Page 4 - 2022 Summer SWHS Newsletter

Childhood reminiscenses of Dick Bryant
Memories of Cultus Bay from the 1930s and ‘40s

The following account was written by
Richard ‘Dick’ Bryant who grew up at Reflecting on my Cultus Bay days I have come to the conclusion
Cultus Bay near Possession and Cultus that it was probably the most productive area on the south end.
Bay roads.
We had all kinds of clams: butter, steamers, horse and geoducks
when the tide was out.
One of the best salmon fisheries was off Possession Point.
Schools of salmon would come into the Bay on an incoming tide.
We could pick up crabs at low tides... We never lacked for plenty
of seafood. Just had to make the effort to go get it.
––Dick Bryant

My grandparents moved to South He had a nice fishing boat and would
The Bryant house (above) was located Whidbey from Seattle in the early go out at night to net the fish. Appar-
where the Hammons Preserve (a part 1910s. My father, Fulton, attended In- ently they would come into the head
of the Whidbey Camano Land Trust) gleside School at what is now Bailey’s of the Bay in schools at the incoming
is now located. The house, which had Corner Market. He dropped out of high tide. In the morning the boat would be
been sold to the Hammons, was burned school and worked in the Leavenworth beached near the road with a net full
in a firefighting exercise in 2007. area until the Depression started. Then of fish.
he and my mother and older brothers We would go down, extract the fish
We were a pretty tight-knit commu- moved back to South Whidbey where from the net, and liver them. The nets
nity around Cultus Bay in the 1930s my sister and I were born. would go up on a drying rack and we
and ‘40s and everyone seemed to know Dad worked at a sawmill on the Bay would mend any tears that might have
everyone else. for awhile. My brother thought that occurred. Once in a while we would
The fact that a lot families had chil- Dad got the lumber from that mill for weave the float and sinker lines on new
dren about the same age drew us all to- the house on Cultus/Possession Road. nets. We also dipped them in some sort
gether. All of us kids got together on a We moved into that house in the late of copper solution to ward of organisms.
regular basis, were in and out of each 30s, then left for a couple of years to Dad also partook in this enterprise.
other’s houses, and came up with activ- the Leavenworth area so Dad could I do know he ran what is called a ‘set
ities--especially during the summer--to find work. We moved back to the Island line’ for a while. It was a long rope with
pass the time. for good right after the war started. sinkers spaced along it, kegs for floats
Parents around the Bay raised their Dad had a lot of different jobs when on each end, and baited hooks tied at
children during the last of the Depres- we lived at the Bay. One was catching regular intervals. The set line was off
sion and into the ‘40s. The families dogfish. This was when the livers were the mouth of the Bay.
suffered hardships, and most lived be- a marketable item. I remember going out with him once
low the poverty level based on today’s as he pulled the line. He caught quite
There was a couple by the name of
standards. Radke living near the Bay at this time. a few dogfish, but also a lot of kinds I
BRYANTS: The matriarch of our had never seen before. The worse one
family was Leanora (Parkhurst) Bry- was a rat fish.
ant. My grandfather, Grant, passed Radke also ran a gill net for salmon
away before I was born. (He donated for a short time. He pulled the net from
land for Ingleside Hall, the area’s so- the beach across the channel at the in-
cial gathering place which was later coming tide. One end was anchored on
donated to the VFW by my father and shore and the other on the other side
is now a private residence.) of the channel. He did this next to the
Grandma Bryant lived with us off Laura (Bailey) Jewett property, just
and on while we lived at Cultus Bay up down the beach from the ‘Stink Plant’.
until she passed in the late 1950s. The salmon would enter the Bay on
My parents Fulton and Della had the incoming tide. The floats would
four children: Robert, James, Richard bob up and down whenever a fish was
(me) and Nora. Nora and I are the only Leanora and Grant Bryant with son Fulton netted. Unfortunately the seals caught
remaining siblings. came to South Whidbey about 1910. onto this quickly and followed the fish.
4