Yesterday, the tides and winds were accommodating, and I decided to visit Sunrise Beach Park for two-handed casting practice and seeing if there were any passing fish I might entice with my fly.

Sunrise Beach is northeast of downtown Gig Harbor and is reached from a neighborhood street  by a drive down a forested twisting single-lane road to a bench clearing with parking spaces, picnic tables, and a Porta Potty.  From there a small sloping field leads to a trail down to the beach.  

The beach faces Colvos Passage, the west side of Vashon Island, and views east to Tacoma, and on clear days – Mount Rainier.  Typically, it’s a peaceful place with few visitors, beyond the geese who sit at the water’s edge.

There is a small hill that rises above the parking lot A stone there has a plaque on it – a plaque I never noticed in the years I’d been coming to the park.

The brass plaque mentions that the park was established in 1986 and is in memory of Rudolph and Mathilde Moller who homesteaded the area.

Rudolph has been born in 1868 and had died in 1944; his wife Mathilde was born in 1880 and had died in 1953.

As I looked around to the mature old grown trees beyond the stone, to the small doe eating plant leaves beyond, I was reminded then that they had lived in this place – living through the start of the new 20th century, World War I, the roaring twenties, the Depression, and World War II.

And through those years they shared a life together – one of certain hardship working a farm, but one of the highs and lows of life and marriage over many decades.

Their children, led by their son Rudy, donated the land to Pierce County in 1975 as a memorial to their parents. Through land swaps, trades and additional purchases the park has grown to six acres with two miles of walking paths and trails, and 2400 feet of shoreline passage.

 It left me with a pensive feeling – people long gone in place that meant much to them and given to the community to preserve what once was.

It reminded me of the property to the south of our neighborhood. The family, part of one of the oldest families in Gig Harbor, had lived on the land for many decades – including the land on which our housing development is located and was sold by the family to the developer.

Their daughter is a highly respected electrical engineer, IEEE Fellow,  and is a recognized expert in lasers and in the size reduction of semi conductors. We met her through some issues related to our shared fence line.

We learned that the property, over nine acres of forested land, was being put into trust, and would be turned into a nature preserve with trails leading down the hill.

The land would be worth millions of dollars if it would have been up for sale.

But then the fauna and flora, including old growth trees, deer, coyotes, and at least one cougar and black bear – would have been driven out of yet another area with the seeming relentless sprawl of houses.

I’ve walked the fence line down the hill away from the sometimes busy street above and it’s like being miles from civilization.  The only sounds are of the breeze in the trees and the songs of birds. And when its’ finally open for the public – likely in three more years, it will be a place to find solace.

All of it because her parents , particularly her mother, wanted it preserved for the community. The proposed name of the park will be “Ann’s Forest”.

In future years, the backstory of the property, like the family history of the Mollers at Sunrise Beach, will be forgotten – except perhaps by those who take time to read a plaque or a sign that eventually gets posted.

But both locations are reminders the special places we have were left to us by someone who thought it was important to preserve what they loved.

We have the same responsibility.