Page 5 - 2022 SWHS Spring Newsletter for website

Hard life, hard work, kind heart
Effie Simonson: Langley's unofficial ambassador

of goodwill

It is not only those people who are the
first, the fastest, the famous or financial-
ly successful who contribute to a com-
munity’s development and character.
Often it is ordinary people laboring
day in and out to create a better life for
themselves, their families and the place
they live.
So it was with Effie Mae Cogean*
Beacham Simonson.
Born in 1895 at Brown's Point (now
Sandy Point), her life was filled with
hardship and hard work, resulting in a
steadfast iron strength that she tempered
with friendship and kindness.
Her father, Oliver J. Cogean,* emi-
grated from France to the United States
in 1882 where he settled in Missouri and
worked on the railroad.
In 1890 he moved his wife, Ella, and Effie in a 1960 photo in front of her business. (Photo courtesy Darrell Corbin.)
four children to Langley shortly after The Beacham homestead was known er, and of school, first Mutiny Bay and
Jacob Anthes had platted the town. He as “The Maples” for the many trees that later at Bayview where 5 students from
found work as a carpenter. Effie had planted. the first through the eighth grades were
The family lived at Brown’s Point A 1979 article ‘The Girl Who Planted housed and handled by a single teacher
while Cogean built a house on property Trees’ written for the Island Independent in the one-room schoolhouse.
he leased from Anthes on what is now by Sue Ellen White included insight into She moved back to Langley in 1910
Sixth Street. Effie’s childhood. (to the Beacham/Lovejoy house on An-
Effie was the eighth of nine children As a young girl she was counted on thes Ave.) but spent a good part of the
by then. When she was three years old to help with the livestock, pack next three years in the Yakima
her father and Anthes had a business water to the fields, rake hay Valley picking hops or apples
dispute resulting in Cogean abandon- and tramp it down in the sheds, and working at a store and ice
ing his wife and children and living work in the harvest and pre- cream parlor at Soap Lake...
elsewhere around the Sound. pare the year’s supply of fruits When she was 21 Effie mar-
Ella had a tough time trying to sup- and vegetables... ried Thomas ‘Henry' Simon-
port her sizable family. Effie was given Imagine a young girl, prob- son (age 41) and for a time it
to Walter and Susan Beacham** who ably lonely and wishing for appeared that the tide of her
were homesteading 160 acres between her mother and father, digging up the fortunes had turned for the better. Hen-
Langley and Freeland on Newman Rd. saplings and re-planting them along- ry was active in Langley civic affairs
The Beacham’s own two children had side the main road that ran by the farm and he and Effie became the parents
died before they adopted Effie. where she lived. She nurtured the trees of a daughter, Hazel, and a son, Allen.
According to grandson Tom Christoe, and tended them, watching them grow Then Henry was diagnosed with cancer
it was a hard childhood, with Effie say- and flourish. and was sent to Medical Lake Hospital.
ing she felt more like an indentured ser- A June 18, 1970 Whidbey News-Times Effie opened a breakfast and coffee
vant than an adopted daughter. article further describes Effie's child- shop at the head of the Langley dock in
hood: Effie’s memories of those years order to support her two children, and
*Alternately spelled as CoJean and are of the winding horse trail through pay for her husband’s medical bills and
Cogeon on various documents the woods to Langley and of the excite- visits to him at the hospital.
**Also spelled Beachum ment of a trip to Everett by sternwheel- The hazards of having her children
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