The Women Who Held This Land Before Me

I spent an afternoon inside the archives at the Stillaguamish Valley Pioneer Museum, seated beside a generous volunteer who patiently guided me through land records, plat maps, and handwritten documents that have quietly held stories for more than a century.

I went in with curiosity.

I left with reverence.

Using public records and preserved archives, we traced our family’s land ownership back to 1858. Names emerged from the pages: women, widows, and families building lives in the Stillaguamish Valley.

Among those records was Ida Adaline Sawyer Knighten (Jan 8, 1858 – Jul 27, 1949), who held title to this land beginning in 1942. In a time when few women owned property in their own names, her presence in the deed books felt extraordinary.

1942 Plot Map

Ida was married to George Knighten (1859–1924), and together they raised Florence A. Bumgarner Dann (1875–1952). Ida lived to the age of 91 and was laid to rest at Arlington Municipal Cemetery, Snohomish County, Washington (Grave ID: 76695416).

Ida Knighten's headstone

I do not know the fullness of Ida’s daily life, her joys, losses, or struggles, but I know she stood here. She made decisions here. She carried responsibility here. This land remembers.

Before any name appeared in ink, this land along the Stillaguamish River was and remains the ancestral homeland of the Stillaguamish people, known as the "river people", whose care and presence here stretches back generations beyond record.

Stillaguamish Territory

The story continues closer to home. My parents, father, Raye Noble, and mother, Lynn M Corella Noble, began tending this land in 1984. My family built our custom log home here, expanding over three years, moving in 1987, where I was raised alongside my younger sister, Kelly L Noble.

1985, The Noble Family

I left the land when I married David S Parks in 1996. Later, returning with my husband in 2004, we made this our home once again and raised our two children, Kaison & Haven Parks. In the summer of 2016, David & I renewed our wedding vows on this land, a celebration not just of our marriage, but of our connection to this place that has held generations of our family. Today, our daughter Haven still calls this farm home.

1986, The Noble Girls

Each generation leaves its mark, shaping, cultivating, and caring for this land in ways both visible and unseen. Researching this history reminded me that land is not just acreage. It is a story layered with resilience for generations.

2015, The Parks

As a flower farmer, I spend my days tending to the soil and cultivating blooms. But this month, Women's History Month, I am thinking about cultivation in a broader sense, cultivating memory, gratitude, and awareness.

If you live in or near Arlington, I encourage you to step inside the Stillaguamish Valley Pioneer Museum, https://www.stillymuseum.org/. Sit with the archives. Ask questions. Trace your own land or family story. The volunteers are generous with their time and knowledge. The records are waiting to be rediscovered.

You may find, as I did, that the ground beneath your feet holds more stories than you imagined.

And perhaps, in honoring those who came before us, we learn to hold the land more gently ourselves.

Bless this house

Honoring the women who have gone before me.

Keep Flourishing,

Kari Parks