Logan, Western Washington University.

Elizabeth Joffrion, Director of Heritage Resources. Photo by Rhys Logan, Western Washington University.

Dr. Brent Carbajal, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. Photo by Rhys Logan, Western Washington University.

Dr. Laura Laffrado, Director of the Ella Higginson Recovery Project. Photo by Rhys Logan, Western Washington University.

Talented Vocal Performance music major Olivia Pedroza of Sedro-Woolley then performed three songs, each of them featuring Ella Higginson poems as lyrics that were performed regularly in Higginson’s own lifetime. Footage of Pedroza’s marvelous performance will be available shortly; a special thanks again to filmmakers Talking to Crows. Next, Pedroza will be performing in WWU’s Concert Choir’s program “A Light in the Darkness: Songs of Hope and Comfort” on November 17, 2018. For more information on the event, visit here: https://cfpa.wwu.edu/event/light-darkness-songs-hope-and-comfort

Olivia Pedroza, Vocal Performance major. Photo by Rhys Logan, Western Washington University.

The brilliant manager of Special Collections, Tamara Belts, curated the first ever Ella Higginson exhibit. Pieces from the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Dr. Laffrado’s, and her research assistant’s collection were featured. Belts also put together a large binder of newspaper clippings about Higginson, postcards featuring Higginson’s poems, and sheet music where Higginson’s poems were used as lyrics. Included was Ella Higginson’s music score cabinet, donated by former university Children’s Literature librarian Miriam B. Snow Mathes.

The music score cabinet of Ella Higginson, kept in Special Collections in Western Libraries. Photo by the Ella Higginson Blog.

Cases from the Ella Higginson exhibit by Tamara Belts. Photos by the Ella Higginson Blog.

“What a deep pleasure it was to join with the many friends of Western who packed the Library’s Reading Room on Friday for the gala Ella Higginson Celebration!” Dr. Laffrado said of the reception. “Over a century after the peak of her fame, Ella Higginson is now permanently memorialized in a beautiful bronze bust proudly displayed in the entrance to Wilson Library. This is a wonderful moment of feminist literary recovery that I am so pleased to have guided.”

Dr. Laffrado with the bust before installation. Photo curtesy of Western Libraries, Western Washington University.

Dr. Laffrado sharing a moment with the bust. Photo by the Ella Higginson Blog.

By Moira Stockton, Research Assistant

As announced earlier this year, a bronze bust of Ella Higginson will be installed in Western Washington University’s Wilson Library. The unveiling will take place on November 2, 2018 in the Wilson Library Reading Room from 4:00PM-6:00PM.

All are welcome to celebrate the literary recovery of the first Poet Laureate of Washington State with us! There are no reservations necessary or admission fees. See an exhibit of Higginson works and artifacts, and enjoy a live musical performance and refreshments.

To read more about the event, read the Western Today’s press release on the event: https://westerntoday.wwu.edu/news/ella-higginson-celebration-at-western-libraries-set-for-nov-2

The Mabel Zoe Wilson Library began construction in 1927, being the first separate library building the State Normal School at Bellingham (now Western Washington University) ever had. Until that time, the library was housed in various rooms and floors (and even in part of the attic) of what is today called Old Main, the only building on campus during the school’s early years. In 1964, this library was named for pioneer librarian Mabel Zoe Wilson, who was the head of the library from 1902 to 1945, an astonishing 43 years of service! Just under two months after the naming, Mabel Zoe Wilson would die at the age of 86.

Front page of the July 28, 1939 Western Washington College of Education student newspaper the WWC Collegian, now titled the Western Front. Digitized by Special Collections, Western Libraries Heritage Resources, Western Washington University.

Members of the search party surveying the path of the avalanche. Photograph by John Scurlock, July 1939.

The line “You will be forever climbing upward now” is
taken from a memorial poem written by Charles E. Butler, who was the current reference
librarian for the college.

by Moira Stockton, Research Assistant

If you have read Higginson’s poetry, you are well aware of her fascination and devotion to Bellingham Bay, Puget Sound, the ocean, and most all bodies of water. It was here in the Treadwell mine that she  experienced water in an entirely different way.

“The Treadwell is the pride of Alaska.” Higginson declares in the book. “Its poetic situation, romantic history, and admirable methods should make it the pride of America.”