3 CD box set with 40 songs about Olympia WA plus a detailed 80 page book with the history behind the songs and a plethora of great photos. With over 100 Olympa musicians. Stunning!
Includes unlimited streaming of Olympia - A True Story
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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Streaming + Download
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
I went to high school with Allen Kornmesser (his dad had Kornmesser Optometry downtown). He told me that Margaret took him mushroom hunting when he was a kid.
Allen’s tale:
The Capitol campus in Olympia was one of my playgrounds growing up.
When class let out at Lincoln Elementary School, we’d swarm the Green Frog Grocery for penny candy then some of us would head down to the Capitol, walking through side streets lined with graceful homes and tidy lawns. But there was one house unlike all the others. Tall grass and weeds filled the yard. Unkempt bushes mocked the neighbors’ prim shrubbery. Birds squawked and squirrels ran through the undergrowth. We kids might have been afraid of the old woman who lived there, but we knew it was “Margaret McKenney’s house,” so we weren’t scared.
Margaret McKenney visited schools to spread her love of nature, which
is where I met her, but a friend of the family who thought I needed to
know her better arranged for us to go mushroom hunting one fall day.
We went to Miss McKenney’s home, which I remember smelled of
mushrooms, with specimens lying about, drying on windowsills, and
piled on countertops. From there, we got in the car and drove to a spot
she knew. A trail led us into the misty, damp forest and suddenly there
were mushrooms everywhere, popping up out of fallen leaves, tucked
under hanging tree limbs. She pointed out which ones were good to eat,
and which were not. It was a magical day with Margaret McKenny that
lingers in my memory, hazy as a dream or a rainy walk in the woods.
- Allen Kornmesser 2022
There are schools and parks named for Margaret McKenny all over the Olympia area. Her impact was enormous.
The bridge of this song that starts with “quote” are lines from a poem by Ms. McKenny that is featured in Sally Turnbull’s article.
This song is another former demo, with my organ noodling on the left and Joe’s superior work on the right. I am also solely to blame for the bass solo.
Turnbull, Sally. (2019) The Spirit of Margaret McKenny: Loving the Natural World Thurston County Historical Journal. Lacey, WA. Olympia Tumwater Foundation
lyrics
Margaret McKenny
Margaret McKenny
Conservationist, mycologist, environmental activist
Author, poet, educator, photographer, landscape architect
Olympia native, born in 1895
Her passion was for nature
She was not a woman to deny
Margaret McKenny
Margaret McKenny
The daughter of a general, who was wounded in the Civil War
By high school, she was writing articles and taking wildflower photographs
In the ‘20’s she went to Boston to study landscape design
She moved to New York where she wrote nine of fifteen books she published
Margaret McKenny
Margaret McKenny
In 1943 she came back home
Became the official photographer of the Washington State Parks Committee
In 1955 Olympia was poised to log the old watershed
Margaret got fired up and spoke out in the “Daily O”
She got hundreds of signatures and brought them to the City Commission
The commission said they didn’t care and they were gonna auction off the trees
Her group Citizens for the Future filed suit and at first, they lost
They appealed and won and then the city just gave up
The people voted and today you can visit Watershed Park
Quote: “When in exile what I longed for most was the air of home
Sweet pure air flowing across my face straight from the ocean”
The Savory Wild Mushroom certainly remains her best-known book
Helen Keller was a fan, she took her for a mushroom hunt
She made a bird park at Percival Cove and then saved Sylvester Park
She saved the trees at Squaxin Park, standing against baseball fields
She stood for the Nisqually Delta preservation back in ‘47
In ‘64, she told Seattle they could not make it their garbage dump
In ‘65, she fought Tacoma when they wanted to make it a port
In ‘69 she died. A life well-lived.
Margaret McKenny
Margaret McKenny
Tom Dyer and The True OlympiansOlympia, Washington
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