Nearly every day, Dave Engle steps back in time.
The journey takes several steps, actually.
He travels by foot from the small house he shares with his wife Dolores on Ebey’s Prairie. He walks across his property, through the trees and under a mighty horse chestnut tree to reach the front porch of a grand old place where he, his parents, grandparents and great grandparents once called home.
“That’s the same door that’s been there for years and years and years and years,” he says as he takes the final steps to the entrance.
Engle unlocks the door and allows filtered light to shine on history.
Inside the 19th century home is a wooden staircase and faded wallpaper that dates back generations.
Immediately noticeable on the wall at the end of the entryway, are two framed photographs of Engle’s great grandparents — early Coupeville pioneers Flora Augusta Pearson Engle and William B. Engle.
“That desk over there, that’s Toppy’s,” Engle said, sharing his great grandmother’s affectionate family nickname. “That’s where she did most of her writing.”
Flora Augusta Pearson Engle often sat at that antique desk, but throughout her busy life, she rarely sat still.
She was a prolific writer, using a pen to both record history and push for change in a bustling, young frontier town.And she wasn’t shy about voicing her views and organizing efforts to bring improvements to her community.
“Flora was a mover and shaker,” said Rick Castellano, executive director of the Island County Museum. “She’s responsible for the first board sidewalks in Coupeville. She got tired of having mud on the hems of her dresses.
“She helped spearhead an effort to restore the Davis Blockhouse.”
Castellano spent more than a year working with a video production company to bring to life the words found in Flora Engle’s vivid writings.
The result is a 42-minute DVD produced by the museum and Reel Life Videos titled, “The Life and Times of Flora Augusta Pearson Engle,” which is being released this week.
A first screening will be held at 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 6, at the Coupeville High School Performing Arts Center.
The DVD is selling for $21.99 plus tax with the proceeds benefiting the museum.
The screening is free.
The video is the second the museum has made, following the award-winning DVD about Sunnyside Cemetery in 2013.
“The challenging part was to try to tell a meaningful story about her in 42 minutes,” Castellano said. “It was impossible. What we decided to do was to broaden it out more and make it more about her life and times.”
The times were the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Flora Engle arrived in Coupeville in 1866 at the age of 15 after a fourth-month trip by steamship from New York “around the horn” of South America to San Francisco and ultimately to what was then Washington Territory.
She was part of the second Mercer expedition known as the “Mercer Belles” that traveled from New England to the Pacific Northwest in an effort to bring educated young women to teach and to balance the gender ratio in the young frontier region.
She made the trip along with her mother Susan Brown Pearson and her brother, Daniel Orlando Pearson, following the first expedition of “Mercer Girls” two years earlier that included her two older sisters Georgianna and Josephine Pearson and their father Daniel Pearson.
The Mercer expeditions were organized by Asa Mercer, the first president of the University of Washington. His expeditions inspired the television series, “Here Come the Brides,” which aired from 1968-70.
In 1876, 10 years after her arrival, Flora Engle married William Ballinger Engle, a successful farmer who had come to Whidbey Island in 1852 aboard a ship captained by Thomas Coupe, the town’s founder.
“She knew a lot of the early settlers — Captain Coupe and his wife and the Crocketts,” Castellano said. “They were friends with all of those people. She was a very prolific writer. She wasn’t a trained historian but what she wrote down really gives us a vivid picture of what was going on back then.”
Flora Engle wrote about Coupeville society in the Island County Times. She also wrote poetry, plays and songs.
For a time, she served as assistant lighthouse keeper at the original Admiralty Head Lighthouse, where her father was the lighthouse keeper for 13 years, never missing a night during his post.
“She had a deep appreciation of history. My grandmother told me this,” Dave Engle said. “She realized when she came into Puget Sound she was part of history. She kept a diary every day of her life.”
The diaries remain in the Engle family, which still maintains a large presence in Central Whidbey.
Castellano was able to look through one of Flora Engle’s diaries as well as pore through many journals, articles, poems and plays she wrote.
“I feel like I know her pretty well and she’s been gone a long time,” he said.
Flora Engle, born in 1850, lived until 1935. She was known to sign her full name, which was uncommon for a women during that time.
“She was proud of who she was. She was her own person,” Castellano said. “Back then, a lot of women would’ve signed their name Mrs. William Engle. She always signed hers ‘Flora Augusta Pearson Engle’ or she’d use her (four) initials. I think that little tidbit tells you something about her.”
Dave Engle, 78, was born two years after his great grandmother died but has heard countless stories about her life and read from her diaries.
“She got the name Grandbuzzy because she did everything quickly,” he said. “She had energy, energy, energy.”
Dave Engle and his wife were living in the 1858 Victorian home where his great grandparents once resided until a fire nine years ago forced them to move out. They continue to live on the historic Engle farmstead in a former granary that was remodeled last year.
This allows Dave Engle to keep a close eye on the house that contains so many memories, particularly from his younger years.
His grandparents lived there for 49 years and there were times when he stayed with them as a teenager.
“It was really unique thinking of the history that had gone on in that house in my own family,” Dave Engle said.
Dave and Dolores Engle’s four daughters want to preserve the historic home and keep it in the family.
“Our dreams are to restore the whole thing, every inch of it,” Dave Engle said. “I realize a lot of that will come with our daughters.”
The Island County Museum this week is releasing a new DVD it has produced about one of its early residents who helped push for social change and town improvements in Coupeville. “The Life and Times of Flora Augusta Pearson Engle” is selling for $21.99 plus tax at the museum store with the proceeds benefiting the museum. The museum is located at 908 NW Alexander St. near the Coupeville wharf. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday.
