We live in Silverdale, an unincorporated part of Kitsap County bordering Bremerton, that is known for it’s shopping mall and the Bangor Naval Submarine Base. Thanks to the Kitsap County Historical Society, the history of this part of the world is well documented in Kitsap County, a History (c 2012). I love learning about the people who lived on this land before me and wondering if they felt as lucky as I do to have landed here. The earliest of the European settlers who homesteaded in the area in the latter part of the 19th century was William Littlewood, whose unusual cement tombstone you see before you and in the Silverdale Cemetery. He was a logger in the Seabeck area, hence this fitting rendering of a tree stump which sports a (now headless) dove, ax and maul. Mr. Littlewood died in 1896 at the age of 72. His tombstone says he was born in London, England. His name first appears in the 1857 census according to the KCHS history book. I found him today when I decided to take a walk into the cemetery, which abuts the subdivision bordering mine. I took a path between houses, down to the end of a cul-de-sac, and straight ahead where the cemetery sits behind a chain-link fence. A few graves date from the end of the 1800s, many from the 1930s, and even a few from the 20-teens. The cemetery is in such disrepair that it made me sad. I paid my respects at the couple of dozen graves containing the cremains of people in the County who have died without family or friends or the means for their own burials. A sacred place. Blessings.
*Pandemic Isolation Day #....for me it is the number of days since March 16, when I started staying home...mostly.