SEQUIM — The Sequim Prairie Grange is getting a makeover.
With help from continued donations at special events and a hefty donation, BMC Roofing and Cedar Creek Enterprises owner Brandon VanWinkle put on a new roof at 290 Macleay Road.
VanWinkle said his Sequim pioneer family (Stone/Cays) has been members of the grange longer than he’s been alive, and they’ll host their 113th family reunion at the grange.
“It feels good to keep it up and running,” he said of the building.
Paden Sutterby, owner of BMC, and his crew started to replace the roof on Aug. 27.
“(Sutterby) is really getting it done the right way,” VanWinkle said. “They get done better and faster than anyone I know.”
Lifetime grange member Hazel Lowe said her friend Frances J. Lyon wanted to give most of her estate to local nonprofits.
“She said to make sure (the grange) had the money to do the repairs needed and get the new roof,” Lowe said.
“She had seen how hard we had worked to try and save enough for a new roof, and then COVID came along and we had to use our money to pay our expenses.”
She bequeathed $850,000 to the grange and other amounts to local entities such as Clallam County Fire District 3.
“The generosity of our community is pretty impressive, and we are beyond grateful for every dollar that was donated to the grange,” Grange president Dorinda Becker said.
“Without (Lyon) and our community, this would never be possible.”
Lyon was born in California in June 1925 and died in Sequim in September 2023, Lowe said.
Lyon married John H. Lyon in 1944, and they had two daughters and went on to move to Japan, where John was a private airline pilot and engineer.
They moved to a 20-acre farm in Carlsborg in the early 1970s when their daughters were grown.
The couple learned to become farmers by growing their own food and raising cattle, Lowe said.
John died suddenly in 1990, so Lyon sold their farm and moved into Sequim. She became legally blind in 2011, but as “an independent and resourceful woman, she lived on her own until her death at the age 98,” Lowe said.
Lyon is survived by one daughter, five grandchildren, numerous great-grandchildren and several cousins.
Lowe said they were friends for about 10 years and she was initially hired by her daughter to take Lyon grocery shopping and to take her to have her hair done.
They became fast friends and they went for drives, Lowe said, and she started cooking for her so she could just heat it up in the microwave.
“She was never sick and never went to doctors (and) was very interested in Sequim Prairie Grange and how we helped others,” Lowe said.
Grange members agreed to name a meeting room after Lyon in the original Macleay School classroom to honor her. They’re also planning to put up a portrait of Lyon.
The grange
The Sequim Prairie Grange started as an organization on Aug. 9, 1942, and eventually started using the Macleay School (built in 1912) after it had been unused from 1937-1942.
Grange members and the Macleay Community Club built an addition from 1947-48, and grange members purchased the building and its 5 acres and outdoor kitchen in 1965 for $8,500 from the Sequim School District.
Members voted in 2003 to become a contemporary grange to keep some rituals while allowing the public to attend meetings and events.
Grange secretary Sherrie Cerutti said funds from the grange’s various events — ice cream socials, pancake breakfasts, concerts and more — were being tucked away for years to purchase a new roof. However, the pandemic forced grange members to stop rentals and use savings to pay expenses.
Prior to the roof construction, Cerutti said grange members hired a structural engineer who discovered rotten beams in the foundation, which led to repairs worth about $50,000. Construction finished in mid-summer.
Due to tight quarters, space had to be dug out to make room and concrete was brought in via sled, she said.
“As it turned out, with the mess in our foundation, we would have had to go in debt to fix all the things that needed to be done, so (Lyon’s) donation saved the grange,” Lowe said.
Grange members also had electrical work expanded in the outdoor kitchen where they host annual pumpkin carving in October and other events year-round.
They’re considering more repairs, such as a remodel of the commercial kitchen inside the grange, and putting in new windows.
Sequim Prairie Grange has 157 active members, hosts a Junior Grange and holds its monthly meetings the second Wednesday of each month at 7 p.m. Its next meeting is Oct. 9.
For more information, visit grange.org/sequimprairiewa1108 or email sequimprairiegrange@gmail.com. For rentals, call Valerie Ellard at 360-821-9321.
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach him at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.
