About Us
Vashon Heritage Museum
ASSOCIATION HISTORY
Vashon Maury Island Heritage Association was organized in 1976, and is the non-profit organization that operates the Museum. Originally a Lutheran Church, our Museum building(s) were purchased in 1998 after many years of fundraising, through grants and a generous donation from Robert Gordon. The Museum's intention is to showcase our Island's rich cultural, historical, and natural history.
The evolution of the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Association is rich with its own history. A prior historic association organized by early pioneers who settled on the Island in 1890s, and at that time it was named "The Pioneer Association". Years later the Islanders established, "Vashon Pioneer and Historical Society", which was organized at Ellisport in 1923 and later named "Vashon-Maury Pioneer Society" to be inclusive of all the island lands.
Descendants of these original visionaries are still deeply connected to the Museum, and continue to be key volunteers helping the preservation and archiving of the Island's heritage.
The Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Association is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization run by an Board of Executive Officers and Trustees and numerous volunteers.
OUR MISSION
The Mission of the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Association is to honor Vashon stories of love, life, oppression, action, and resilience. The Association tells Vashon stories, encouraging Islanders to take responsibility for what we do, knowing our actions influence history. As the Association collects, preserves, exhibits and interprets the history of Vashon and Maury Islands, we seek to engage, educate, and inspire our Island Community.
OUR VISION
Our Living History
Engage: By providing exciting and innovative displays, the Vashon Heritage Museum stirs curiosity and engages its visitors with expertly curated exhibits supported by knowledgeable docents.
Educate: With access to the wealth of knowledge collected through the VMIHA, the Museum educates its visitors by providing an accurate reflection of our community’s history and its place in the Pacific Northwest.
Inspire: The Vashon Heritage Museum inspires visitors by celebrating our shared heritage, connecting the past and present, and demonstrating how history influences our future.
OUR OBJECTIVES
Preserving Our Heritage
Community History: In collecting and compiling documents and artifacts that reflect the unique heritage of Vashon-Maury Islands, the VMIHA maintains a continually evolving, expertly curated, and accurate repository of our community’s history.
Preserving The Past : The VMIHA highlights the universality of the human experience, by preserving and conserving Vashon-Maury Island’s diverse cultural, social, and natural history, from first peoples to present day.
Accessible To All: By providing a rich Museum experience and maintaining well-functioning facilities the VMIHA ensures Vashon-Maury Island’s stories and collections are available to all, both in-person and online.
Museum supporters
Our Staff
gretta stimson
Executive Director
Gretta Stimson is honored to join the Vashon Heritage Museum as Executive Director. Having grown up in Ballard and Shoreline, Gretta's WA roots run deep.
Gretta has spent over a decade in Museums. She received her BA from the University of Hawai'i in Anthropology, where she did her first museum internship and fell in love museums' capacity to tell stories and impact community. She went on to get her MA in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester in the U.K. Since then she has worked with collections and historic properties. She loves being a part of the museum community and is honored to help preserve and share Vashon’s stories.
Gretta can be reached at grettastimson@vashonheritage.org
OUR OFFICERS
Bruce Haulman, President
Sue Hardy, Vice President
Cyrus Anderson, Treasurer
Alexandra Seaman, Secretary
OUR BOARD
Tom Langland
Laurie Tucker
Mike Sudduth
Glenn Gray
Sharon Briskman
Bob Katica
Chris Austin
Kim Kambak
Sue Winn
Jim Roy
Jenny McMurdo
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT STATEMENT
The Vashon Heritage Museum stands on the ancestral lands of the sx̌ʷəbabš or Swift Water People, who inhabited Vashon-Maury Island for millennia. The Donation Land Claim Act encouraged large numbers of settlers to claim land, even before the Medicine Creek Treaty of 1854 extinguished Native claims to it. The sx̌ʷəbabš were imprisoned on Fox Island during the Puget Sound Treaty Wars by the territorial government and later relocated onto the Puyallup Reservation. We acknowledge the people of the Puyallup Tribe whose stewardship of and relationship with Vashon-Maury Island continues today. We commit to amplify the voices of indigenous people, making space for them to tell their own story, both past and present, in our exhibits and programs.
INCLUSION PLEDGE
At this museum we reject racism, discrimination and hate. Our purpose is to honor stories of love, oppression, action and resilience; stories that give voice to all, examine hard questions about social, economic and environmental justice, and reveal racism and oppression within our heritage. We pledge that everything we do will honor the island's diversity of cultures and histories.
COMMITTEES
We are always looking for volunteers:
Admin Committee
Collections Committee
Education Committe
Exhibits Committee
Programs Commmittee
Tech Committee
Please contact us if you are interested in serving on one of these committees.
A COMMUNITY RESOURCE
Question: How does the museum maintain its ability to be a community resource that reflects the needs, growth, past, and present of the community?
This question was the first of two focus questions that museum leaders discussed at their 2021 annual retreat. The picture above shows a visualization of this discussion. We imported a transcript of the discussion into a word art program, and this was the result. The bigger the word is in the picture, the more times it was used in the discussion.
LIVING ITS INTENTIONS
Question: How does the museum live into its intentions?
This question was the second of two focus questions that museum leaders discussed at their 2021 annual retreat. The picture above shows a visualization of this discussion. We imported a transcript of the discussion into a word art program, and this was the result. The bigger the word is in the picture, the more times it was used in the discussion.