Wesen family to be honored at Pioneer Picnic in La Conner

One man helping shape the future of Skagit County hails from a family that has molded much of its history.

Skagit County Commissioner Ron Wesen comes from a pioneer family that has farmed in the Bow-Edison area for more than a century and today operates a 1,100-acre organic dairy.

The Wesen family will be honored Aug. 1 at the 120th annual Skagit County Pioneer Association Picnic and Business Meeting in La Conner.

The Wesens, who through the decades have made significant contributions in fields ranging from agriculture and business to public service and education, will be joined in La Conner by Concrete civic leaders Jason Miller, John and Gail Boggs, Marty and Adrienne Smith, and Valerie Stafford and Fred West, who are this year's Pioneer Spirit Award recipients.

The Wesen story, which begins in Sweden, includes a La Conner connection. Charles Victor Wesen and Hannah Olsson married here in 1896 after meeting in Chicago, where he was studying for the ministry, and she was employed as a housekeeper.

They later settled on 120 acres in Bow, much of which had to be cleared of stumps. The Wesens began by raising oats and hay. They added sweet corn, pea crops and stationary pea viners, providing summer employment.

Yet well before World War I it was dairying that had begun shaping the Wesen brand as Skagit Valley then boasted two major milk condenseries, one of which was owned by John B. Agen, grandfather of current La Conner School Board member John T. Agen.

In the beginning, there was no "Wesen" brand. The family name in Sweden was Andersson. Sometime between 1886 and 1896, Charles Andersson changed his last name to Wesen for reasons now lost to time.

What is known is that in 1886, when Andersson was 18, his older sister was engaged. Her fiancé's brother had emigrated to the United States. He sent letters extolling America with the opportunity to earn decent wages and buy property.

To Charles Andersson, the U.S. sounded quite attractive. Within a couple months he was on his way by ships and trains that took him to Oakland, Nebraska, a hub for Swedish emigrants.

But he found Nebraska too hot in the summer and too cold in winter months. He moved to Skagit County and its temperate climate, joining its growing Scandinavian population.

He got an offer to work as a farm laborer outside Burlington, then ventured to Chicago for theological studies. There he met Hannah Olsson, four years his junior. She came with him to Skagit County where on Dec. 6, 1896, the couple was married in La Conner.

The Wesens in 1908 found their slice of heaven on farmland about 20 miles north of La Conner, where the Skagit Argus reported more than 100 years ago that Charles Wesen "is now milking 12 cows as a starter."

Three generations later, the Wesens milk approximately 800 cows. Ron Wesen, a great-grandson of Charles and Hannah Wesen, is the senior member of the county commission. He participated in the 2003-05 ag-fish tribal summit that forged an agreement between the farm community and Swinomish Tribe addressing land use and salmon habitat issues.

Dean Wesen, Ron's brother and president of Wesen Organic Dairy, was a transportation officer in the Army Reserves and served four years active duty in Afghanistan, Operation Desert Storm and at Fort Lewis.

Their father, the late Lyle Wesen, was a mechanical engineering graduate of Washington State University who served in the U.S. Air Force. He was a member and president of both the Dairy Herd Improvement and Holstein associations. During his stewardship, the Wesen family was named Skagit County Dairy Family of the Year in 1974.

Dean Wesen, in a 2017 video produced in partnership with Western Washington University and the Skagit Valley Herald, said the Wesen farm opted for an organic approach to veer away from huge price swings in the conventional market.

What has remained the same, he confirmed, is the family's 116-year-long devotion to the land.

"I've enjoyed it my entire life," he said. "I like the variety it brings. Every day it can be different. I just like getting outside and doing things."