Ned Luce

Festivity filled the plaza in the Village Center last week with the first annual Christmas Tree lighting. Santa Claus showed up to give the signal to turn on the lights and the Chimacum High School choir provided entertaining music. Several treats were available and you could spend $10 on a box of snickerdoodle cookies being sold by the choir supporters. They were good enough to compete with BJ’s grandmother’s recipe!
It has been occasionally suggested that I share something with you that you might not know about the area. That is a pretty tall order for me but I took it on this week by stopping in at the Jefferson County Historical Society to do a little research.
The Oral History Program Manager, the very helpful Ellie DiPietro, worked with me for about an hour. We identified Dorothy Plut as a person a few folks in Port Ludlow and Eastern Jefferson County may have heard of but many probably have not. Ellie found the transcript of an “oral history” interview with Dorothy in 1988. Dorothy was a young nurse who came to Port Ludlow with her doctor husband to open an office in the early 1930s. In the 1940s they also had an office in Port Townsend and provided medical services throughout the area for many years.
In the 1950s Dorothy was involved in the establishment of United Good Neighbors (UGN), and served as the organization’s secretary. She was proud of the fact that UGN spent all the money collected in the local community. She stated that UGN did not support the Red Cross or the Cancer Society because too much of the money went outside of the community and some of their donors objected. In those days the money was collected by individuals who distributed materials in neighborhoods throughout the area. Dorothy canvassed a poor area out by North Beach one year and called at a home with a woman and two small children who obviously had chicken pox. After telling her why she was there, the woman said, “just a minute.” She went inside and returned with a single coin. Dorothy gave her the sticker for the door indicating someone in the home had donated to UGN. When she got into her car she realized the woman had given her a nickel. “That’s all that woman had. Now that is as big, I think, as somebody who gave a hundred dollars a week, who was rich, you know. I’ll bet it was her last nickel.”
These days UGN uses mail, social media, and public signage to raise money for the same purposes it did at its founding almost 70 years ago. As you may know from all the signs around, we are in the middle of the annual UGN campaign. I urge you to consider donating your last nickel or your last $100 even though you still need to buy a few presents for those close to you.
Finally, when someone asks you “where is your Christmas Spirit?” I don’t want to hear that you pointed to the liquor cabinet.
Love a curmudgeon and have a great week.
(Retired IBM executive Ned Luce is a lover of all things Port Ludlow.)