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Local historian Janna Gage shared stories of whites settling our northwest corner of the Washington territory and of her own family’s place on the Skagit River to 15 members at the Friends of the Library potluck and meeting Dec. 17.

Gage started with Louise A. Conner and her family’s flight from a brutal, barbaric and dead-end life in Missouri. The Civil War was disruptive, with returning soldiers leading the movement westward.

Gage stressed her surprise at finding that her relative buried in the Pleasant Ridge cemetery was a Confederate veteran.

She turned from specific incidents of Conner to details of her own family’s roots, which date to George Gaches arrival from England. The heart of her remarks were childhood Christmas reminiscences on their hard scrabble homestead southeast of town.

The Christmas season began at her house once the Sears Roebuck catalog came in October. “All four of us children enjoyed going through it day after day,” she recalled, along with her desire for a typewriter, which her knowledge of family poverty kept her from voicing.

“There was always something under the tree Christmas day, no matter how difficult” her dad’s, a farm laborer, work life.

While there was at least one flush year, Gage said she remembered better “lean Christmases,” and recounted several.

One year they hung their hopes, cut out items from the Sears catalog, as ornaments on the tree.

Another year her mother made the children outfits by cutting adult clothes down to size. Gage reflected “how difficult it was, it seemed impossible to me, with satin” and the scissors her mom had.

Her true grit, pioneer conclusions: “How can you treasure what you get if it wasn’t special?” and: “The Christmas I loved most was the one with the most sacrifice and love.”