Opening Sept. 22 at Miller’s

Produced by Pacific Northwest writer, photographer and composer Jerry Mader, Carnation Verbatim – A Celebration of Elders, is a documentary containing oral histories and photographs of elder citizens native to the Snoqualmie Valley and Tolt/Carnation.

Valley residents are invited to an opening celebration of this photo-documentary at Miller’s Community & Arts Center in Carnation on Saturday, Sept. 22 at 7 p.m.

Mader began the project in 2005 with the goal of recording life histories and making photographic portraits of elder citizens native to Carnation. Since then he has photographed 27 elders, octogenarian and nonagenarian, and recorded 25 life histories. In addition to the portraits, the exhibit will display 14 attendant photographs including landscapes, interiors and exteriors of homes and farmsteads.

Mader is also a classical musician and composer and he has produced a 2-CD album containing a montage of excerpts from 22 of the life histories with music he composed and an accordion performance of “Listen to the Mocking Bird” by Helen Sinnema, age 87, one of the elders in the exhibit.

The opening begins at 7 p.m. and the program at 8. Jim Kelly, executive director of King County 4Culture, will be the featured speaker with Mayor Bill Paulsen of Carnation and Isabel Jones, president of the Tolt Historical Society at Carnation, also presenting. Mader will read from his forthcoming book on the project and a portion of the audio CD will be played.

In 2006, Mader received a grant from King County 4Culture Heritage Special Projects to complete the project. The grant made it possible to transcribe each oral history and assemble the exhibit. Now with its debut at Miller’s, Carnation Verbatim will become a traveling exhibit available to all historical museums and appropriate art galleries in King County.

The exhibit will be on display at Miller’s Community & Arts Center through Nov. 15, from 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday.

The elders represented came of age in the community of Tolt/Carnation where they remained, married and raised their families. Their grandparents were among the first settlers who ultimately founded the township of Tolt/Carnation in 1912. Now as octogenarians and nonagenarians, they offer a unique perspective on Pacific Northwest rural life during the first half of the 20th Century. Their stories record the minute particulars of daily life in a small community supported by dairy farms, subsistence agriculture, the timber industry and the railroads.

This exhibit completes the first part of an ongoing project. Next, the oral histories and all the photographs will be published in book form in 2008. The CD album will also be available as a companion to the book. Finally, the entire collection will be archived at the Tolt Historical Society Museum and portions will be displayed on the Web site: www.tolt-carnationhistoricalsociety.org.

Elda Clinton is 90.	Jeannette Davidson is 90.	Chase Morris is 87.	Howard Miller (formerly of Miller’s Dry Goods in Carnation) is 91.