Jeannette DeGoede tells inside story of Tulip Town

 

April 26, 2023



Very few people give up a desk job to work in the tulip fields – but Jeannette DeGoede did.

“I was sporting goods managers at Ernst Hardware in Mount Vernon,” she remembers. “Leaving a nice warm store and coming out to a cold field with no one to chat with was a drastic change, but I grew into really loving it.”

In her new book, “Tulip Town Remembered,” Jeannette tells the story behind the beloved institution that she and her late husband Tom DeGoede created.

She spent eight months writing, encouraged by fellow writers in Claire Swedberg’s creative nonfiction class at the La Conner senior center. The journal she kept for 30 years was helpful, except that there are no entries for April. Working 12 hours a day, she was much too tired to journal.

As “Tulip Town Remembered” recounts, the DeGoedes purchased their farm and began the Skagit Valley Bulb Farm in the late 1970s.


Jeannette was no farmer. The day she left Ernst, Tom “had to start with a kindergarten education to get me going, but soon I could put the pieces together.”

When tulip fans began stopping to take pictures and buy the flowers Jeannette was picking, the couple realized that their bulb farm could become a seasonal destination.

Many of their business decisions were made over an evening glass of wine. They are described in the book: adding a sales stand, off-road parking and a ticket booth; designing colorful fields and developing display gardens; creating indoor space for a mural, food and vendors; and building a windmill and turning old dairy wagons into trollies for guests with limited mobility.


On Local’s Night, they threw the doors open to thank people for their patience with all the tulip traffic on Bradshaw Road. Jeannette stood in the entrance and warmly greeted every visitor.

“Sharing with our neighbors and friends was the most special time in our life. People I hadn’t seen in years would come walking in,” she says.

One was their neighbor, Sarah Stewart. She and her husband Sam opened the county’s first tulip farm, Tulip Grange Bulb Farm, in the 1930s. “She was 99 years old when she came to Local’s Night and one of the most treasured guests we ever had.”

Many memories that she sifted through during the writing process made her chuckle. When the last tulip had been topped, Tom and Jeannette would retire to Harrison Hot Springs for a few days. “Towards the end of the festival, he would come in and say ‘honey, one more week until we’re in that hot tub!’”


changing images of vegetables

More difficult was selling and leaving the farm in 2019 after 60 years of marriage. Tom DeGoede died a few months before the sale, which Jeannette calls a blessing.

“Tom told me he could never leave the farm,” she says, “and he never had to. It was a real miracle. For me, leaving the office where we had spent so many hours together was the hardest.”

Saying goodbye to their workers was also tough. “We had a good and trustworthy crew, a beautiful group. They all become your friends really.”

Jeannette credits her classmates for making her book a reality. At first she planned to write just for family and friends. As others in the class listened to her story, they declared it a valuable historical document that deserved to be published.


Besides plenty of Tulip Festival history, “Tulip Town Remembered” shares the history of a marriage. Everything from Tom and Jeannette’s first meeting to their morning walks and evening wine are in these pages.

Small things like Tom’s favorite songs still trigger memories for Jeannette. One strong memory for the Channel Drive resident is participating in the World Tulip Summit in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

“The director of the Canadian Tulip Festival visited us and loved our indoor display. Tom stayed home and my son and I packed it up and off we went,” she remembers. “It was a beautiful experience, with 17 countries participating.”

The summit inspired the Peace Garden that stood at the center of Tulip Town for many years, surrounded by the flags of many countries. Tulip Town’s dove and rainbow logo was another result.

“I’ve always felt strongly about peace,” Jeannette says. “If we don’t find a way to get along with other countries and neighbors we are in trouble.

“That little tulip is the peace flower of the whole world.”

 

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