The Vashon Heritage Museum is embarking on a transformative journey, one that involves the complete renovation of our twenty-plus-year-old main gallery, the heart of our museum.
You might wonder why this endeavor is so crucial for our community and why your support is vital. Allow me to shed light on the significance of this renovation.
The new museum exhibit, with its carefully curated galleries, will provide profound insights into Vashon’s history, beginning from time immemorial. While we can’t tell the entire history, we can uncover many facets of our past from different times, helping us piece together the larger historical narrative.
This is the role of a good museum: To be a place where we learn about and reflect on our history and culture. It should engage our curiosity, inviting us to explore different eras in our social structure, environment, industry, economy, artistry, crafts, technology, beliefs, challenges, triumphs, and injustices.
Whether you’ve lived on Vashon for five months or five generations, we all share a connection through our island’s history and culture. This shared history forms a bond of belonging, uniting us as a community with a shared past, present, and future.
Our value to Vashon:
The Vashon Maury Island Heritage Association plays a pivotal role in telling Vashon’s stories, encouraging islanders to take responsibility for our actions, knowing that they influence history. By collecting, preserving, exhibiting, and interpreting the history of Vashon and Maury Islands, we aim to engage, educate, and inspire our island community, fostering cultural reflection and discussions on both inspiring and challenging moments from our history.
Through exhibits such as “In and Out: Being LGBTQ on Vashon,” we create spaces for individuals to celebrate their uniqueness and serve as mentors for future generations. Together, we share the joy of our individuality and our commonalities, even in the face of intolerance. The museum’s power lies in education, offering our community knowledge and understanding.
Our museum serves as a gathering place that promotes understanding and delves into important topics. Our exhibits create a sense of community and opportunities for reflection. For example, “Joy and Heartache: Vashon’s Japanese Americans Legacy” tells the story of Vashon’s Japanese American exile and internment, while “Potters of the 70s and 80s” explores the origins of Vashon’s art scene and where it stands today.
Partnerships are critical to our mission. Most recently, our work with Vashon Nature Center brought us “Natural Wonder: An Island Shaped by Water” to educate us about the environmental impact of our historical actions.
Our partnership with the Puyallup Tribe helps us tell their story. The story of the Swift Water People, the First People of Vashon, helps us to learn more and understand their culture and impact, their way of life and care and respect for the island that sustained them, their removal from the island by the Washington Territorial government, and stories that can help us all create bonds of understanding for important relationships today and in the future.
Moreover, our museum acts as a hub for discussing historically sensitive and important topics, from land acknowledgments and fishing rights to Indian schools and the Black Lives Matter movement, to the impact of COVID on our island community.
Our museum not only preserves history but also inspires and educates future generations. With technological enhancements, we’re transitioning from a place of passive learning to one of active engagement. We’re developing exhibits tailored for children, creating a quasi-classroom on Vashon’s history, its place in Washington State, and national history.
The museum and the renovation of its permanent exhibit are crucial to our community.
We bring history to life, emphasizing its importance and relevance to the present and future. By supporting this renovation, you are investing in the preservation of our island’s rich history and the education and inspiration of generations to come.
Join us in this transformative journey and help us continue to make history come alive on Vashon Island.
Elsa Croonquist is the executive director of the Vashon Heritage Museum. To donate to the museum’s permanent exhibition, visit online, or contact elsacroonquist@vashonheritage.org to learn more.
