On Monday, a vibrant new mural at Chautauqua Elementary School was unveiled, honoring the legacy of Lucy Slagham Gerand and her important role in preserving the history and culture of the s ̌xwəbabs, or Swiftwater People, who resided on Vashon for millennia.
Lucy was born near Burton in 1840 when the s ̌xwəbabs people had permanent settlements along Quartermaster Harbor and Tahlequah. She died in 1929 and is buried in Vashon Cemetery.
In a 1918 interview with the anthropologist Thomas Talbot Waterman, Lucy supplied a motherlode of information about the region’s place names, living sites and buildings created by the s ̌xwəbabs. Later, her testimony at the 1927 Puyallup land claims tribunal provided more descriptions of the s ̌xwəbabs presence on the island, as well as helped document the grievous harms of their forced removal from Vashon.
An all-school assembly marked the occasion, with children in all grade levels settling into place in front of the mural, which is prominently placed on a large concrete wall of the school’s covered play area facing the school and playground.
The towering mural colorfully depicts clams, ducks and herons swirling around a 14-foot-tall portrait of Lucy. It was painted last summer by Anthony Duenas, based on a design by Daniel Baptista. Both are Puyallup artists.
The idea for a mural depicting Lucy came at the suggestion of islander West McLean in 2021, and subsequently, Vashon Island School District (VISD) worked closely with the tribe in the development of the mural. The process was led by VISD’s director of teaching and learning, Stephanie Spencer, working with Patricia Conway, the tribe’s curriculum developer and school liaison, and Brandon Reynon, the tribe’s director of historic preservation.
Vashon Heritage Museum, the Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust, and the Vashon Nature Center were also credited as providing support for the project.
According to Spencer, the district’s work with the tribe will be ongoing, as over the next months and years it will develop a full curriculum about Lucy for grades K-8, based on the mural.
Speaking to the children gathered for the assembly, Reynon described Lucy’s life, and how she had been forced to leave the island, after the signing of the Treaty of Medicine Creek in 1854, to eventually live on the Puyallup Indian Reservation for many years before her return to Vashon.
The children could learn many things from Lucy, he said.
She had listened to her elders to learn and remember the stories of her people, which she later told to others, Reynon said. And she had also stood strong against their oppression.
“Would you like to be forced to move from your home, to be told, ‘Hey, get out?’ he asked. “That’s what she had to do. But she was also mad, and so she was able to fight to come back and live on this island. Lucy was one of our first people to stand up and fight for what was right for her people, and what was right for the [Puyallup people], and what was right for all Native Americans in this area.”
He urged the students to look up to the mural frequently.
“You’ll be playing out here, in the covered area, and on the gyms and swings,” he said. “You’ll have her here, to learn from her, that you need to stand strong. You need to stand up for who you are.”
Find out more about the mural’s creation in a YouTube video, at tinyurl.com/4s3uzujd. For more information about the life of Lucy Slangham Gerand, read the Vashon Heritage Museum’s description of her life and influence, at tinyurl.com/yrce9xj7.
