Rexville Grange still serving members and neighbors at 95 years

Don’t talk about the Rexville Grange in the past tense.

Membership may be small and the calendar light, but this Grange is alive and well.

Built in 1927, the Rexville Grange has hosted potlucks, weddings and receptions, rummage sales, art shows, dances, memorial services, service projects, polling sites and parties in its 95 years.

As an official Red Cross shelter, it housed 300 people displaced by the 1990 Fir Island flood and offers its grounds to all farmers who need to keep farm machinery out of the flood plain.

“There is no other large chunk of parking available for gigantic enormous million-dollar equipment to sit there and not asked to be move,” said Grange president Cathy Savage.

April is National Grange Month and granges all around the country are reminding neighbors that they are very much still in business.

That is not to say they haven’t seen better times.

In the 1960s, says Christy Staffanson, who grew up on Dodge Valley Road, the Grange was the social center of its country neighborhood.

Her parents Ken and Phyllis Staffanson and their friends threw big Christmas parties for members and neighbors. “I remember the ladies opening the Grange for Election Day,” she said. “There were dances and Fireman’s Balls and when I was in high school, the La Conner High School homecoming dance was held there.”

Don and Judy Robinson of Valentine Road held their 1977 wedding rehearsal dinner at the Grange. Carolyn Robinson VanderVegt of Shelter Bay remembers her cousin Dale Whitson fixing the plumbing the week before his daughter Elaine’s wedding in 2003.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, local band Rivertalk “was the house band,” said Savage. “You could bring the whole family and hang out and dance. I used to put my babies on the bench to curl up and sleep while I was in the kitchen making brownies and popcorn.

“The dances, the collective work, that was part of the farming ethic,” said Savage. She laments that today people find other ways to connect.

The Grange soldiers on, partnering with local artists and craftspeople on two annual Rexville Grange Art Shows and with Shakespeare Northwest to host outdoor summer performances in the old quarry next to the hall.

The Rexville Grange also continues to be part of the country’s oldest agricultural advocacy group. In 1868, Grange No. 1 was founded in Fredonia, New York. By the mid-1870s granges could be found in nearly all states and membership grew to nearly 800,000.

The Washington State Grange was established in 1889, two months before Washington became a state. Rexville Grange #815 is one of the state’s largest grange buildings, because in 1946 its membership “raised the roof” by lifting the main hall up onto a new ground floor.

Granges still serve as the center of rural life in their farming communities. Nationwide, 150,000 Grange members meet in 1,700 local chapters. Washington alone has 215 granges with about 8,500 members, including 550 new members in 2022.

Advocacy on behalf of farmers and rural residents is a priority. In the 19th century, “Grangers” succeeded in lowering agricultural freight rates charged by railroads and instituting rural free mail delivery.

Washington state “Grangers” helped create public utilities districts in 1929 and in 2004 sponsored Initiative 872 to replace the blanket primary with a constitutional “top two” qualifying primary.

State and national Grange lobbyists still advocate for farmers and rural residents, guided by resolutions passed by local chapters. The 32-page 2022 Washington State Grange Legislative Handbook lists positions on everything from solar farms to education finance and irrigation. For example, the grange would like to retain the Columbia and Snake River dams and it supports the expansion of broadband internet to rural areas. Preserving productive agricultural lands is an ongoing emphasis.

“Since the 1920s, the Rexville Grange has been a place of sanctuary and safety for local farmers and residents,” said Savage. “We are still here to serve the community, but we could use some help.”

Joining the Grange is one way to help. So is pitching in with projects like installing a French drain. Savage says materials have been purchased, but someone needs to dig a trench on the north side and fill it with gravel.

“People think the Grange is always going to be there, but you can only keep something going for so long,” said Savage.

To learn more about Grange membership and activities, contact Savage at [email protected].