Shelton’s civic and community-care history

Shelton incorporated in 1890 and was named for David Shelton, a delegate to Washington’s territorial legislature. The city identifies itself as Mason County’s seat and its only incorporated municipality. It also uses the name Gateway to the Olympics, placing it at the meeting of the peninsula and the South Sound.

Mason Health traces its origins to the establishment of Public Hospital District No. 1 of Mason County in 1968. The organization describes an independent public health system serving its community. A locally established hospital district adds another kind of institution to a journey that began near a transplant center in Seattle.

She met Amy for the third time in two days, at a minimart, and Amy bought her breakfast. A young man gave her a pink ribbon, home-packed salmon and raspberry jam, and another stopped with a cold can of pineapple nectar. When she reached the first exit into Shelton, Rebecca picked her up at the Walmart and took her to her mother Lori’s, where Jeana stayed in a little cottage in the woods for the rest of the walk.

She had a little coffee at the Waterfront Hotel at Potlatch before heading out. She had walked the first two miles the day before, so she walked them again, and with the two miles on into Skokomish she made up the 4.4 miles she had missed two days earlier.

In Skokomish she met the lovely woman from the tribal police station again, and they greeted each other before Jeana set off for Shelton. She wanted to find some breakfast before she left. There was a minimart, and then the Lucky Dog Casino, but the casino’s restaurant wasn’t open yet, so she walked back to the minimart, and there she met Amy again. It was the third time in two days; they had first met at the Hoodsport Coffee Company the morning before.

Amy greeted her warmly, they were happy to see each other again, and she offered to buy Jeana’s breakfast. Jeana grabbed what she could: an egg sandwich, some lovely little cream cheese and raspberry rolls hot from the deli, and a nice lemonade. She was so grateful to see Amy again, and to have some nourishment to start her day.

She spent part of the day’s walk making arrangements for the finish of her fifth Steps to Marrow walk in Olympia, which was coming up soon. It was a very pleasant day for walking, too: it reached 73 degrees, so the afternoon was quite warm.

Lots of people recognised her, honking and waving, ever since her stop at the Halfway House Restaurant in Brinnon; people on the road still knew her from the restaurant’s Facebook post. They have lots of followers, she says, and it was grand to have their support.

About halfway, a young man from Skokomish passed her, pulled into a driveway and honked, so she turned around and they met halfway along the highway. He gave her a pink breast cancer awareness ribbon he had got at the Seahawks game on Sunday, and she pinned it to her vest. “I know you’re doing something important,” he said when he greeted her. He didn’t know exactly why she was walking, because from the direction he had passed her he couldn’t see the sign on the back of her backpack, but he stopped to support her anyway.

Then she explained what she was doing, and he gave her his own home-packed salmon and a jar of raspberry jam. So kind, she says; she deeply appreciated his openness. His immediate response was, “How can I help her?”

Later, a few miles outside Shelton, a young Latino man stopped to ask what she was doing, and she told him. He offered her a ride to Shelton, since he was going that way and had turned around to see whether she needed a lift, but she told him she wanted to walk and thanked him for his kindness, and he went on his way. About half an hour later he stopped in front of her again and handed her a lovely cold can of pineapple nectar. He had gone into Shelton and, with intention, brought her something cold to drink. Her mother used to give the children pineapple nectar when Jeana was young, so holding that cold can brought back deep memories.

She hopes that as you come to know the stories of her journey, the fifth Steps to Marrow walk, you will take in the diversity of the people who have reached out to help her along the way: the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the right and the left politically, men and women. People from all walks of life reach out to support her in completing this journey. This, she says, is the actualisation of loving kindness.

Way back in Brinnon, walking her make-up miles up and down those lovely hills, she had met a family in a van who pulled over to ask whether she knew why the falls were closed. She knew nothing about the area, but it was the one question she could answer. A man named Joe, who had stopped twice to see whether she needed a ride, had told her that a friend of his owned the land where the falls are and had closed it during construction, because they were doing work down by the falls and some of his equipment had been stolen.

She passed that on to the van full of people, and when she told them what she was doing, a voice from the third row of seats, at the back, said, “Oh, when you get to Shelton you can stay with me.” That was Lori, the grandma of the group; her daughter Rebecca was driving. Jeana stayed in touch with Lori, letting her know roughly when she would reach Shelton. Earlier in the week Lori told her she would be having cataract surgery around then, and Jeana offered to look for somewhere else if it would be too disruptive so soon after eye surgery. “No, no, please still come,” Lori wrote back.

When she reached the very beginning of Shelton she texted Lori, who said Rebecca was ready to pick her up, and that the first exit into Shelton, where she already was, was a good place to leave Highway 101 and wait at the Walmart. Rebecca picked her up and took her to Lori’s home, explaining that Jeana would be staying in a separate little home right next door, a rental cottage in the woods. What a generous gift, she says.

She went in and visited with Lori, who was resting her eye; Rebecca is a nurse, so she was taking care of her mother. Lori’s grandson was there too, and made everyone a cup of coffee, which was very sweet. Lori had made soup for dinner earlier in the day, so they all had soup and lovely pretzel bites, which Jeana had never had before and found very good. Then they said goodnight, and she had a much-needed shower and fell into bed.

Her host that night was Lori, in Shelton.