Islander Mary Sage first realized her love for Vashon about 30 years ago when she and her late husband would ride their bicycles from their home in West Seattle to the island every weekend. They would stay at a bed and breakfast on Vashon’s west side.

“We were always going. It never crossed our mind to not get on the boat,” Sage recalled.

She said it was how easy the island made it to unplug from the world of their corporate jobs on the mainland that kept them coming back.

Much has changed since then: the bed and breakfast no longer exists; Sage’s husband, Mark Devlin, has died, she’s gotten remarried and was diagnosed with cancer (multiple myeloma) in 2015. But through it all, she says she has fallen in love with the island all over again.

“When I was diagnosed, people I didn’t think I knew rallied around to help us through the first year,” she said.

It all began for Sage and Devlin in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when they met on a bus when Sage was 17.

“We dated on the bus,” Sage said laughing. “No one would sit next to us because they knew we would sit next to each other. I remember after meeting him for the first time, I called my godmother and said, ‘You’re going to be coming to a wedding in three years.’”

Pittsburgh was in the heart of heavy industry and steel production and far from the cleaner air and greenery of the Pacific Northwest. Sage says she distinctly remembers waking up some mornings and sweeping a layer of fine metal particulates off of her car.

“We had steel mills, coal cars and pesticides. We would use Roundup like it was water,” she said.

Sage and Devlin got married in 1980 and when the economy crashed a few years later, the two moved to West Seattle and Devlin started a job at Boeing. It was then that the couple bought two 18-speed Trek bicycles, and the trips to Vashon started.

“One time it snowed ,and we were from the East Coast so we didn’t think it was that bad,” Sage said. “We told the bed and breakfast that we were still coming over, and she couldn’t believe it. It was a lot of snow, but we had a four wheel-drive car. She (the innkeeper) made us jam and biscuits.”

In 1992, the couple had twin boys and “believe it or not, on one income, it was cheaper to move to Vashon,” Sage said.

“We had the boys in West Seattle and moved here five months later,” she said.

They rented a home on the north end for $900 per month and even got a discount for cutting the grass. They went on to buy land in Ellisport, added a manufactured home, sold the property and then bought land on the north end. They began attending church at St. John Vianney, and Sage said one of her earliest memories of the island is meeting Linda Bianchi, an islander who has five sons with her husband, Dick.

“The first time we brought our boys to church, I met Linda Bianchi, and she said, ‘Oh my God, you have boys,’ and took them right out of my arms,” Sage said. “She said, ‘You have to stay.’ Everywhere you went, someone was there to welcome you. There were no expectations either way.”

Sage took to the island lifestyle and began working many odd jobs, including teaching first aid in the schools — Vashon Elementary and later Chautauqua Elementary — for 14 years. She also became a volunteer firefighter and said she practiced for the physical test by carrying her two boys, who were 4 years old at the time, on her shoulders and climbing up and down ladders at the home she and Devlin built on the north end. She volunteered for seven years before quitting when Devlin was diagnosed with liposarcoma in the mid-1990s.

Devlin died in 2003 and Sage said the island community was crucial for her well-being. Sage said that her mother came to visit shortly after Devlin’s death and initially told her she needed to come home to the East Coast, but later changed her mind upon seeing the Vashon community in action.

“She noticed I was home,” Sage said. “If you try, you’ll have a family — And I do here.”

Her family grew again when she met Michael Sage online, and he came to Vashon from Tacoma for a date on a February Friday.

“It was gallery cruise,” Mary Sage said. “If you want to know if you’re a good fit, go to an island event. Everyone will put in their two cents. After three floats over to the island, they’re good. Michael fell in love with the island and with me, I guess.”

They got married in 2005. Ten years later, Mary was diagnosed with cancer. The community rallied and held fundraisers for her. In November 2016, islanders and local businesses raised enough money to cover the expense of a bone marrow transplant.

“When you’re on Vashon, you’re never without family,” Mary said.

Today, she lives in the home that she and Devlin built 22 years ago. Her sons — Ray and Ryan Devlin — are 24 years old, have completed their education and want to stay on the island.

“They appreciate the community. They’re starting their lives just as we were when we rode our bikes over 30 years ago,” Mary said.