IN MEMORY

Born March 15, 1934 in Seattle, WA. Died January 26, 2017. Captain Freeman owned the moorages in Westlake Cove where he lived for many years and also was a part owner of docks now know as The Log Foundation.  “He was one of the good guy moorage owners. He was reluctant to sell the moorages to the home owners but did so – the Log Foundation in 1984 and the Westlake moorages quite a few years later.” said Jann McFarland, Office Manager of the FHA and long time resident of the Log Foundation. Captain Freeman was also the owner of Fremont Tug which is now run by his son.

March 15, 1934 ~ January 26, 2017

Born in Seattle on Lake Union, Mark grew up on the docks of the family business and began his storied tugboat career at the age of 8 working for his folks O.H. "Doc" and May Freeman pumping boats and deck handing for him on anything that floated. At 13 he purchased his first tug the "Seal Rock" and began a log patrol business on Puget Sound and Lake Union. In between tows he attended B.F. Day, Hamilton Middle and Lincoln High schools and helped out at the marine supply store known as "Doc Freeman's". He found - with the teachings of his mentor, Jack McCrary - that he was a natural born captain and thoroughly enjoyed it. At 16 he purchased a bigger tug the "Jerkmore". He said, with a grin, 'with that boat I could jerk more logs off the beach'. After high school, he went on to the University of Washington for a couple of years, but nothing held his interest as much as tugs. Mark continued his tugboating career until he joined the U.S. Coast Guard in 1955. Stationed in Westport for four years, he ran motor lifeboats on the bar - before they had self-righting boats, helmets or much more than life jackets. He was extremely proud of his work as Boatswains Mate second class in the Coast Guard having been credited for directly saving 37 lives and countless vessels, earning him the Coast Guard Commendation medal.

Mark left the Coast Guard in 1959, returning to Seattle and purchasing Fremont Boat Company from his folks. He continued the huge used boat brokerage (with towing on the side) and ran the family businesses with his Mom after "Doc" passed in 1963, learning to be a tough but honest businessman with no reason to have a back door. He was a staunch believer in private property and the working waterfront who led the Lake Union Association to success stories in local and State politics. In 1967 he was 'sick and tired' of selling boats so he changed the operation into a marina and got serious with the Fremont Tugboat Company. The next few years saw him marrying Aneva "Ginger" Blake, helping to raise her children Monty and Tracy and had a son he was always so deeply proud of - Captain Erik O. Freeman. His divorce in 1976 put him on a few different paths of interest including the Retired Tugboat Association where he met life-long friends and cruising buddies. Margie entered his life around this time, first as a moorage customer, then as his bookkeeper and in 1984 he married the love of his life. They were inseparable for the rest of his life, working and having fun together daily, going back and forth to their floating home from the business; where one was, the other was close by. Lovebirds until the end.

Mark was an avid photographer, at a high point taking 5,000 photos a year - mostly of tugboats, of course. He always carried his camera - which got easier with better technology. He was the guy who always said "Stop! I have to get that picture". Boats and girls - in that order. Around 20 years ago he stopped towing commercially and sold Fremont Tugboat to Erik and his best friend, Tom Bulson. Erik having had control of a tugboat wheel from age 11 and both having learned the finer points from Mark, they are keeping up his legacy. He'd still do the odd tow job in the marina and of course ran the other businesses with Margie. However, there was a new venture: Mark Freeman's Maritime Museum! The computer became his friend, storing hundreds of thousands of photos, he ran a blog, collecting artifacts, models and building on his personal collection that is now hard to rival.

He genuinely enjoyed conversations with family, crew or friends, impromptu or with food so gathering at the round table in the office happened frequently.

He had a wonderful sense of humor with a warm smile who had a thousand sayings to fit just about any situation, but "Get the slack out of the headline" was a favorite on board or on land.

One of the delightful things about Mark was he was rarely wrong; he had a sixth sense about people and business. There was always someone coming to him for advice and he was a mentor to many. And with those he cared about he sometimes gave advice not asked for - either way, he had the knack of being right.

He was a great man, an unsung leader, teacher, author and hard worker; a unique soul who knew where his compass was pointing from an early age. With quiet perseverance, he never wavered and got to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his business, Fremont Boat. He said all you needed to do to be a success in life was to be smart and work hard, but above all else to "Be Nice". He was right about that too.

He is survived by his wife, Margie; son Erik (Heidi) and granddaughter Marina Freeman; son Monty (Karen) Freeman; daughter Tracy Carlson (John); and their mom, Aneva Freeman. Nephews Howard (Michelle) and Scott (Debbie) Stoppelman and niece Paula (Richard) Kelley; sister-in-law Ellen Coyne and everyone's extended families.

The outpouring of love and condolences by his many friends is so appreciated by his family but he didn't want any services or celebrations. He wanted us to continue to have one on one lunches or coffee with friends to keep it meaningful to him. Our suggestion would be to find your own way to "be nice" in his honor.

Fair winds, my love,

and following seas.

See ya over the next swell, Cap.

Bob West: Blues Musician and Music Preservationist

Bob West has lived on the Wandesforde dock on Fairview for over 36 years. His houseboat has always overflowed with music, musicians, and music lovers. Neighbors living on the dock have always been welcome to join the jam sessions. Sometimes people bring food and drink and the jam goes on all night. Bob plays the piano, drums, trumpet, trombone, and steel resonator guitar.

Bob’s musical interest is traditional jazz and blues. “My dad collected records and I listened to boogie-woogie music before I was born. I really started listening to the music in depth when I was about 11 years old and started collecting records when I was 12. I liked the country blues and the early New Orleans bands, and the rough Creole bands.”

After graduating from high school in 1960, Bob was learning to play the trumpet, and would go down to Pioneer Square to one of the clubs and listen to a Dixieland band. “I was underage, but knew the doorman, and I’d go upstairs in an attic storage room above the band and play along with them… where no one could hear me, I hope. I knew not to play the last note!”

Soon after, “I heard about a band playing at the West Side Inn…The Great Excelsior Jazz Band, with Ray Skjelbred, Mike Duffy, and others. They were playing like Kid Ory, and Kid Thomas. The kids in the audience were dancing the Twist to this old jazz.” Later the band members came up to the next booth, and Bob heard them mention Bob Graf who was a record collector his father knew, so Bob introduced himself. “It all fell together right there. Ray invited me down to the sessions at his houseboat, the one I’m living in now, which I bought from him in 1972. Bob Graf became a friend and mentor…..Later I played trombone with the Great Excelsior Jazz Band…Then I started getting into the guitar and piano, playing the blues.”

In 1967 Ray & Mike hosted a show on KRAB FM radio, an important voice in Seattle music at that time. They asked Bob to bring in some of his records. Later the station asked Bob to host a show which was called ‘King Biscuit Time’. He played music, promoted Seattle Folklore Society concerts, and interviewed the musicians. “The first radio interview was with Booker (‘Bukka’) White, in 1967. He told how he happened to be recorded, what the music was like on the Mississippi plantations, and how the blues originated. I learned then that… others were alive and playing music in Memphis, where Booker lived then…..I went there the following year, in ’68, to visit and record Booker and his friend Furry Lewis. This was the start of my recording blues artists... I was working at Boeing in aircraft quality control, I’m just a working stiff. I needed a month off to go…I had a good boss and he let me stack 2 vacations together…so I could go South and record…”

After Bob got back to Seattle, He, Bob Graf and Mike Duffy listened to the Memphis tapes and decided to issue records from them. Graf was the businessman and got the records made. “I knew nothing about that kind of stuff, didn’t care to learn about it.”

Other recording sessions followed in St. Louis, New Orleans and elsewhere. In the 1990s Bob started Arcola Records. He knew he had some good material. Clare Conrad, another KRAB radio show host and fellow musician did the graphic design and helped set up the business. “We just started putting one CD out about every year. There was really no grand plan….The money that goes into this is from my salary. And I’m glad, because if I got funding from someone else…I’d have to do it their way…”

The Seattle Folklore Society brought a lot of great blues musicians to Seattle. The musicians would come down to Bob’s houseboat to relax before and after the shows and wouldn’t be bothered by anyone. “We really didn’t have jam sessions, the musicians would come and play, we’d all take turns. I do remember playing in a jam situation with Johnny Shines….he took my banjo-mandolin and played the most haunting, beautiful Delta bottleneck blues, and sang some wonderful pieces.” Many others stayed at the houseboat including folk singer, Pete Seeger, who came to Seattle in the late 1970s to play a benefit for Floating Homes. Bob’s houseboat is a place filled with music, instruments & collections of records that would make any musician feel at home.

Bob hopes that the Bush education act ‘Leave No Child Behind’ will some day include room for more freedom of individuality. “So people can see that a more creative lifestyle can produce valuable musicians and artists. If my material can encourage kids to develop on their own, I think that would be great. This ‘Leave No Child Behind’…I don’t think we should leave them behind as musicians, either.”

There are more Arcola projects planned for the future. Arcola CDs are only available on the web site. For CD information and links, please check out www.Arcolarecords.com

Thanks to Clare Conrad for access to her transcribed notes from a recorded interview with Bob.

There might not be a “Sleepless in Seattle” houseboat and blockbuster movie without Bill Keasler.

A longtime leader of Seattle’s houseboat community, Mr. Keasler was president for 30 years of the city’s Floating Homes Association (FHA), which fought battles with city and state officials to keep the homes on Lake Union and Portage Bay.

The once-bohemian community has faced opposition from developers and bureaucrats and evictions that jeopardized the very existence of houseboats in Seattle. Mr. Keasler was instrumental in pushing for policies that protected the roughly 500 floating homes that remain.

He died of cancer March 17. He was 69.

“He dedicated a significant part of his life to ensuring the permanency of the floating- home community,” said Amalia Walton, current FHA president.

His chief contribution was making sure that people could stay on their docks and that renters had the right of first refusal if their docks went up for sale, Walton said. As a result, many floating-home owners joined together in cooperatives to buy their docks and gain a sense of stability for their homes.

Peter Eglick, an attorney who represented the FHA, likened Mr. Keasler to preservationist Victor Steinbrueck, credited with saving Pike Place Market from the wrecking ball.

“I knew them both and think Bill is as important for floating homes as Victor was for the battles he engaged in,” Eglick said.

Mr. Keasler was a “scrapper,” said Jann McFarland, a longtime floating-home resident and FHA office manager.

But he also was strategic, smooth and good-humored, according to Eglick. When facing a challenge from City Hall, “you could just see the wheels turning, the grin on his face,” Eglick said. “He was always thinking about how a position was going to be received and perceived.”

Mr. Keasler came to live on Lake Union after studying electrical engineering at the University of Washington. He was raised in Lakewood, but his family owned a beach property on south Puget Sound and he grew up playing in saltwater and “messing around with boats,” said his wife, Caryl Keasler.

The two started dating in junior-high school, she said, and married in 1969 when she graduated from the UW.

Shortly after, the newlyweds stumbled upon an affordable houseboat on Lake Union, she said. That was back when floating homes were popular with artists, musicians and college students.

Mr. Keasler went on to work as a computer-systems designer but loved the water and was happiest, his wife said, when they went up to British Columbia in their 30-foot sailboat.

They were evicted in 1983, a case the Keaslers fought all the way to the state Supreme Court, where they lost. The Keaslers ended up buying a home on a friendlier dock.

Houseboats once provided inexpensive domiciles for people who worked around water, including loggers, fishermen, boat makers and bootleggers. By the late 1930s, they peaked in number with more than 2,000 floating homes in Seattle.

“But local officials decided in the 1950s that this restless group of malcontents had to go,” Mr. Keasler wrote in a history of the FHA.

As their numbers dwindled, houseboaters began to fight back, forming the FHA.

The community has been close-knit, and just not because it felt beleaguered, said Marty Greer, a longtime FHA board member who succeeded Mr. Keasler as the group’s president. “We live six feet apart. There’s not a lot of privacy. We’re all hooked up to the same toilet basically,” Greer said.

Bonds also are strengthened when neighbors help rescue a nearby houseboat from a wind storm or from sinking under a roof covered with snow. These community concerns and connections are the true reason for the houseboaters’ tenacious defense of their homes and lifestyles, Mr. Keasler once wrote.

Tenacity was required. In the 1970s, a number of houseboats were displaced by an over-the-water apartment building, the Union Harbor Apartments. The next proposed development was the Roanoke Reef Apartments, which the community fought in a seven-year legal battle. The apartments were halted and a half-finished three-story parking garage was torn down.

But evictions continued and moorage hikes sometimes exceeded 400 percent. The FHA appealed to the City Council and in 1977 won its first “Equity Ordinance,” which imposed strict controls on evictions.

Moorage owners took the new law to court, beginning another round of battles and revisions to the ordinance. There were also challenges about nonconforming moorages, shoreline planning and more.

“I don’t know that others could have navigated this series of complex legal and political fights,” Greer said. “None of us can imagine being that dedicated. He was constantly vigilant, almost paranoid.”

Eventually, the struggles led to agreements with the city and state that limited the number of floating homes to its current count. (Walton, the FHA president, said it’s important to call them “floating homes” as they are not navigable and are tied to sewers.)

Mr. Keasler called the relative calm of recent decades a “hard-won peace” but urged others that “you can never stop fighting,” Walton said.

Despite his accomplishments, Greer said, there are a handful of newer floating-home owners on her dock who don’t know who Mr. Keasler was. “That’s like being an American and not knowing George Washington,” she said.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Keasler is survived by his daughter, Karen Caplan, and her husband, Leigh Caplan. Memorial donations may be made to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the MPN Research Foundation. A celebration of Mr. Keasler’s life is being planned.

Source: Seattle Times: Floating-homes savior Bill Keasler dies at 69

Originally published March 28, 2016 at 7:27 pm Updated March 29, 2016 at 9:23 am

Additional:

See Page 8 of Eastlake News: LINK

From FHA Archives:

Bill Keasler was a pivotal figure in Seattle’s floating home community, known for his leadership, advocacy, and long-term fight to preserve houseboats on Lake Union. Born in Lakewood, Washington, he studied electrical engineering at the University of Washington and developed a deep connection with the water from his family’s beach property on Puget Sound.
In the 1970s and 1980s, as Seattle’s floating homes faced increasing threats from urban development and restrictive regulations, Keasler played a key role in defending the community. After experiencing two personal evictions due to moorage issues, he became a fierce advocate for houseboat owners, helping shape policies that protected their rights. He led the Floating Homes Association for over 30 years, working closely with fellow advocate Beth Means to fight against eviction threats, excessive moorage fees, and other challenges.
Beyond houseboats, Keasler was a civic leader who pushed for sustainable development in Eastlake, fought against overbuilding, and co-founded initiatives like the Seaplane Environmental Coalition to regulate noise pollution. He was also instrumental in advocating for a shoreline park at the south end of Lake Union.
A successful computer systems designer, Keasler had a deep love for science, sailing, and family life. He was known for his thoughtful, conversational leadership style—engaging with everyone from government officials to local houseboaters to rally support for his causes. His efforts ensured that Seattle’s floating home community survived and thrived, leaving a lasting legacy for future generations. (Source: FHA Newsletters)

Elaine died surrounded by close friends after a short, unexpected illness, ready to join Phil, her beloved husband of 58 years. Born on her aunt's farm on the Oregon coast, her parents always encouraged her to get an education, not that common for rural girls. When they moved near a military base, the whole family would run outside to watch planes fly over. 

After WWII her father bought a surplus plane, and everyone took flying lessons. Elaine decided to pursue aeronautical engineering at Oregon State College. Her professors encouraged her, though she was the sole woman in mechanical engineering. The returning vets turned out to be supportive, but some of the younger ones said she was only there to get married. That made her mad enough to study even harder, receiving the Student Branch Lecture Award from The Institute of Aeronautical Studies her freshman year. After graduation Boeing employed her as a clerk, performing data reduction on a calculator for the new wind tunnel. 

A former professor arrived to consult at Boeing and challenged them for discriminating against a woman with an engineering degree. She was reclassified as an aerodynamist and began a career that, after the wind tunnel, included classified work planning trajectories for missiles and putting things in orbit. She described her mostly male co-workers as like family. She thought her work was lots of fun and always interesting. Honored with an Employee Achievement Award, she retired in 1992.

Elaine always lived with joy and excitement and liked a party as much as solving engineering puzzles. She and Phil belonged to Seattle Yacht Club and sailed the San Juans. Truthfully, Elaine didn't like boating much, but she loved the Women's Group, the Drama Group, the prayer group and tap dancing into her eighties. She was President of the Women's Group at SYC and twice President of the Women's Interclub Council, where she served as historian and photographer for decades. Besides photography, she painted, read constantly and loved learning new things.

A healthy and independent woman, she lived in her houseboat well past her 90th birthday. She and Phil met dancing at the Trianon Ballroom and enjoyed musicals, plays, the Symphony and jazz. Elaine had a tender heart and gave generously to help animals, environmental groups, children, the poor, those suffering injustice, veterans, Oregon State, church ministries and many other causes. She said you have to do your part, but everyone's life depends on the help of others. She felt blessed and expressed her deep Christian faith in word and deed. She's survived by a host of loving friends.

Maxine passed peacefully from this life in the arms of her loving husband on September 7, 2015. She is survived by her husband Lawrence Bailey, son Mark Bailey (Kim), daughter Ann Compton (Dick), and grand-daughter Monica Compton. Maxine was known for giving 110% of her energy to whatever project she was engaged in. She returned to school to achieve her degree in Dental Hygiene. Not only did she throw herself whole heartedly into her dental hygiene career, but also served as president of the Greater Seattle Dental Hygiene Association. 

She led a group of camp fire girls, consistently provided home – made bread and home cooked meals for her family, and picked up litter while jogging. She summited Mt. Rainier and many other NW peaks. She spent 141/2 years sailing around the world on their 41′ sail boat “Shingebiss”. During that voyage she visited 72 countries, all of the oceans and continents, and no canals. 

Before she entered a country she would know its history, and when not certain of a flower or bird, always had her books in which to look them up. She had 83 inspired years of life lived with enthusiasm, 60 years of marriage to the man of her dreams, and always encouraged her children by example to live full lives with integrity, energy and love. All of us feel a huge void in our hearts, but carry her love of living forward to give to others.

Terry Pettus, a lifelong activist, journalist, and champion of Seattle’s houseboat community, passed away on October 6, 1984, at the age of 80. Born Meredith Burrus Terry Pettus in Terre Haute, Indiana, he was raised with a keen sense of social responsibility that would guide his work throughout his life. 

After moving to Seattle in 1927 with his wife Berta, Pettus worked as a newspaper reporter and became Washington State’s first member of the American Newspaper Guild, helping organize its Seattle chapter and lead the first successful union recognition strike at a Hearst newspaper in 1936. 

His deep commitment to social justice saw him involved in a wide range of causes — from labor rights and racial equity to housing and public power. During the Cold War era, his activism led to blacklisting and legal challenges, including a conviction that was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

In 1958, Pettus and Berta moved onto a houseboat on Lake Union, beginning a new chapter that would define much of his lasting legacy. Pettus became a tireless advocate for Seattle’s floating homes, helping organize what became the Floating Homes Association and working to protect the community from displacement and environmental degradation. His leadership was instrumental in preventing raw sewage dumping into Lake Union and promoting greater respect and recognition for the unique houseboat culture. 

Pettus’s impact on Seattle was recognized in his lifetime — in 1982, Mayor Charles Royer declared Terry Pettus Day to honor his contributions — and after his death, the city dedicated Terry Pettus Park on the shores of Lake Union as a lasting tribute to his work. 

He is remembered by colleagues, neighbors, and all who benefited from his persistent voice for fairness, community, and the simple belief that Seattle’s diverse residents — whether on land or on water — deserve dignity and protection.