The Werners

Fredrick Werner a Norwegian was a windjammer sailor who went all over the world but eventually settled in Tacoma. In 1905, when money and jobs were scarce, he moved to a shack on the south side of Ludlow Bay where he could survive by digging clams and catching fish. After he relocated, he was hired as a longshoreman by the Port Ludlow sawmill.

Frederick sent for his wife Fredrikke (Bentzen) Werner in Norway. They had four children, Rolf born in Norway Johnny, Betta, and Ellen. Johnny was born in 1909 in the family home in Camp Walker settlement for the sawmill employees until the house burned down. They then bought a property up the hill at the end of the road now formally known as Werner road in Swansonville named after the family.

Johnny Werner and his sisters grew up speaking Norwegian in the home and didn't learn English until they went to Port Ludlow school. He had wonderful memories growing up in Swansonville. The mill town of Port Ludlow had many community activities held frequently. Community hall dances, orchestras playing from out of town, weekly movies, picnics even a traveling medicine show promoting miracle cures for entertainment. Johhny is quoted as “Port Ludlow had an adult basement team as did all the neighboring communities and everyone in town turned up for the ball games on a Sunday afternoon” “Once a year in the summertime my folks would take a big trip and go by horse and buggy to Chimacum to get the horse shod, and we kids go to buy ice cream and candy at the store”. It was a three-hour trip over the primitive dirt road.

In 1941 Johhny started his own chicken farm in Swansonville delivering eggs to the neighboring towns. He married Mabel Mc Cleary and they had a son Dick Werner. Mabel recalls cleaning and would candle 1100 eggs a day by hand.