This holiday celebrating our nation’s history is always a day of celebration for the Southwest Seattle Historical Society. Today, the SWSHS’s annual Independence Day picnic looked ahead and looked back. The former was courtesy of newly hired executive director Jeff McCord, announced last weekend as successor to Clay Eals. He talked about the transition as well as his intent to continue building on Eals’s work:

SWSHS also looked back by paying tribute to Merrilee Hagen (right), who inspired the acquisition of what became its headquarters, the Log House Museum, 20 years ago. She died last spring at 73. McCord read a speech that Hagen had given a few years before the acquisition, in which she had talked about witnessing the “bulldozing” of so many heritage structures she recalled from growing up in the area, and suggesting something needed to be saved before they all were gone.

Also at today’s picnic, music courtesy of the West Seattle Community Orchestras‘ Brass Sextet:

SWSHS continues to present a busy slate of events year-round – next up, 5-7 pm Friday (July 7th) at Barnes and Noble/Westwood Village, see and hear this month’s Words, Writers, West Seattle authors Jeff and Sonja Anderson, with “Mount Rainier’s Historic Inns and Lodges.”