Editor,

My mother, Peggy Berg, who will be 99 in May, expressed her delight at the commissioners’ vote against the settlement offer by the Montgomerys in their proposal to gain title to public beach access on Wonn Road.

Mom has lived on bank property east of Wonn Road since the mid 1960s and, like others, could not replace, or maintain, her steps to the beach.

Our extended family enjoyed her beach for clamming and recreation over these many years. Walking from Wonn Road became risky due to the no trespassing sign there next to an old single-wide trailer.

So, my dad would call a friend next to what is now Montgomery property for parking permission and we would bring her back a batch of steamers.

This week, my mother, during our regular phone chat, said the decision is important in order to preserve island history.

She and my dad had delivered the Seattle Times, probably in the late 1960s, and, if they had an extra paper, would throw it in the yard of an elderly woman unable to pay for a subscription.

This woman accompanied her daughter to the garden club meeting where my mother met and visited with her.

She invited my parents to dinner and told them about her memories of the steamer that docked at Wonn Road to bring supplies and take the dairy milk — berry farm — and school students to Everett. If this woman was in her 80s as my mother thinks, she would have been born in the late 1880s.

Mom feels the history of Greenbank began at the Wonn Road beach access area and needs to preserved and is grateful to advocates working to maintain public access.

Alexandra Exelby

San Clemente, Calif.