PORT ANGELES — Klallam elder Hazel Hall Sampson’s century-long life is magnified even more by the history of her family.
The daughter of the man who started the first Shaker Church on the North Olympic Peninsula and the granddaughter of the founder of Jamestown celebrated her 100th birthday, which was May 26, on May 22.
More than 200 people attended the gathering at the Lower Elwha tribal dining hall west of Port Angeles.
They included visitors from California and Canada, said Sampson’s granddaughter, Diane Turrey, 55, of Port Angeles, who wrote of the celebration.
“I can’t believe all of this is for me. Thank you,” Turrey quoted her grandmother as saying.
“I want to thank the Lower Elwha tribe for all they have done for me. I want to thank all who attended.
“I am very honored that you would take the time from your busy lives for an old lady.”
Sampson declined to be interviewed by the Peninsula Daily News.
“She’s a real private lady,” said Frances Charles, Lower Elwha Klallam tribal chairwoman, who added:
“Everybody loves her. It’s really hard to not have that affection for such a lovely, wise lady.”
Charles said she admires Sampson for “her strength and courage and endurance.
“She doesn’t have anything to say bad about anybody,” Charles added.
“She wants unity. . . . it doesn’t matter the race.
“When she talks to people it becomes quiet in the room because she has so much knowledge and wisdom.”
Turrey said that Sampson lives alone in her own home on the Lower Elwha reservation.
“She does her own housework. She has a wood stove and starts her own fire every day,” Turrey said.
One day, Sampson told Turrey that doing her laundry took all day.
“I do a little work and then I have to rest, then I do a little more, and have to rest,” Turrey said Sampson told her.
“I can’t believe how tired I get. Some days I feel like I am a hundred years old.”
Sampson is the oldest member of the three Klallam tribal bands on the Peninsula — Lower Elwha, Jamestown S’Klallam and Port Gamble — and the one Klallam tribe in Beacher Bay, Canada, Turrey said.
Representatives of all Klallam tribal bands attended the birthday gathering, she added, saying that her grandmother has relatives in Bella-Bella, Canada; Lummi, Everett and all along the coastal regions of the Pacific Northwest.
Sampson was born in Jamestown, where she grew up, Turrey said.
Sampson is the daughter of William Hall and Ida (Balch) Hall and the granddaughter of Lord James Balch — for whom James town was named — and See-aah-mitza.
Balch was instrumental in ensuring that the James town S’Klallam tribe had a homeland, Turrey said.
In 1874, he led the James town people in gathering money to purchase the homeland of the tribe, collecting $500 in gold and buying 210 acres on the shores of Dungeness Bay.
Sampson’s father, William Hall, started the first Shaker Church on the Peninsula, Turrey and Charles said, opening it about 1910 in the Dungeness-James town area.
The Shaker Church is a combination of the Klallam religion and Christianity.
Sampson married Edward C. Sampson Sr. in 1927, Turrey said.
They moved west of Port Angeles in 1934, one of the original 13 families to own land dedicated to the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, and were married for 69 years before Edward Sampson died in 1995.
The couple had three sons and eight daughters. Sampson’s family has since grown to include 134 grandchildren, almost 200 great-grandchildren and more than 30 great-great-grandchildren.
Sampson remembers “as a child her family would go to the Dungeness Spit, where they had a house, and go fishing, clamming, and gathering other sea foods for the winter,” Turrey said.
Traditional foods were served at Sampson’s birthday celebration. The gathering enjoyed oysters, clams, mussels, fry bread, salmon, halibut, berries and other foods, while singers and dancers performed songs.
In honor of her and her family’s contributions, Jewel James, a master carver from the Lummi tribe, gave Sampson a totem pole.
On May 22, the totem pole was erected and dedicated to Balch in the James town cemetery where he and Sampson’s husband and children are buried.
